Doctor Sleep | 2019 | R | – 6.8.6

Why is “Doctor Sleep” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “disturbing and violent content, some bloody images, language, nudity and drug use.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes several scenes of full frontal female nudity and an implied sex scene; an extended scene of brutal violence inflicted on a child and several other violent scenes leading to death and bloody wounds by gunshot and stabbing, a scene of child abduction that we understand led to the child’s murder, a few scenes of drunken fights, and encounters with beings that are seen in various stages of decay and with some bloody wounds; and about 11 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.”

---

Sequel to Stephen King’s “The Shining”: A man (Ewan McGregor) tortured by memories from his past tries to numb the pain with alcohol but he is tracked down by a teenage girl (Kyliegh Curran), who convinces him to help her find the people that are responsible for horrible acts of violence against children; she suspects that they could be coming for them next. Also with Rebecca Ferguson, Cliff Curtis, Zahn McClarnon and Emily Alyn Lind. Directed by Mike Flanagan. A few lines of dialogue are spoken in an unidentified language without translation as people chant. [Running Time: 2:31]

Doctor Sleep SEX/NUDITY 6

 – A boy walks toward a bathroom where a fully nude and decaying-looking woman stands up in the tub (we see bare breasts, abdomen, pubic hair and legs); we see this same being in a few more scenes (again, fully nude). A woman wears low-cut tops and dresses that reveal cleavage in a few scenes. A teenage girl wears a short skirt that reveals bare legs to the upper thighs. A woman’s skirt is lifted to reveal her bare legs to the mid-thighs.
► A man wakes up in bed next to a fully nude woman (we see her bare side, hip and buttock, with her crotch and breasts covered, and the man’s bare chest, back and buttocks); sex is implied.
► A man sits next to a teenage girl in a dark movie theater and asks her if she wants to leave; she snuggles up against him and whispers in his ear (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). Several people gather around a woman as she opens a canister and releases steam that she inhales and blows into other’s mouths and it seems almost sensual as they move close to each other, almost kissing and caressing each other. A teenage girl kisses a man’s bloody cheek, wipes blood from her lips and licks the blood from her finger.
► A woman talks to a teenage girl about her being in the springtime of her womanhood and that “Men know no shame.”

