In recent years, the film and television industry has become popular in adapting various popular classic IPs; and shooting sequels is often a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can satisfy the fans' feelings, and on the other hand, it may subvert or even distort the original work, causing the original fans to resent it.
"Doctor Sleeper", which has been released in Europe and the United States, is the sequel to Kubrick's classic horror film "The Shining". Judging from the current IMDB's 7.6 copies and a Rotten Tomatoes index of 77%, it shows that this sequel has not achieved the expected effect.
That year, the great director Kubrick "relied on" "The Shining" to nominate the Golden Plum Award in 1981 (yes, you read it right), and almost won the prize. As time went on, people later realized that this was actually a great work. Not only did it rectify its name, but countless thriller movies later "learned" from this classic.
For 40 years after the movie was released, no director dared to remake it, perhaps because "The Shining" has an irreplaceable height in the history of human cinema.
And "Doctor Sleeper" tried to continue writing "The Shining" for the first time. It must be said that it was a very bold act. Whether it can meet the extremely high expectations of movie fans, it will take time to prove. This sequel is reminiscent of 2017's "Blade Runner 2049". As the first sequel of "Blade Runner" in 35 years, although the reputation is severely divided, the overall success is considered successful, and it is even regarded as a "god" by some fans. do".
The director of the film "Doctor Sleeper" Mike Flanagan has always been good at shooting B-level horror films. Last year, the series of "Ghost Invasion" directed by him was overwhelmingly popular, with a score of 8.7 in IMDB (130,000 people participated in the score). It can be seen that Mike Flanagan’s movie focuses not on the vulgar and bloody visual system, but interweaves warmth and darkness; it also plays with the transformation of time and space, how the characters defeat the dark psychology, etc. With ease.
It can be said that "Doctor Sleeper" has completely absorbed the director's advantages in creating "Ghost Invasion", and the investment of 45 million US dollars has also given this movie more room for development, and the details have become more full.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to serving as the director of "Doctor Sleeper", Mike Flanagan also arranged editing, photography and screenwriting. The addition of two actors, Ivan McGregor (the casting was approved by Stephen King, the original author of "The Shining") and Rebecca Ferguson, made the movie even more interesting.
The film "Doctor Sleeper" tells the story of "The Shining" protagonist Jack's son Danny and his mother after escaping from his father's clutches. Danny, who was born with "the shining" superpowers, gradually got rid of childhood trauma as an adult, and has been living a plain life. This is the first story line of the movie.
At the same time, a girl named Abra who also possesses the superpower of "The Shining" appeared in the town. This is the second story line. The third story line starts from an underground organization called "True Knot". The members of this organization are all people with the function of "Shining". In order to prolong their life, they need to absorb "energy", namely Swallow spirit from a living body that also has the ability to "shining".
When the organization used superpowers to capture the breath of the little girl Abra, the third thread and the second thread began to interweave. It was also at this time that Danny and the little girl, who represented the power of justice, began to unite and fight against the true knots. The film completes the convergence of one, two or three lines, and this connection finally leads to the most primitive motif: How does Danny fight the deep-rooted memory scars?
And all of this has to go back to the starting point of the whole story, which is the point where the tragedy in "The Shining" occurred-the panoramic hotel located in a piece of snow.
Director Mike Flanagan pointed out a path to spiritual salvation: Only when Danny really faces his trauma can he be saved. This setting gives the director the possibility of seamlessly connecting the classic scenes from "The Shining" into "Doctor Sleeper", and the tribute sections that travel through it are enough to make many movie fans amazed.
The opening of the movie "Doctor Sleeper" reproduced the classic carpet pattern of Panorama Hotel in "The Shining". The camera slowly reproduces the footage of childhood Danny riding a baby stroller between the hotel porches. Steadicam's steady follow-up shots set the tone of psychological thrill for the entire film.
In "The Shining", this corridor covers almost all kinds of horror elements. For example, twin sisters with extremely out-of-balance and weird head-to-body ratios, room 237 that is creepy and full of coincidences, bloody curtains, a dazzling array of but empty pubs, etc., are all related to this corridor.
When "Doctor Sleeper" presents these horror elements, it reshapes the Kubrick-style classic scene almost authentically. This is not only out of respect for the classics, but also adds a kind of invisibly to the film. The illusion and psychedelic sense of time-space replacement.
In this film, childhood Danny opened the door of 237 under the call of the promenade, just as time travels to once again see the naked woman in the bathroom that his father witnessed. This symbolic symbol runs through the entire "Sleep Doctor".
The director designed a spiritual self-rescue therapy for Danny: imagine that there are countless boxes in his brain, and use willpower to tightly close those black memories in the boxes. This setting is a psychological detail carefully laid out by the director, and it also played a vital role in the subsequent stair battle.
