I wrote yesterday about how nonplussed I was with the follow up to The Shining book of 500+ pages by Stephen King and how I felt this book was unnecessary and was just a corporate add-on to King's library and a follow up on a story that had already reached its conclusion with the first novel.
The book was well-written in a prose sense, but just kind of fell flat as far as the story was considered. I didn't feel any sense of dread or fear throughout the book and this is kind of a staple of King horror. I have been genuinely frightened by the written word only a couple of times in my life and a few of them were by Stephen King. This book didn't have that impact on me and when the book was over I was very glad that it was so I could finally move on to something else.
I had read the movie was better than the book - which is a rare situation indeed - so I figured I would dive straight into that.
I was quite hopeful going into this one because I like Ewan McGregor and Stephen King adaptations always have an opportunity to be really good.
This 3 hour monster of a film is highly rated and because it was made 40 years after The Shining I thought that a lot of the stuff that they couldn't do back in 1980 because of the limitations of technology, could be perfected in this big-budget story. Well, the CGI was definitely on point in a way that Kubrick could have only dreamed of back in the day, but for the most part the film wasn't something that really held my interest.
It took me 4 sittings to finally get through it and I feel like my mind was somewhere else for most of it.
There is a character in the movie and book named "Rose" who is the leader of a group of immortal vampire-like creatures called the "True Knot" who have vast resources and supernatural powers. They did a fantastic job casting Rebecca Ferguson in this role because her accent is just evil enough to be intimidating and she is also quite pretty, which is what Rose was like in the book.
However, I was disappointed that they didn't amp up her powers in the film even though that would have been a straying away from the book. That is one of the major flaws of both the book and the film. The "baddies" including their leader Rose, just don't ever feel like the dominant force that they should be in order to be a group of several thousand year old immortals who just have their way with humanity. They are quite easily conquered around every turn by both Danny Torrence and the little girl "Abra" that is kind of co-star of people who know how to "Shine" in this story.
It's difficult to find fear in an enemy that gets defeated every single time they are on screen. Pennywise was terrifying even though I didn't like the "It" remakes because he was omnipotent in a way. He was insurmountable and something to definitely be afraid of. Rose on the other hand, gets dominated in what seems to be relative ease every time she interacts with the good Shiners, especially young Abra who doesn't really even understand her powers in both the book and the film.
I think that is what irked me the most.
Abra is a little kid and of course she is a good student and great child to her parents, but she doesn't really have control of her powers.. well that is until one day inexplicably she just DOES have control of it after just a few meetings with Danny, who understands "The Shine" better than a 13 year old does but he doesn't have the level of power that she does so how can he possibly explain it?
Just like with the book this film really leans into alcoholism because King has a lot of experience with that and rather than a battle between Danny, Abra, and the True Knot, we have a battle between Danny and bottles of whiskey. I suppose this is trying to tie into Jack Nicholson's brilliant performance of Jack / John Torrence and how the bottle truly was his real enemy.
I really wanted to fear the True Knot, because they are meant to be this ultra-powerful group that has power over mere mortals but unless they are overpowering random children whose names barely appear in the credits, they don't really have good tactics nor good results. It's just kind of stupid having an enemy that is so easily overcome when there's a whole lotta talk about how crazy scary they are, but in the end they just die from getting shot in the shoulder.
This is especially stupid when you consider that they go into great detail in both book and film of explaining that True Knot can see things that aren't right in front of them, such as the position of someone that is nearby or even far away, but in a shootout in a field they cannot seem to locate the two people shooting at them. The fact that they die from bullet wounds in the shoulder also kind of takes away from their allure as being something to be feared.
I wanted to fear them. But unless there are 6 of them overpowering a 12-year old child, they don't really have much in the way of a fearful presence. They are eliminated easier than a group of gangbangers without special powers and to me this is just a huge letdown. I guess maybe director/screenwriter Mike Flanagan was beholden to the text so that isn't really his fault.
They also bring back the Overlook Hotel despite the fact that in the book that damn thing burned to the ground. Not only that, but the hotel is in extremely good tick considering that apparently nobody has gone in the joint for more than 30 years.
I'll admit that I got some joy out of seeing the old and famous locations from The Shining being in this one and I am sure it was fun for the cast as well. But none of this makes any sense and the stuff that happens in the last hour of the film are completely different than the book. The hotel being there at all being a major difference.
Strangely, the records show that Stephen King HATED The Shining but gave his stamp of approval to Dr Sleep and I guess I just don't understand the world because Dr. Sleep is very highly rated on IMDB and I guess I just don't understand the people of the world. I can't imagine anyone that is familiar with the actual story liking any of this but to be fair, I didn't like the source material either so it's not all that surprising that I wouldn't enjoy the hell out of the film.
Whenever there is such a huge discrepancy between what I think and what the online world thinks in terms of reviews, I suspect maybe that the ratings have been rigged to some degree. Especially when a film ended up losing a bunch of money. This one was supposed to be a super-huge hit and yet not many people actually went to go and see it. It is estimated that they lost around $20 million on this one.
I was quite disappointed with this film and can't really recommend it to anyone. If you've read the books you are going to be annoyed with how much they stray from the source material. If you haven't read the books a lot of this is going to be really confusing to you. Hell, it was confusing to me and I just finished reading the book like a few days ago!