Doctor Sleep (2019)

After a traumatic winter at the Overlook Hotel in Colorado where his father (Henry Thomas) attempted to kill his mother (Alex Essoe) and him, a young boy (Roger Dale Floyd) relocates to Florida with his mother. But in the ensuing years, he (now morphed into Ewan McGregor) has grown up to become an alcoholic and drifter. But after going sober, he begins to receive telepathic messages from a young girl (Kyliegh Curran) whose "shine" is even more potent than his. Based on the novel by Stephen King, which is a sequel to his 1977 novel THE SHINING, and directed by Mike Flanagan. The film thins out some of the complexities of the King novel and instead borrows a lot from the 1980 Stanley Kubrick film. For most of its running time, the movie is an intense and very dark horror film that pushes the envelope (a child's murder is disturbingly graphic). But when McGregor returns to the Overlook Hotel to confront his past, the movie comes to a crashing halt from which it never quite recovers. I wish Flanagan had stuck to King's novel more and forgot the SHINING connection (mostly visuals) but I suppose that would be too much to ask. Rebecca Ferguson (who appears to be channeling Diane Keaton) makes for a splendid villainess, the leader of a cult that literally feeds off children with "shining" abilities. Not as good as it should have been but still a near first rate piece of horror. With Jacob Tremblay, Cliff Curtis, Carl Lumbly, Emily Alyn Lind, Bruce Greenwood and Zahn McClarnon.