Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

[Lexicon]

In anticipation of this sequel, I'm gonna start re-reading The Shining tonight/whenever I can catch time to decompress.

Haven't read it since elementary & jr. high school. (Stephen King books practically raised me, haha)

Gotta refresh my memory. It's cool to see how the voices, textures, & tones within the story tend to shift over time with one's perspective.

 

[Cellmold]

That's the problem with King in the latter half of his career. He needs a decent editor for his books and tends to be given too much leeway, as whatever he writes is going to sell regardless. I found the first half of his career to be his best work. Nowadays you just don't know what you're going to get from him -- some of his stuff sucks, some of it is good.

I don't always enjoy family guy, but this video seemed apt:

 

[Totenkindly]

Well, I did not read the book yet (although now I will -- I have had it sitting on my shelf for months but was trying to get through The Shining again first)...

.... but I just saw the film tonight. Ferguson (as Rose the Hat) was pretty awesome and MacGregor was good as grown-up Danny. There was also an unfortunate cameo by Jacob Tremblay who has been in at least one other Mike Flanagan film I can remember (Before I Wake). I cannot vouch for how closely the film followed the book, although there were certain bits of dialogue (usually when character "holds forth" aka starts giving a small speech) that I thought sounded like King and was probably ripped right out of the book.

I think Flanagan and Darabont have done the best King adaptations in general, consistently. (Darabont did The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist; Flanagan has done Gerald's Game and Doctor Sleep.) Actually, I guess with this and watching Absentia a few weeks ago for my Halloween run, I've seen all of Flanagan's full-length films + The Haunting of Hill House.

How did I feel about it as a film in itself? I felt like the first 45 minutes was a little slow, then things kicked in and got kinda crazy. (There's a lovely scene between Rose and Abra -- the girl with the Shine -- that is, well, fucking awesome... maybe multiple scenes, to be honest, Abra gets better and better as the film progresses.) And then I was smiling a lot in the last half hour, when Danny Torrence Goes Home (so to speak) but then the big confrontation didn't end up lasting as long as I thought. And I think that's kind of how I felt with much of it. The narrative parts were fine, but most of the confrontation scenes that should have felt better were decent but just not quite as good as they might have been. (Like the final battle with the True Knot, I guess they're called; and the final confrontation with Danny and Rose; and so on...) Flanagan seems to be good at evoking mood and drama and some creepy stuff but I think overall he's not sure how to shoot or pace action sequences as well? He's not bad, just not at the top of the pack. I could tell he was aiming for something SUPER-resonant, and it was MOSTLY resonant instead.

Anyway, that was how overall the movie felt -- like, lots of good ideas and done decently, but not quite revved up to their max, like they had been bleached a bit of their color. Still a 4/5 film, which is decent.

Really enjoyed Ferguson. And I like her wardrobe design. Wondering if it's a signifier of her age (her style of clothes) -- it would put her in the Victorian age? -- since it's clear another one of the True Knot was from the Roman era at least in the film. The True Knot reminded me vaguely in concept of the Near Dark vampire clan running around messing shit up and taking what they wanted. They are never called the True Knot in the movie, I think.

 

[Totenkindly]

It's kind of sad that Doctor Sleep did so poorly at the BO... from what they say now, it might end up losing $30 million, if not more, after all the costs are figured out balanced by world-wide BO. It's a decent film, even if not the best, and deserved what positive review it got.

Meanwhile, the Pet Semetary remake earlier this year made more money, made a profit... and man, that film sucked. Wasn't awful (the acting was better than the original) and had a few creepy moments and tried a few big twists, but was also derivative and off the rails. Like, it was great at times because it was so bad in the ending and SHAMELESSLY so -- the directors knew it and simply did not care, so... I can admire that. But it certainly did not adhere to the spirit of the text, it felt more like a remake of the earlier film... so twice removed from the book. It is really a B movie.

