When writer-director Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep — adapted from Stephen King’s 2013 novel — came out five years ago, it was met with resounding indifference at the box office and a mixed-to-positive critical response. But a rewatch reaffirms that it’s one of the best recent King adaptations, partly because Flanagan managed to pull off a trick that sounded impossible.
King’s book is a sequel to one of his all-time classics, 1977’s The Shining. Flanagan’s movie serves not just as an adaptation, but also as a follow-up to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film version. Considered one of horror’s landmark films, The Shining was famously dismissed by King, who didn’t care for Kubrick’s chilly interpretation (in fact, he disliked it so much that he wrote and produced his own TV miniseries in 1997).
