I’m not getting a very strong horror vibe from that trailer. It looks like a TV show.
Well, that fits because the book didn’t have much horror either.
You do gotta admire the chrome-plated pair it takes to to direct a sequel to a Kubrick, though. Whatever else you can say about Mike Flanagan, he doesn’t lack for self-confidence.
Too bad it looks like they re-used the sets and recycled the visual effects from The Haunting of Hill House. I suspect from the trailer that the end result will be about as disappointing.
I’d say that Kubrick’s film should have been left well enough alone. I haven’t seen Ready Player One but I caught the Overlook scene and I thought it was sacrilege. And not the fun kind of sacrilege.
I think by creating a sequel to a Kubrick film you automatically gain Kubrick’s powers as a film director.
Time for me to create a sequel to 2001. Wait…
If this is what deepfake tools make possible I’m onboard.
The movie is already playing in a theater in my country this weekend but I’m not sure it will get a broad release. I did enjoy Haunting of Hill House for the most part but haven’t seen Gerald’s Game or Hush.
Well… Mike Flanagan is no Stanley Kubrick, that’s for sure.
Henry Thomas doing an impression of Jack Nicholson? Why, Mike? Just why?
So you saw it?
I don’t think this was great (or even very good), but it was enjoyable enough. So pretty much like the book, on both counts.
Something I particularly enjoyed about it: I found it very satisfying how the villains were pretty much totally outmatched from the start. I suppose that works better in the book, where you spend more time with them and get more invested, but it was fine enough here for me.
Anyway. I wouldn’t really recommend it, but I had enough fun to justify the price of the ticket.
Yes. I did not enjoy it.
Even setting aside the differences from the book, I think Flanagan’s attempts to ape Kubrick were clumsy. The recreation of the hotel bits were dumb. A lot of the movie feels very rote and flat, like a TV movie, rather than a follow-up to The Shining.
I felt there was only one creative scene in the movie.
Rose the Hat’s out-of-body journey.
The rest just felt lame and unnecessary. I was hoping Flanagan would play with the setting a bit, since he did such a good job in The Haunting of Hill House of making a haunted house fell like an actual character, but The Overlook felt tiny and cheap.
Edit: Also a giant WTF at the scene with Bruce Greenwood interviewing Ewan. Hey, Flanagan! You thought we wouldn’t recognize that office?
I don’t get it. What’s the office from?
I actually kinda dug this movie. It’s not awesome but I thought it had this amazing tension and slow burn to it. Not knowing the source material outside of the origin movie, was kinda fun to see where it went. I was a little disappointed how it ended, but thought it was well acted (Rebecca Ferguson is AWESOME) almost all around (jeez hadn’t seen Carl Lumby in forever).
I agree with anonymgeist about the particularly enjoyable part–that really threw me and made me like it quite a bit more.
— Alan
It’s the same office Jack Nicholson had his interview with Ullman in the first movie.
Just got back from this. It definitely has issues, but I liked it overall and I think I might have preferred it to the book. It was, in fact, willing to play rougher than the book was, and there’s at least one major character death that is unique the movie. I think all three good guys that died in the movie made it in the book? But Danny absolutely does. Now, I’m not a huge fan of the ending, I think it spends too much time aping the Kubrick film poorly. But still. More teeth than the novel.
Also neither of Danny’s parents are appropriately cast at all. They don’t look a thing like the original actors.
Well, in the next sequel maybe they can use CGI to model Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall.
And in the next next sequel they can use a CGI Steven King to write the actual story.
CGI Stephen King already writes all his stories.
I watched this. It felt like a made-for-TV* movie.
It was OK, not as good as the book (which was OK as well).
(*Network TV. You know, back in the 3-channel olden times.)
The version on Blu-ray and streaming (currently) is a Director’s Cut with 30 extra minutes.
It includes a much extended talk between Danny and Jack in the hotel ballroom that goes into the bathroom just like Jack and Grady’s scene in the original.
Essentially the bulk of the stuff they put back in all has to do with Danny and Jack’s relationship in many forms as it’s a theme that stretches throughout the movie.
Still gotta say, I really like this movie. Yes it’s this weird funky sequel of both the book and the Kubrick film, but it does so many thinks nicely, I can’t help but like it.
— Alan
As someone who read neither of the books but was a big fan of the first movie, I didn’t have too many issues with it. As others have said, it wasn’t overly scary, but I thought it was a pretty interesting story and I enjoyed it.