Doctor Sleep

Doctor Sleep may be based on the recent Stephen King novel, but it’s more precisely a follow-up to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 movie masterpiece, The Shining, which diverged considerably from King’s 1977 book. Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor), the boy from The Shining, is now a recovering alcoholic, largely suppressing his psychic gifts. A teenage girl named Abra (Kyliegh Curran) reaches out to him via telepathy, and the pair decide to take on a supernatural coven that feeds off the torture of psychic children — and that soon targets Abra.

Writer/director Mike Flanagan can’t re-create Kubrick’s incredible mastery of space and time, but he can re-create Kubrick’s vision of the Overlook Hotel, where he sets the final confrontation involving Danny and Abra and Rose the Hat (a mesmerizing Rebecca Ferguson), the powerful leader of the evil coven.

Once the chase begins, the tension doesn’t waver, and Flanagan ratchets it up with economy (despite the 151-minute length). The result is a taut supernatural story with a few splashes of gore — more thriller than horror film. It’s brimming with finely drawn believable characters, impressive but wisely restrained CG effects and a fully satisfying ending.