Mike Flanagan has become the go-to filmmaker for Stephen King adaptations, and one of his more overlooked releases, Doctor Sleep, deserves more love. Released in 2019, Doctor Sleep is a movie based on the follow-up novel to The Shining. This means that Flanagan had several choices to make when creating it, since The Shining’s book and movie had different themes and ended in strikingly different ways.
However, what remains most impressive about this King adaptation is that Flanagan nailed it as a perfect adaptation of the movie and the book. This means that the Doctor Sleep movie differed from the novel in several ways, but it remained loyal to King’s story while serving as a perfect follow-up to the Stanley Kubrick movie.
The film picks up 31 years after the events at the Overlook Hotel. Young Danny is now grown up and battles alcoholism, similar to his father before him. He then learns there are more kids with his Shining abilities, and he sets out to save one little girl from energy vampires known as the True Knot.
Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep Is An Underrated Stephen King Movie Adaptation
Flanagan Delivered A Great Stephen King Adaptation
It seemed strange for movie fans to learn that a sequel to Stephen King’s The Shining was coming to theaters in 2019. However, readers knew all about the King novel, and it proved interesting to see how director Mike Flanagan would handle what happened in the book when it contrasted with what happened in the Stanley Kubrick version of The Shining. Flanagan had already directed a great adaptation of King’s Gerald’s Game in 2017, so fans hoped for the best.
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Mike Flanagan exceeded all expectations. Ewan McGregor stars as Dan Torrance, a recovering alcoholic who uses his Shining powers to help people about to die while working in a long-term health facility.
However, when he meets a little girl named Abra (Kyliegh Curran) who also has the Shining, he learns there is a group called the True Knot who kills children in terrible ways to suck the Shining from them, which allows this group to remain forever young. This all leads them back to the Overlook Hotel for a final battle.
Mike Flanagan remained extremely loyal to Stephen King’s writings.
Sadly, the movie was a box office failure despite it being a really solid horror movie, making only $72.4 million at the box office ($31.6 million in the U.S.) on a $45 million budget (via Box Office Mojo). Critics were impressed with the film, awarding it a 78% Rotten Tomatoes score, while audiences awarded it an even higher 89% rating.
The horror was on point, and Mike Flanagan remained extremely loyal to Stephen King’s writings, for both The Shining and Doctor Sleep, and it deserves a much higher standing than it does.
Doctor Sleep Is A Better Adaptation Than The Shining (Albeit Not A Better Movie)
Flanagan Found A Way To Create A Sequel To The Shining’s Book & Movie
Mike Flanagan had several things to figure out when he decided to make Doctor Sleep. First, the movie was about a man who allowed his demons to overpower him, and he tried to kill his family. Influenced by the haunting Overlook Hotel, he ended up dying in a maze, freezing to death in the snow and ice.
The book had the Overlook Hotel as the villain, pushing Jack to do these bad things until he finally gained a moment of clarity and sacrificed himself to destroy the hotel and save his family.
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Flanagan had to figure out how to make a sequel to both versions. What he did made it a much better adaptation than Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Kubrick didn’t care about the haunted hotel. He wanted to explore Jack’s struggles. Flanagan did care about King’s stories and wanted to make something the author appreciated.
In The Shining novel, Dick Hallorann didn’t die and the Overlook Hotel exploded. In Doctor Sleep’s final battle, Danny heads to the grounds where the Overlook used to stand to fight Rose the Hat. Mike Flanagan solved that conundrum by having Dick Halloran serve as a ghost who still speaks to Danny. He also had Danny return to the Overlook Hotel itself for the final battle, where the ghosts overwhelmed Rose and her followers.
Then, in the most important change, Danny blows up the Overlook Hotel, fixing one of the big problems in Kubrick’s movie, the son doing what his father did in the book so many years before. The Shining is the better movie, but as far as Stephen King adaptations, Doctor Sleep beats it easily.
