Doctor Sleep was written and
directed by Mike Flanagan and stars Ewan McGregor and Rebecca Ferguson based off
of Stephen King's book and it is also known as the sequel to The Shining which
just so happens to be my favorite horror film of all time so you know no
expectations or anything it's just a movie just a fucking movie oh
yeah you and McGregor plays an adult version of Danny Torrance now that he's
older he's got a drinking problem and he's trying to get as far away from his
past as possible but that pass comes calling again when he comes in contact
with a young girl who also can shine like he can and while all of this is
happening Rebecca Ferguson's character Rose the Hat and her team are searching
for people like Danny and this young girl and they don't want to be friends
they want to kill them like I said in the opening the shining is a very an important film for me it is without a doubt my favorite horror it's my favorite
Kubrick and I didn't go into this film with those types of expectations I think
that would probably be a bad idea I kept my expectations moderate because I've
loved the things that Mike Flanagan has done in the past I've been rooting for
him ever since oculus when I saw oculus it fucking blew me away and I felt like
nobody was really giving him due credit and since then he's had haunting of
Hill House and hush and he made a good sequel to Ouija and Gerald's game which
was also a king adaptation and it only makes sense that now he would get the
chance to do something like this which is also a very daunting task because not
only does he have to adapt King's work he also has to please Kubrick fans
because even though King is not a big fan of Kubrick's film because of the
changes it made and didn't feel like it captured the heart of his novel you
have to also recognize that most people really like that movie and so you're
sort of trying to adapt to people's work it's like you're a child and your
parents are like arguing and you're like calm down everything is gonna be fine
this movie gonna be fucking cool just shut the fuck up just shut up once
again Flanagan is excellent behind the camera and in the editing room because
he also edited the film, as usual, this film flows beautifully the shots linger
on scream for just the right amount of time it's extremely unsettling he's
really great at just giving you the creeps and as he proved with Hill House he
is not interested in what most people would assume as
a horror movie the way
that he directs his films don't come off like the horror films that are usually
more popular nowadays the scare every few minutes along with a loud jolt of
music is also known as a jump scare there are some in this movie but they feel
earned even necessary to the plot and the character know what Flanagan is
interested in a horror film is the way the characters are dealing with said
horror the things that are implied the scariest things are always what's
implied and dr. sleep is filled with very dire implications for tons of
characters there's a lot that you don't see happen on screen but you're left
with this image in your mind, that's burrowing deep in there making you feel
increasingly more disturbed and that's what Flanagan is so good at I loved
dr.sleep I think it's a really really good horror movie no it's not as good as the
shining and it was never going to become on I mean that's not even fair The
Shining has had decades of time to become as iconic as it is I saw this movie
tonight I don't think there's even a point in comparing them because this film
is also trying to be something very different than that and that it isn't
always focused on what you might call the haunted house scares you and McGregor
whose excellent in the movie, by the way, is someone dealing with a lot of
pressure in his life obviously his past is really fucked up and he's dealing
with it mostly through alcohol but he's also trying to recover from that much
like one of the characters in the haunting of Hill House he is going to he's trying to get better and we learned so
much about how he's using his gift and I love what they do with it I won't ruin
it for you but the way he decides to use this gift he has of being able to sort
of understanding people's feelings talk inside their minds and have visions and
premonitions and connections across long distances he uses it in such a way
that just feels so good and human it really endears you to his character
Rebecca Ferguson is fantastic as Rose the Hat one of the things that I love
about her character and the villainous people that surround her is that these
are some of the most fleshed-out villains I've seen in a film all year perhaps
in the past few years you get a lot of screen time with them and you completely
understand where their heads at you understand what they want their goals why
they need to do these horrible things they're doing and although you don't
condone what they're doing it makes sense but
I think my favorite performance
in the movie is actually given by young Kylie Curran I'm not sure if that's how
you pronounce her name if I said it wrong I apologize she's magnificent this is
maybe the best child performance I've seen all year she plays this girl that he
meets who also has this ability but exponentially greater than he's ever
encountered this is a big role and she has a ton of screen time and I anticipated
her being involved in this movie I actually wanted this character to come back
on-screen unlike a lot of child performances you kind of okay that's enough
with the kids get back to the adults please know she is really good and she
hits so many different emotional beats because she has to be super confident
about what she can do but she also has to be really terrified when the movie
wants you to be you know fearful for her life she hits all of them wonderfully
I can't wait to see her and more stuff and I'm glad they use the book title
this is where a movie studio might be inclined to say I excuse me could we
please call it shinier shiniest more shiny please anything with shining is good
The Shining how about that the Shining's please it's a small detail but I love whenever
a film uses a book title even though the book title might not exactly be as
marketable as something else let's talk about fan service because I have a feeling
that this will be a primary complaint amongst people who don't like this movie
I can't say for sure but it's an easy complaint to say well you know this movie
relies on people who love the shining they go to the Overlook Hotel and you get
all these shot recreations there's a scene where you McGregor is applying for a
job and it's a similar office and shot set up as when Jack Nicholson is accepting
the job at the Overlook Hotel and The Shining and oh my god this movie just