Why did Doctor Sleep do poorly? Maybe released the same weekend as Midway with Veterans Day around wasn't great. It's after Halloween now, people are moving on to their Christmas jollies. Not sure how many people read Doctor Sleep (I'm reading it now), and while there's film viewers who appreciate The Shining, Stanley Kubrick did not direct this film regardless. it's almost like there's a bunch of niche categories that are reductive, not additive -- people might be less interested because of what the film is not (all the influences are partial, so they can feel watered down), rather than excited about a piece of what the film is that is of interest.

AS I noted, the film was decent but not at the tip-top of King films, and then ending felt kind of flat/subdued. I think Flannigan's "Gerald's Game" adaptation was stronger. But Doctor Sleep does have some great parts. I do like how King's world is interconnected, and they even made this tighter in the film -- for example, they referred to the one girl as a "pusher" (which folks who are familiar with "Firestarter" will recall regarding Andy McGee's psychic power).

AS noted elsewhere, IT Chapter 2 and another film still made a killing, so the losses can be easily absorbed. It's just disappointing if this would dissuade future efforts to adapt King's works from being made.

 

[Totenkindly]

This just released on Tuesday on home video, along with a Director's Cut containing almost 30 more minutes of footage.

The theatrical release was decent enough, but the DC actually improves the film -- it inserts material throughout that smooths the story, sketches in background information, and really conveys how Danny has dealt with repressing the shining, his father's legacy, etc. It also adds more backstory to Abra. Ultimately it just feels like a better film overall, I got a better feel for Danny's arc in this version.

The DC is on the bluray and also on digital downstream; for some stupid reason (maybe space? Not sure), the 4K disc only includes the theatrical version. At least the 4K stream of the DC off Vudu looks really great, but I'm bothered by studios slowly starting to rip off people buying the disc packages. If I am going to buy a 4K package, I would like the same material on a 4K disc that the bluray is getting -- otherwise why bother? I am not likely to watch the 4K theatrical version, since the DC is better, but I had to purchase a useless disc just to get streaming privs.

Flannigan's film is still more of a slow burn (at 3 hours) and more for the drama minded than for a horror crowd, despite some of the horrific elements of the film. (It's really disturbing watching the True Knot psychically devour Jacob Tremblay, for example... or watching one of the characters get "degloved" so to speak.) If you enjoyed The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix (also by Flannigan), you'd enjoy Doctor Sleep because it's the same long drama with horror elements setup. I just really recommend the DC version, which again is on the bluray release.

 

[Totenkindly]

Started watching the Director's Cut again (after coming off Flannigan's "Haunting of Bly Manor" on Netflix), and I'm bummed this did not get more attention at the box office. It really is a decent and enjoyable film, it's just feeling so far like it more closely tracks the books versus trying to blow things up on the screen... so it might feel too low-key to some. But I think I love King's work the most when it is low-key and simple -- I still really love the book "Firestarter" despite it being low-key, as it's all about Andy loving Charlie and vice versa, this guy with a small power who can barely stay ahead of pursuit and he's a guy who is a natural quitter... but he's trying to be strong for his little girl. (And she has powers that could definitely help them survive, but he knows the emotional cost of her using them and is scared to put that burden on her.) That's pretty much it.

I feel like Doctor Sleep also tends to feel low-key in similar ways -- even the "big scene' before the mansion finale is just a brief severe encounter in the woods, nothing super-fancy. (I can imagine this scene pretty much unfolding as-is from the book -- so now I'm curious to see if that is how King wrote it.) But much of the film is about character work.

Flannigan does a good job directing actors, including children, as we've see in his other films; and the role of kids in this film is important, whether just a few minutes for Violet, or the Baseball Boy, or all the screentime for Abra (younger and older self).

I just got past the scene with Jacob Tremblay and it still gives me goosebumps. It's absolutely horrific. I like how the "True Knot" folks are actually likable (and a few are very charismatic) on some levels, which makes the things they do even worse -- they are truly "the damned."

I wish we could have seen more of Danny over the eight years he became known as "Doctor Sleep." We do get the idea that he has found some peace and learned how to use his powers for good, but we don't get a long period of it in the film to really understand what that means for him as a person.

The actress filling in for Shelly Duvall plays Charlotte in "The Haunting of Bly Manor," I think.