I am reviewing the novel Doctor Sleep by Stephen King which is a very good horror story and which I bought from a local supermarket. This book is the long awaited sequel to The Shining and primarily follows the story of Dan Torrance the young boy who tells his parents there is an evil presence in room 217 of the hotel where his parents are caretakers and his dad has a drink problem. The name The Shining refers to the gift the son has and the energy force he detects is called steam and is given off by people. In this book his mother was badly injured by the explosion at the end of the book and has obtained damages from the company who owned the hotel but these weren't as substantial as if she had held out for more. This book follows on from the story in the book rather than the film which obviously had to be shortened. Dan has this gift and in this book tells his mother to keep out of the bathroom due to another evil presence but spends long periods without eating or speaking. The other survivor out of The Shining helps care for him but they have become drifters and encounter other people who are mostly getting on in years but live on the steam the living people give off and that person or victim inevitably dies as they absorb their energy. This story reminds me of Desperation also by Stephen King and although not a sequel to that book there are certainly similarities. There is a happy ending and I think it is a reasonable sequel although not as good as the original. Apparently when they made The Shining film originally Stanley Kubrick wanted to make a film about Napoleon Bonaparte starring Jack Nicholson and when that fell through because it had wasted quite a bit of Jack's time they decided to do The Shining. I did read they did a survey of the best horror film and 1st was The Exorcist, 2nd was Halloween & 3rd was The Shining. I enjoyed reading this novel but it's not a classic.

I am reviewing the horror film Insidious Chapter 2 which is fairly good. I think the first film in this series was excellent and they would have been better off not making a sequel. This film almost puts you off the first and looks as though it was done in a hurry and was planned at the last moment. The plot for those who have seen the first film is the lady medium is lost in the spirit world and the police suspect the father of killing her. Unknown to the others the father's spirit is still in the spirit world having been sent there by the medium to retrieve his son and his body is inhabited by an evil spirit. The son's spirit is back in his body but he can still visit the spirit world in his dreams which is how all this trouble started in the first place. There was an evil spirit trying to take over the son's body that left him in what appeared to be a coma. Anyway the spirit in the dad is the Black Bride, a notorious serial killer who was a man who dressed as a black bride prior to commiting his crimes. There is 3 men who assisted the medium in the earlier film who are trying to sort out this mess in this film. The father is played by Patrick Wilson who starred in Hard Candy among other films. They do achieve some tension in him trying to harm his son but otherwise this film falls flat on its face. I think it's a shame because some of the team on this film worked on Sinister & the first 2 Paranormal Activity films which were quite good. I found myself looking at my watch more than at the screen with this film which I couldn't wait to end. It does have a happy ending but there is a tacked on bit that makes a sequel likely.