This adaption of a 2013 Stephen King novel happens to be a follow-up to a 1980 rendering of the macabre-minded Main author that didn’t tickle his fancy very much, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
Now, Mike Flanagan (Oculus, and Origin of Evil delves into the existence of one Danny Torrance (Evan McGregor) two score after the extreme eeriness at the Overlook Hotel in Doctor Sleep.
It’s been awhile to cope with the trauma resulting from his special spectral gift, but Danny’s way with those ‘in extremis’ has brought him a certain peace. Yet his life is rattled again as an adult trying to recover from alcoholism when teenaged Abra (newcomer Kylegh Curran) comes into his life. Abra also is “blessed” with the clairvoyant ‘shine.’
They’ll need to combine their forbidding-power when up against the forbidding Rose the Hat (a charged Rebecca Ferguson of Mission Impossible Fallout), and her shine-leeching spooky disciples, The True Knot, out of immortality.
Flanagan manages the horror genre often in typical pronounced (if intermittently moody and vicious) strokes that will appeal to those eagerly lapping up many a jump-scare Kubrick went more for an ominous obscurity when it came to perception and reality in branching from the antecedent. The narrative itself and its sweep isn’t really presented with much assurance or conviction, often relying on acknowledging what preceded it that comes across as discordant and indolent, especially concerning reacquaintance with notable dramatic personae.
While McGregor (Christopher Robin) isn’t able to make Danny nearly as sympathetic as his younger self (played by Danny Lloyd) opposite the likes of Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duval, Curran conjures up some interest as Abra Better, however, has to be Ferguson into the baleful baddie as a part of a memorable set-piece of astral-plane kinetics figuring Abra.
The fabled, aforementioned lodge turns out to be the final destination in a rather unhurried, elongated Doctor Sleep that promotes little excitement in not trying to be audaciously unhinged. Last it would leave its fright-frenzied crowd just as torpid.