relies on people who like the 1980shining it doesn't do anything new and just a gigantic pile of fan service I can understand that some people might be concerned
about that but here's what I think about fan service I think there is two
different kinds the good and the bad fan service is what you would
expect to see in a movie that doesn't really know what it is but it's relying on something else it's not presenting a good story it's not presenting a good
character but it does have a lot of nostalgia
I see a lot of horror films
nowadays that are trying to be like the 80s horror films you might not like the
story and the characters but the animatronics and all that blood was cool and
the music was awesome that's bad fan service there's also good fan service in
movies if you're an anime fan you probably thought I was talking about
something else you know I'm saying if you love The Shining and you love Kubrick
you're going to see all those things that people are going to very easily pinpoint
as a problem, because hey you're just pleasing the Kubrick fanboys you saw all that
in the trailer and you knew was going to be in the movie so I'm going to tell
you that that's in the third act meaning that there is 2x preceding it to get
you invested in the story and the characters this is a two-and-a-half-hour movie
guys that mean that about two hours of this movie has nothing to do with the
Kubrick fan service meaning that this movie already has to get you onboard
with its characters with its story, it already has to get you invested and then
it says hey are you invested cool alright here's all this fucking awesome shit
you remember and we're going to take this and use it for our finale that's the
way to do fan service you don't throw it all at the beginning and get people
invested because you know they already like this shit no Flannigan's very smart
he made a movie with real fucking characters with great actors and phenomenal
directing I actually broke one of my rules this time around after I saw the film I read some reviews before I jumped in front of the camera and a common the complaint that I saw was that the movie just isn't scary enough god damn do I
wholeheartedly disagree I talked about this a few years ago in a video called
the problem with horror movies today and I'm still encountering now in 2019
which is hilarious and it's not really the movies I've actually noticed that
horror movies have gotten better like indie horror especially since then has
gotten so much better the lighthouse was fucking amazing but it's our
perception of what is scary that I think is a little bit twisted and
I know
that it's completely subjective you're gonna be scared by what you're scared by
but some people seem to think that a horror movie is a series of jolts and like
ghost faces and fucking demon growling and shit for me it's always the implied
it's things that are hinted at it's the deep recessed disturbing elements of
the actual life things that truly traumatize you I think that's where true the horror lies it's one of the reasons as Shining is so good because at the heart
of the shining it's just about the breakdown of a family yeah there's ghosts
and a hotel that's haunted but the things you remember the most about the
shining is Jack Nicholson approaching his wife walking up those stairs and
she's got that bat this is the breakdown of a marriage and you understand that
perspective from a young boy which is even more fucked up doctor sleep isn't a movie that's filled to the brim with ghosts and demons and you know horror shit
that you're used to seeing it's a movie about its characters and it follows
them on a perilous journey and it's told in a way that's very suspenseful and
filled with tension this is the type of thing that scares me I'm not as scared
by you know shit that pops out of the fucking closet and it seems like a lot of
people want that but I digress because as I said scares and movies are
subjective this movie got under my skin I found it very unsettling as far as
issues that I had with the movie there are some sequences that sort of ask you
to accept things that a character is doing involving a gun that I was like this
kind of seems really out of character right now it just seems very out of
character and if they had to have that scene there should have been some
discussion about it or setup to why he's doing what he's doing and I just it
felt a little action knee I didn't feel as much like this very quiet unsettling
horror film I felt very action all of a sudden I didn't love that if you told
me you didn't really think anything happened for like 30 or 40minutes when this the movie began I would understand that because nobody jumps out of a building
nothing blows up nobody gets hit by a car it doesn't feel like there's a quote
unquote inciting incident for a while and the movie kind of gradually nudges
you into these characters lives for me
I kind of fucking love that because you
get to see these people in their small moments and their big moments the modern
way of writing horror is every scene has to really fucking matter every scene
has to have something insane every scene involves this plot in a very specific intricate
way and it always has to fit whereas the first like 30 minutes of doctors sleep
kind of feel like they meander a bit which for some will be an issue but I just
really loved watching these characters through that lens of just observing
their lives even in the smaller moments and it made the rest of the movie one
shit gets really really a lot bigger to me this is a technique that I've seen
some masterful directors use Frank Darabont did it in The Shawshank Redemption
you have all these really small conversations that just feel like these just
quiet little moments between characters that while you're watching it you're
like wow I'm just not used to this level of conversation in a big movie in 2019
I'm used to everyone always talking about the end of the world the next big fucking the thing that's gonna happen to these characters but Danny Torrance works at a
hospital for a while and he comforts elderly people like that doesn't seem like
it would really be all that entertaining but it is I think doctors sleep is a really a good movie that of course is not as good as The Shining but as a horror film I
was very very invested the character work is super strong it has a great the villain and one of the best child performances of the year I'm gonna give dr.
sleep and Flanigan I just I'm happy that you're making these movies, please
continue to make films like this you're very good at it and I can't wait to see
what else you do guys thank you so much guys for looking forward I hope you do
check out dr. sleep I think it's a really damn good horror movie you guys are
the best thank you once again if you liked this you can comments write here and
get stuck mine eyes
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