Doctor Sleep is a dense dance of nostalgic supernatural horror mixed with a deep psychological examination of how we can rise from the sins of the past.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Apr 4, 2024

Mike Flanagan took the impossible task of balancing both Stephen King's The Shining and Stanley Kubrick's cinematic adaptation, and successfully nailed pretty much everything regarding the connection between the main stories.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jul 24, 2023

…Flanagan and King have repurposed many of the familiar elements as part of a new and very different story, one that riffs neatly on the original property while going off in a fresh direction…

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 4, 2022

The movie has a hefty running time but it’s in large part due to the story never taking shortcuts and offering up plenty of rich character details.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 20, 2022

Flanagan does a respectful job both following up Kubrik's work, and referencing it. The 40 years between films give the audience distance, though did I really need to learn what happened to Danny Torrance?

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 12, 2022

Doctor Sleep manages to do the impossible by somehow remaining faithful to both King's books and Kubrick's film, yet in a way that creates a unique amalgam of both sources, producing something altogether new.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 23, 2022

An entertaining tribute to a monumental thing. It's a bowl of colorful fruits laid out in front of a forever monolith

Full Review | Jan 10, 2022

That Doctor Sleep is even passable is amazing. That it's quite good is a small miracle.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Aug 12, 2021

Flanagan opted against the rather cheap jump-scares that plague so many other horror films these days. Instead, there's a quiet dread behind what Rose and company do.

Full Review | Aug 5, 2021

A Kubrickian xerox with soul and dark beauty.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 16, 2021

Doctor Sleep often feels like a tribute to The Shining but brings enough of its own ideas on the effects of childhood trauma and the lingering pain of a shattered family to add richness and originality to the movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 31, 2021

As a reconciliation between Kubrick and King, Doctor Sleep doesn't quite work, but as a dark horror fantasy, there's a lot to love.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jan 29, 2021

The slow clap here goes to Mike Flanagan who wrote, directed and edited the film ... The book, like most of King's works, is a beast, and Flanagan, unlike many before and surely many after him, does not let the beast get the better of him.

Full Review | Jan 29, 2021

A chilling, gripping adaptation with some terrific performances and several standout sequences. It doesn't quite stick the landing thanks to an overreliance on replicating what's come before, but it's still well worth checking out.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 28, 2021

Doctor Sleep is a good psychological thriller with touches of terror, a bit of drama, and covered with a dreamlike veneer that allows its director to show off his staging in several sequences. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 15, 2021

Flanagan has done the impossible by delivering a film that works both as a sequel to King's novel and Kubrick's adaptation, but even without that clarifier it can still be considered a modern classic.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 30, 2020

There's simply no subtlety in the horror.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Dec 7, 2020

Really slow but captivating at the same time.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Oct 25, 2020

Doctor Sleep serves as a thought provoking and logical progression diving into generational traumas and owning your gifts before it's too late.

Full Review | Oct 25, 2020

I like Doctor Sleep. A lot. It scared me, moved me, fascinated me, horrified me. It takes chances and goes places that very few genre films dare to go.

Full Review | Oct 19, 2020