Check out the first teaser trailer for Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep, the sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film 1980 film The Shining, both works of which have been adapted from the novels of Stephen King.
The film follows the story of Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor), 40 years after the events of The Shining (Danny was the son of Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance in that film).
Still struggling from the traumatic events of The Shining, Danny tries to find some semblance of peace until he meets the young girl Abra (Kyliegh Curran in her feature debut), who also has the ‘shine’ ability.
The ‘shine’ ability essentially means they can see and interact with dead people and otherworldly types, be as it may.
It was never explicitly explored in The Shining, however, it looks as though Doctor Sleep will dig deeper into these ‘dead people’, as we catch glimpses of new characters including Rebecca Ferguson’s Rose the Hat, who leads a troupe of followers known as The True Knot, whose goal is to feed off the ‘shine’ of innocents on their quest for immortality.
It sounds a bit convoluted because it is, and even Kubrick’s masterpiece was invariably open to interpretation.
The fact that this film, which is also based on King’s best-selling novel of the same name, digs deeper into the lore should answer some questions that fans that have seen The Shining but have never read the follow-up sequel novel, may have.
Mike Flanagan directs the film and is an excellent choice, his past work including the likes of horror films Gerald’s Game (2017) and the excellent Hush (2016), as well as the highly regarded Netflix TV series The Haunting of Hill House (2018).
The trailer for the film was intriguing and it does feel like it has matched the tone of The Shining, albeit with Flanagan’s particular touch.
I can’t imagine it’ll hold a candle to Kubrick’s film, but should definitely make for some entertaining viewing.
It hits cinemas on 7 November 2019.
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