I was quite excited when I heard that Stephen King was writing a sequel to The Shining. I was coming out of reading his JFK novel 11/22/63 and thoroughly enjoyed it. The Shining was one of the first Stephen King books I ever read; The Shining was also one of the first movies I’d ever seen. Way back in the day I remember my mom and dad took us to see Star Wars at a drive-in theater. While my parents and my sister were watching Star Wars I was busy looking out the back of the car window to what was going on behind me: at the other end of the drive-in was another movie playing – The Shining.
So going in to Doctor Sleep I had high expectations; there was a long history between this story and I. But, I knew that it has been a long time since King has done true horror and I was a bit skeptical if it would live up to the legacy of The Shining.
See, The Shining was great because it dealt with a family trying to rebuild trust with each other. The father was an alcoholic with a violent past; he’d given up on alcohol and was trying to rebuild that relationship with his wife and son. So he gets a job at this secluded hotel that, just so happens, is riddled with ghosts. Ironically enough, his son has this ability to see dead people. This ability is called “the shining.” The story is creepy because the family is utterly isolated in this snowbound hotel; they’ve got no where to go and no one to call on for help. Who knows what may lie in wait in those rooms. And then the dad starts turning on his family, having been compromised by the evil spirits.
It’s a highly effective novel in the horror genre.
Well, Doctor Sleep isn’t a bad book by any means, I just don’t think it’s a true sequel to The Shining.
The book starts off cool enough: you got young Danny Torrance still having to deal with seeing dead people–even after he has left the Overlook Hotel. Good thing Chef Hallorann shows up and teaches him a thing or two on how to deal with these types of things. That’s great, but as time goes on it seems like Danny still has some problems to deal with, e.g., he follows in the path of his father when he takes up booze.
And that’s the end of what we have in common with The Shining. I hope you weren’t expecting a lot of horror because after those first couple of chapters that’s gonna be it. Once Danny grows up the horror goes out the window. At that point it turns into a road movie, a murder procedural, and a coming-of-age tale.
Once we’re done catching up with Danny Torrance the story goes into a new character named Abra who has very similar powers as Danny had when he was young. You see, this “shining” power starts to wane through the years, and Danny has grown weak in his ability. There’s also this group of roving psychic vampires that not only have similar powers as Danny and Abra but they also prey on these types of shining people. When they torture and kill people with the shining gift there is a mist that they give off; this mist can be captured, harnessed, and consumed later to prolong life.
But their supply is running low.
And then they find out about Abra. Oh boy, they just hit the mother load.
It’s like a pack of zombies accidentally running into a jam packed cheerleader conference. Abra’s shining mist could fill all sorts of jars to keep them alive and healthy for years.
Alright, that’s all I’m going to tell about the story line. You’ll have to read the book to find out what happens for yourself. No spoilers here, folks.
I will say that I’ve always found Stephen King to be fairly weak when it comes to writing a satisfying ending. I absolutely hated the ending to Under the Dome and probably 90 percent of his other books; the last ending he wrote that I thought was pretty cool was the JFK book, 11/22/63.
Doctor Sleep had one of those endings that really let me down. Once it got to the end I just found the characters to be dull and I didn’t give a shit about what happened to them. At some point I actually started rooting for the bad guys. These psychic vampires just turned out to be a bunch of god damn babies. They were pushovers and easy to kill off. They weren’t very menacing at all. But the worst thing was that Danny and Abra were just annoying and sheepish. Sure, it takes bravery to stand up to a group of psychic vampires but they didn’t have that “swingin’ dick” personality that made me buy into their bravery. The bravery angle was there because it had to be.
This is just one of those things where the original story should’ve been left alone to enjoy its legacy. This is why At The Gates shouldn’t have a “comeback” album; they separated after the masterpiece that was “Slaughter of the Soul” and now they’re probably going to mar it all up. This is why there should’ve never been a “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey.” Some things need to be left alone. That being said, “Doctor Sleep” shouldn’t exist.