Doctor Sleep VIOLENCE/GORE 8

 – People in a van coerce a young boy to get in with them and we see the boy struggling as a man takes him out of the van and other people tie him with ropes to stakes in the ground; the boy pleads with the people to let him go and he cries and screams as a woman stabs the boy below the frame repeatedly and a vapor leaves his mouth with each blow (the people around him inhale the vapor), and we see blood spray on his face and neck as the woman stabs him again and he takes his last breath (a teenage girl in another place “sees” what is happening and screams and thrashes in her bed). A teen girl “shows” a man what happened when a boy was being murdered (we see a flash of the boy screaming) and the man falls to the floor holding his head.
► Several armed people move toward a teen girl seated on a picnic table and two other men with guns open fire on them; they exchange gunfire, with several people being struck and dying (bloody bullet wounds are seen and some spurt blood) and we see the dying people transforming to skeletal form as they scream and snarl like animals and disintegrate into a cloud of steam; a different teen girl coerces one gunman to sleep and he falls back on the ground, another man shoots her and she falls to ground dying. A teen girl in the back of a van gestures and causes the driver to slam into a tree (we see his body thrown through the windshield and he dies with snarling and yelling and he disintegrates into steam). A teenage girl coerces a man to shoot himself in the head (we see him lying on the ground with a bloody wound and blood pooling on the ground).
► A man brings an axe down on a woman’s shoulder and we see blood spurt; the woman stabs the man in the leg and he bleeds and falls down a flight of stairs, she then presses her finger in the wound, causing blood to spurt, and the man screams. A teen girl with a knife slashes a woman on each leg a couple of times (we see blood on the wounds and dripping from the knife) and the girl tells the woman, “You’re gonna die here.” A woman floats through clouds in the sky and transports herself to a teen girl’s room where she searchers through drawers with details about the girl’s life; the girl becomes aware of the woman’s presence and slams the drawer on the woman’s hand and as the woman tries to free herself the skin on her hand is peeled back (we see bloody torn flesh when she finally gets free); we see the girl wearing a wig and with no eyes as she confronts the woman.
► A boy walks toward a bathroom and is frozen in his tracks; he stands in the hallway quaking and hyperventilating as he sees something in the bathtub reach to open a curtain and a puddle of urine forms at the boy’s feet. A boy rides a three-wheel vehicle through hotel hallways and stops at a door as it opens; a ghostly looking creature moves out of the darkness and the boy is startled awake. A man says that another man is “cycling” (i.e. dying) and we see the man as his skin changes color and he flashes from flesh to skeletal in appearance, he yells and thrashes and snarls and when he takes his last breath he blows out a puff of steam and disintegrates. A boy walks toward a bathroom where a fully nude decaying woman (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details) stands up in the tub, the boy closes the door and we hear a scream from inside the bathroom; the boy comes out unharmed and we do not see the woman. A ghostly decayed young woman with gray-tinged skin and sores on her mouth reaches toward a man in a bed and says, “They haven’t found us yet” as we see a toddler in the same state (they presumably died elsewhere) lying next to her. A teenage girl goes into a trance-like state and her eyes turn completely white. A torrent of blood flows out from an elevator in an abandoned hotel.
► A man in a bar starts a fight with another man and we see them punching each other: the first man hits the other man in the head with a pool ball repeatedly and blood splatters until two bouncers take the first man out (we see him with a bruised eye later). A man sits next to a teenage girl in a dark movie theater and asks her if she wants to leave; she snuggles up against him and whispers in his ear putting him to sleep as she uses a pocket knife to cut his cheek (we see blood dripping from the wounds) and she says that he “…likes little girls,” steals money from his wallet and leaves.
► Many ghostly, partially decayed or bloodstained beings surround a woman and force her to the floor, where they press their hands under her flesh, pull at her as she screams and eventually dies; the beings turn on a wounded man and attempt to do the same thing as he screams and his eyes turn white. Two men dig in the ground and find a young boy’s body; when they get close they both remark about the smell and one talks about the same smell when he killed a deer; we see the boy’s sneaker, one hand and his face with worms crawling on and in it as both men recoil and vomit (we see goo). A man is shown dead with a knife in his chest and blood on his clothing and the floor underneath him.
► A man with an axe chases a teen girl through an abandoned hotel and when he finds her he tries to hit her with the axe; the axe stops short of the girl’s head. A teenage girl lies on sand on a beach and a woman leans over her while several other people stand nearby chanting; the woman inhales a “steam” that she releases from a canister and blows it into the teen’s mouth, causing her to writhe and scream until her eyes glow. A teenage girl transports herself into a woman’s body and when the woman tries to hold onto her she pushes back yelling, “Get out of my head,” breaking a glass door and throwing the woman on the floor (the woman’s nose bleeds). A young girl walks through woods near a camp ground and approaches a woman seated by a lake; the woman entices her closer with a magic trick and grabs the girl’s arm as several other people move closer to them and when she tries to pull away we see blood on the woman’s hand, the woman’s eyes glow and the other people crowd closer to them (the scene ends). A man and a woman grab a teenage girl as she leaves a movie theater and put her in a van. A woman holds a teen girl in the air by the throat. A man’s eyes and a teen girl’s eyes turn completely white and they transport a woman to a giant hedge maze.
► A woman calls out from across a street and runs toward her young son in a panic because she had been unable to find him. We hear rhythmic heartbeats in the background of several scenes. A cat sits on the feet of the beds of people in a hospice center and each time the individual dies; one time we hear the man breathe deeply and gasp and he exhales a vapor as he dies. A woman threatens a teen girl and tells her, “You will scream for years until you die.” A toddler cries as a man takes money from a woman’s wallet (the woman seems like she might be unconscious and the child is hers). A man says, “My father beat me senseless, and my grandma too.” Several scenes show people with special abilities speaking in each other’s heads. A boy tells a man, “I won’t shine anymore” and, “She’ll keep coming back until she gets me.” We understand that a boy has not spoken for some time and his mother pleads with him to talk to her. A teen girl tells a woman that a ceremony made her feel like she was dying; the teen asks, “Am I still human?” A man talks to another man about a boy having a bone disease. A man in a hospice says that he is afraid that “It’s going to be dark” when he dies. A dying man coughs and says, “I’m not scared of hell, I’m scared there’s nothing” as he dies. A man talks about watching his mother die and that he couldn’t look at her at the end because he saw her face covered with flies. A man says that his father died when he was 5. A man talks about something, “Eating screams and drinking pain.”
► A teenage girl looks at a website of missing children and finds a boy that she saw being murdered. We see a missing child poster with the picture of a little girl on it. Several people gather around a woman as she opens a canister and releases steam that she inhales and blows into other’s mouths causing everyone’s eyes to glow. A woman inhales steam from several canisters and her eyes glow brightly. We see a boy sucking his thumb for comfort in a couple of scenes and a teenage girl sucks her thumb while she sleeps.
► A man goes into an abandoned hotel in a snow-covered mountain area and he fires up the generators (they rumble and churn). A man walks through an abandoned hotel and finds a couple of doors with broken parts and a couple of doors with the word “Redrum” etched on them and he has a flashback to his mother holding a knife and screaming in fear as his father breaks through a door with an axe. A man and a woman walk into a kitchen and see many spoons dangling from the ceiling; they look at their young daughter and the spoons crash to the floor. A man gets up from bed and runs to the bathroom where he vomits a few times into a filthy toilet (we hear deep retching and splatter and see some goo as it hits the toilet water). A man wakes up in an underpass, coughs and vomits (we see string of saliva and goo from his mouth).

Doctor Sleep LANGUAGE 6

 – About 11 F-words, 5 scatological terms, 3 anatomical terms, 15 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, bleeding heart, silly old cat, scary, peachy keen, honey, freak, devils, child, liar, bonkers, false face, polluted, dirty), exclamations (count your blessings), 4 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh God, Jesus, Hope To God). | profanity glossary |

Doctor Sleep SUBSTANCE USE

 – A woman snorts cocaine, a teen girl injects a girl in the neck with a hypodermic needle to knock her unconscious, and a man injects a teen girl in the neck with a hypodermic that knocks her unconscious and threatens to dose her again when she wakes up. A man drinks a lot and smokes cigarettes in a bar, a man drinks a couple of glasses of scotch in rapid succession, a man tells another man that he’s sick (referring to addiction), a man holds a bottle of scotch and throws it on the floor shattering it and splattering the contents on the floor, a teen girl wakes up in a stupor and talks about being hungover (a man is occupying her body) and we see many people gathered at an AA meeting, a barman refers to alcohol as medicine and a cure-all, and a barman pours another man a glass of whiskey but the barman drinks it.

Doctor Sleep DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Magic, pedophilia, intuition, luck, hospice, dying, death of loved ones, justice, consequences, arrogance, loneliness.

Doctor Sleep MESSAGE

 – Your past tends to find you no matter how much you try to keep it hidden.