Doctor Sleep

Stephen King famously wasn't that impressed with Stanley Kubrick's iconic adaptation of The Shining, to the extent that he wrote and produced a so-so TV series version in 1997 that would be closer to his original vision. The original book is one of King's keystone works, tying into the Dark Tower series and being referenced multiple times in various places, so it was kind of inevitable that he would pick up the story to answer the question "Whatever happened to Danny Torrence?"

The answer is simple - he became an alcoholic drifter, using booze to suppress his psychic powers, until winding up in a small New Hampshire town and getting a job as a hospice orderly, where he finds that his shine  can comfort dying patients in their final hours earning him the nickname of Doctor Sleep. Meanwhile we are introduced to a gang of psychic vampires who prey on children with the shine, kidnapping them and brutally murdering them to feed off their pain. Lovely. 

Danny is telepathically contacted by a young black girl who has sensed one of the murders and knows where the body of the unfortunate victim has been buried, and together they resolve to fight the vampires, who go by the name of the True Knot, travelling around in caravans and RVs like a bunch of psychopathic van lifers. Inevitably, the final showdown leads to the ruins of the Overlook hotel which is still haunted by the ghosts of Danny's past, however much he has tried to keep them boxed up in his mind.

Director Mike Flanagan's script and direction plays off both King's book and Kubrick's film, recreating several iconic scenes and locations quite effectively, although the overall effect feels a little bit like a cross between a tribute and fan-fic. This makes for a middle ranking adaptation of a middle ranking Stephen King story, which still puts it above most things. A fun Saturday night watch, but a touch overlong so we ended up watching it in two instalments.