"Doctor Sleep" is gleefully gruesome and does right by Kubrick and King

From the moment the horns from "Dies Irae" – the ominous theme song to "The Shining" – begin to play once again, there is hope that "Doctor Sleep" won't be one of those unnecessary sequels that either diminishes a classic film in retrospect or fades from memory after a few years. Directed and written by Mike Flanagan, a prolific horror director whose work includes "Ouija: Origin of Evil" and "Gerald's Game", "Doctor Sleep" tells the story of Dan Torrance, a recovering alcoholic who works at a hospice where his ability to comfort dying patients with his psychic powers has earned him the nickname "Doctor Sleep." Stephen King recently told Entertainment Weekly that Flanagan "managed to take my novel of 'Doctor Sleep,' the sequel, and somehow weld it seamlessly to the Kubrick version of 'The Shining,' the movie." He even observed that he liked "Doctor Sleep" so much that it "warmed" his opinion of the Kubrick movie, which had plot points that King intentionally ignored when writing its literary sequel. Because characters continue to voice these anxieties in "Doctor Sleep," the death scenes carry more weight than if they were occurring in a more traditional genre movie.