This corridor may be regarded as Danny's long river of horrible memories. It is deeply rooted in Danny's blood and is a nightmare that cannot be avoided in his childhood memories. To a certain extent, such a heavy burden of memory also determines Danny's future character: melancholy and deep, with a tendency to avoid himself, and he is an out-and-out pessimist.
The dialogue designed by the director mimics Danny's character delicately. For example, "The whole world is just a sanatorium with fresh air" and "We are all dying" and somber and gloomy words all imply that Danny, who seems to be free from memory troubles, is still repeating the trouble day after day. The fight of the beasts; it's just a hidden struggle in a more passive way. He is not like the 14-year-old girl with full vigor and fighting spirit. In the face of the dark attack, he appears more conservative, and at first he was reluctant to adopt an attacking posture to resist evil.
Unlike "The Shining" which puts horror into life, the horror atmosphere of "Doctor Sleeper" is more direct, rather than "step-by-step". But it is different from jump scare, it can always give the audience breathing space first, and then promote the horror flashpoint.
In other words, the horror creation technique of "The Shining" is more classical, but with more stamina; while "Doctor Sleeper" uses a technique that is more similar to modern horror films such as "Call of Souls", and of course it also shows the director's Commercial ambitions.
The collective commotion of Zhenjie clan quietly accumulates energy for the climax of the whole film. Undoubtedly, the director’s “True Knot Organization” is another highlight of the movie. This organization is both classical and modern. Their attitude of devouring vitality is quite "vampire". The Gothic style also puts the existence of this group in a mysterious and treacherous coat.
They live on the edge of a dark and remote city, just like the director’s ridicule of modern society. This sarcasm is multi-dimensional: on the one hand, groups with "shining" characteristics are not accepted and recognized by society, such as girls and Danny or They are true knots, they are always incompatible freaks in the eyes of the world; on the other hand, their special abilities give them the ability to perceive everything and to perceive their surroundings ahead of time, whether it is fortune or danger. .
Here, the special function of "The Shining" was given the meaning of destruction and rebirth by the director. It can make you fall into hell instantly and become one with the darkness, which is the baptism of "turn" as referred to by the members of the true knot group, but after the "blackening", they will kill the innocent indiscriminately in pursuit of youth and eternal youth. Bao; At the same time, the weight of memory it carries can also make you kind, so that you can perceive justice and darkness sensitively.
Just like the girl Abra, she foresaw what happened to the baseball boy, and she decided not to hesitate to defeat the Shinkoku clan to rest the soul of the baseball boy. With the blessing of these two meanings, Danny's mental trajectory has become more three-dimensional, rather than superficial.
The film focuses on Danny as an adult. He quit drinking and became a sleep doctor in a nursing home. After having a wonderful connection with the girl Abra, he decided to go to the dangerous place in his memory-Panorama Hotel.
At this time, the Panorama Hotel has been declining, and from the outside, it has been reduced to a ruined building without a soul. But when Danny walked into the hotel, everything was as it was 40 years ago, with light and darkness entangled with each other, which also hinted at the tenacity of Danny's seemingly weak personality struggling. The director switched the panorama several times here, showing the extremely classic scenes in "The Shining", and also demonstrated the tension of the narrative variation: the protagonist's road to redemption is always full of thorns and dangers.
The entire hotel can be regarded as a "memory maze" belonging to Danny. In the pub, he saw his father again, and it was the complicated emotions towards his father that shaped Danny's life today. For many years, his entire life has been in the shadow of his father, hard to see the light. This is why he moved to Florida with his mother.
The bar dialogue set up by the director portrays Danny's father as an irresponsible and tired of family life. This is indeed not much different from the previous work "The Shining", and it can be regarded as a continuation.
The director does not intend to end everything with a cliché reconciliation ending. It may be more appropriate to treat this conversation as a catharsis of Danny's emotions. It didn't let Danny find the answer, but it hinted at a crucial message: Danny will not follow his father's fate. The reunion drama of father and son is full of warmth and dark fantasy under the weird tone of the whole film. It is really Mike Flanagan.
The axe wars and maze chasing scenes at the climax of the film are undoubtedly a tribute to The Shining. For Danny, the movie "Doctor Sleeper" is like a journey of spiritual salvation. In the end, he died with the hotel and went to his own destiny. And the girl Abra, just like Danny back then, has to face the dark side of his memory alone (the "bathroom naked girl" at the end), and then fight with it all his life.
Compared with the rich meaning of "The Shining", "Doctor Sleeper" is more popular, and there will be no technical problems of "get not". As a sequel to a classic movie, from the point of view of a commercial film, "Doctor Sleeper" has a relatively high degree of completion, and the visual and psychological impacts are also excellent, and it is worth watching.
Author | Ella; Official Account | Seeing Death in Movies
Edit | Riding a Rooftop Boy; please indicate the source for reprinting
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