Dr. Sleep - movie

I am an avid reader, and one of my favorite authors (if not my favorite!) is Stephen King. From books like The Shining (Dr. Sleep is a sequel) to The Dark Tower series and Salem's Lot, Cujo, Cell, and many, many more, this author has written some of my all-time favorite novels, and short stories and had some amazing movies based on his work!

I was excited to see that Dr. Sleep was available on HBO Max and had some big names tied to it like Ewan McGregor, Bruce Greenwood, Jocelin Donahue, and more! I had recently finished reading the book and was excited to check out the film version of the story!

The story catches us back up to a grown-up version of Dan Torrence (little Danny from The Shinning) who is struggling with alcoholism and drug abuse. Since we last saw Dan, things have apparently been rough, and Dan has fallen into his father's bad habits. The book does a better job of going into this part of the story, but the movie does hit on a very important piece of the story and it plays out nicely with flashbacks throughout the movie.

Things take a turn for Dan when he finds himself in a small town and bumps into Billy Freeman (played by the excellent Cliff Curtis) and is given a chance to clean up his act. As the movie progresses, we see that Dan has been dealing with the ghosts from his past...and see how this has led him to his current state of mind. Dan meets a young girl, Abra, who is strong with The Shining and she gets caught up in some trouble with an ancient group of beings who feed on The Shining, specifically from young children as they are stronger with this power than adults. The Knot, as they are called, begins hunting for Abra as she is sensed during a very intense scene during the movie by members of The Knot. The movie has some graphic scenes of violence, but that is also in line with the first movie.

I was very impressed by how closely the movie stuck to the book. Yes, some things were skipped, as like with all of Stephen King's stories, a lot of what happens takes place as inner dialogue for the characters, but the movie was easy to follow along with after reading the book and I feel that even if I had not read the book first, the story would have been easy to follow and made sense. The big difference between the book and the movie...the way that the ending plays out and the way that the location is set up. I actually much prefer the movie version as opposed to the book version! Without spoiling it, the movie definitely has more of a feeling like "The Shining" compared to the book! Not that the book had a bad ending...it just played out differently and I preferred the film version! I would definitely recommend this movie and the book as well! You do not necessarily need to read or watch The Shining beforehand, but it definitely was nice to familiarize myself with the story again before diving into the follow-up!

The Shining (Blu-Ray): https://amzn.to/3fPr9GM

The Shining (paperback book): https://amzn.to/3taOYMm

Dr. Sleep (paperback book): https://amzn.to/3zXCewk

Amazon Prime 30 Day Trial: https://amzn.to/3Egeeao