Taglines: The World will Shine Again.
On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless-mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and tween Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death. Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence.
Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.” Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul.
Doctor Sleep (marketed as Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep) is a 2019 American supernatural horror film based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Stephen King, a sequel to King’s 1977 novel The Shining. The film, which also serves as a direct sequel to the film adaptation of The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is set several decades after the events of the original and combines elements of the 1977 novel as well.
Doctor Sleep is written, directed, and edited by Mike Flanagan and stars Ewan McGregor as Danny Torrance, a man with psychic abilities who struggles with childhood trauma. Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, and Cliff Curtis have supporting roles. In the film, a now-adult Dan Torrance must protect a young girl with similar powers from a cult known as The True Knot, who prey on children with powers to live long.
Warner Bros. Pictures began developing a film adaptation shortly after Doctor Sleep was published in 2013. Writer-producer Akiva Goldsman wrote a script, but the studio did not secure a budget for the film until the box office success of its 2017 horror film It, also based on a novel by King. Flanagan was hired to rewrite Goldsman’s script and direct the film. Flanagan said the film would try and reconcile the differences between The Shining novel and film. Filming began in September 2018 in Georgia, including Atlanta and the surrounding area, and concluded in December 2018.
Warner Bros. Pictures released Doctor Sleep worldwide from October 31, 2019, and in the United States on November 8, 2019. The film received generally positive reviews, with praise for its performances and atmosphere, but with some criticism for its lengthy runtime. Having grossed $72 million worldwide, its performance at the box office was considered to be disappointing due to the success of King adaptations such as It Chapter Two and Pet Sematary, earlier in the year.
About the Story
In 1980, sometime after their traumatic experiences in the haunted Overlook Hotel, Danny Torrance and his mother Wendy live in Florida. Danny sees one of the Overlook’s ghosts—the rotting woman from Room 237—in his bathroom. Dick Hallorann, a benevolent spirit, explains that the ghosts feed on Danny’s psychic ability, his “shining”. Now that the hotel has been abandoned, the starving ghosts are pursuing Danny. Hallorann teaches him to lock them in imaginary “boxes” in his mind. Meanwhile, the True Knot, a cult of psychic vampires[9] led by Rose the Hat, extend their lifespans by consuming “steam”, a psychic essence released as they torture and kill those who have the shining.
In 2011, Danny—now “Dan”—has become an alcoholic to suppress his shining. After stealing money from a single mother, following a one-night stand, he realizes he has hit rock bottom. He moves to a small New Hampshire town and befriends Billy Freeman, who finds him an apartment and becomes his AA sponsor. Rehabilitating, Dan becomes a hospice orderly. He uses his shining to comfort dying patients, who nickname him “Doctor Sleep”. He also begins receiving telepathic communications from Abra Stone, a young girl whose shining is even more powerful than his. Meanwhile, Rose and her lover, Crow Daddy, observe a teenager named Snakebite Andi who has the ability to psychically control individuals. They later recruit Andi into the True Knot after feeding her the steam of Violet, a young girl who the cult murdered at the start of the film.
In 2019, the True Knot are starving as the steam has become increasingly rare. They abduct a young boy, Bradley, and torture him to death for his steam. A teenage Abra senses the event, and her distress alerts both Dan and Rose. Rose sets her sights on Abra, planning to extract her steam. Realizing the danger, Abra visits Dan in person and tells him she can track the cult if she touches Bradley’s baseball glove. Dan refuses to help, telling her to suppress her shining to stay safe. That night, Rose projects her consciousness across the country and infiltrates Abra’s mind but finds that Abra has set an imaginary trap, which injures Rose. After cult member Grandpa Flick dies of starvation, Rose sends the remaining members after Abra.
Hallorann visits Dan a final time, telling him to protect Abra as Hallorann once protected him. Dan tells Billy about the True Knot. They travel to the murder scene and exhume Bradley’s body to retrieve his glove. They recruit Abra’s father, Dave, and have him guard Abra’s body as she projects herself to a local campsite, luring the cult there. Dan and Billy shoot most of them dead, though a dying Andi compels Billy into suicide.
Meanwhile, Crow Daddy kills Dave and abducts Abra, drugging her to suppress her shining. Dan telepathically contacts Abra, who lets him possess her, and manipulates Crow into crashing his car, killing him and freeing Abra. While Dan and Abra reunite, Rose consumes the cult’s remaining stockpile of steam, healing her wounds and vowing revenge. As a last resort, Dan brings Abra to the Overlook, believing it will be as dangerous for Rose as it is for them. He starts the hotel’s boiler and explores the dormant building, “awakening” it with his shining. He revisits the rooms where his alcoholic father, Jack, influenced by the Overlook, attempted to murder him and Wendy. At the hotel bar, Dan is greeted by “Lloyd”, a ghostly bartender who strongly resembles Jack Torrance. The apparition attempts to tempt Dan into drinking again, but Dan ultimately declines.
Rose arrives at the Overlook. Dan and Abra pull her consciousness into Dan’s mind, which resembles the Overlook’s endless hedge maze. Dan tries to trap her in an imaginary box but fails. Rose, attracted by Dan’s shining, invites him to join the cult, but he refuses. When she overpowers him and begins consuming his steam, Dan opens the boxes, releasing the Overlook’s hungry ghosts from his mind. Rose, being a psychic vampire, is vulnerable to direct attacks by the ghosts.
They brutally kill her, consuming her steam and then possessing Dan. He and the ghosts pursue Abra to Room 237. She tells the hotel that Dan sabotaged the boiler. Dan, regaining momentary control, tells her to flee. Possessed, he rushes to the boiler room but regains control before the hotel can make him deactivate it. Flames engulf the room. In his last moment, Dan sees a vision of himself as a child being embraced by his mother, Wendy. Abra watches helplessly as the hotel burns down just as the authorities approach.
Doctor Sleep (2019)
Directed by: Mike Flanagan
Starring: Rebecca Ferguson, Ewan McGregor, Jacob Tremblay, Cliff Curtis, Bruce Greenwood, Emily Alyn Lind, Carel Struycken, Chelsea Talmadge, Violet McGraw, Catherine Parker, Carl Lumbly
Screenplay by: Mike Flanagan
Production Design by: Maher Ahmad, Patricio M. Farrell
Cinematography by: Michael Fimognari
Film Editing by: Mike Flanagan
Costume Design by: Terry Anderson
Set Decoration by: Gene Serdena
Art Direction by: Richie Bearden, Austin Gorg, Justin O’Neal Miller
Music by: The Newton Brothers
MPAA Rating: R for disturbing and violent content, some bloody images, language, nudity and drug use.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: October 30, 2019 (Worldwide), November 8, 2019 (United States)
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