I am disappointed more often than not by Stephen King adaptations. But, Doctor Sleep is one of the best ones. And it had probably the hardest path to being a great movie. Let’s discuss that.

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a beloved movie and ranks highly on the all-time greatest horror movie list. But… It is nothing like the book. The general idea of the book is there, but it is honestly a totally different story. I love both the book The Shining and Kubrick’s adaptation. So, Doctor Sleep was set to disappoint on two different fronts. It had to take into consideration Kubrick’s The Shining, but it also cannot abandon the reason King movies are so popular in the first place, the constant reader. I truly love the book Doctor Sleep and I was ready for a boiled down movie that suits the Kubrick fans moreso.

But… It delivers on both fronts! I was scared that it would ignore the actually shining like Kubrick’s film did. Which would have been really hard to do considering it’s the basis of the entire story. But Doctor Sleep hops right in to the weird and wonderful world of shining. It even shows Dick Hallorann (Carl Lumbly) talking to Danny Torrance in the beginning. Which if you don’t know, is the cook from the Overlook hotel in the original The Shining. There is a lot of little things like that in the movie. On the other side, it shows the carpet from the Overlook that is now so famous. Along with a ton of set pieces that look just like Kubrick’s The Shining. It honestly looks at both sources and pays homage to each. It is wonderfully done.

I also think the casting is perfect. Ewan McGregor is a wonderful drunken, older Danny. And Rebecca Ferguson is a perfect Rose the Hat (my favorite character from the book).

To sum it all up; I think 2019’s Doctor Sleep is well worth the watch. I give it a 3.5 out of 4. It is a wonderful King adaptation and I’m so happy they did this one justice. My problem with King is that I tend to be super critical of the adaptations. Simply because I love him so so much. But the highest praise I can give it is; I wanted to watch Kubrick’s film AND read the book again after watching this film. That was an extremely tall task to pull off and Doctor Sleep does just that.