How Doctor Sleep completes The Shining Universe?

The Shining

8.5 /10

It all started with Stanley Kubrick's The Shining in 1980. It is considered one of the best horror movies of all time. Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson), a writer and gets a job as a caretaker in the Overlook Hotel in Colorado. He moves to the hotel with his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and son Danny. As the family starts living in the hotel,  the hotel starts to show its tricks.

Kubrick's version of The Shining was disturbing, cold and terrifying. Long conversations and shots of Danny riding his tricycle around the hotel corridors created an atmosphere of tension. It never hurried to show how powerful and evil is that hotel. As time passed, the hotel takes total control over Jack and then starts the cat and mouse game between Jack and his wife & son. No one can deny that The Shining was and will always be a  masterpiece.

The Missing Elements

Although being the best horror movie of all time, deep down somewhere I always felt that It's lacking something. I always wondered how Hotel chooses its target. How was the relationship between Danny and his father before coming to this hotel?  What are the actual powers of Danny? I wanted to know more about 'Shining'. In short, It was always incomplete for me.

Doctor Sleep

7.8 /10

Movie starts right after the events of The Shining where Danny is still being haunted by the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel.  As time passed he learns to overcome his fear and lock all the ghosts inside a box. But Danny is not the only one with special powers. There are more who "Shine". There is a group of people known as The Knot who feeds upon the "Shine" of these people by killing them which makes them nearly immortal. One day Abra Stone(she's Magic too) witnessed The Knot murdering a boy using her telepathic powers and gets the attention of the group's leader Rose the Hat. Now Abra is dependent on Danny to help her find The Knot and destroy them before they find her.

Filling the Gaps

********************Spoilers Ahead********************

All the functional elements of Kubrick's version from "REDRUM" to "Old Lady in Room 237" has been used throughout the movie in an interconnected way. Doctor Sleep isn't scary most of the time but the way story is developed binds viewers with it. It's violent too. This movie defines the actual meaning of Shining. It's full of references to its illustrious predecessor. It provides enough tension and thrills to make it worth seeing.

It explores the real powers of Danny. It also describes how Danny is another version of his father Jack. Like his father, he's struggling with the job too. Remember the opening scene of The Shining where Jack gives an interview for Caretaker's Job. He's alcoholic. The biggest shining moment in the Doctor Sleep is the confrontation of Jack and Danny's in the Overlook's Gold Room. In Kubrick's version, Jack first meets Lloyd the bartender at this place. He offers him a whiskey as Jack was an alcoholic too. Here Danny tells Jack how his mother always saw Jack in Danny's eyes.

The final act takes place in the Overlook Hotel. It was a hell of an experience to revisit that spooky evil Hotel. Undoubtedly, Doctor Sleep added more depth to its predecessor. Almost 40 years after, The Shining seems more meaningful than ever. Doctor Sleep bridges all the existing gaps and hence gives homage to Kubrick's The Shining.

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