Danny Torrance returns to the Overlook Hotel in the final trailer for Doctor Sleep. Though it was far from the first Stephen King adaptation, the success of 2017’s IT ushered in a new era for movies and TV shows based on the iconic horror author’s work. Since then, a new version of Pet Sematary has hit the big screen, in addition to this week’s release of IT Chapter Two. And while there are several other King adaptations in the pipeline, a movie based on his sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep, will reach theaters first.
Ewan McGregor stars in Doctor Sleep as Danny Torrance, who’s now in his forties and still traumatized by his near-death in the Overlook all those years ago. The Doctor Sleep teaser placed a heavy emphasis on the film’s connections to The Shining, but also provided a sneak peek at some of the important new characters in the movie (like Rebecca Ferguson’s villainous Rose the Hat). By comparison, the final trailer lays out Doctor Sleep’s plot in broader strokes before (literally) taking Danny back to the place where his troubles began.
Warner Bros. premiered the final Doctor Sleep trailer in theaters with IT Chapter Two a couple days ago, but has since released it online. Check it out in the space below.
The final trailer expands on the teaser, revealing more about what Danny’s life has been like since the events of The Shining. In particular, the footage shows Danny trying to turn over a new leaf in a small town, using his “shining” powers to comfort the dying patients in a local hospice (earning him the titular nickname). In King’s book, Danny spends years drifting across the U.S. and drinking to suppress his abilities before sobering up, and it looks like the movie will follow suit. Doctor Sleep’s themes about trauma and addiction are ones that writer-director Mike Flanagan has explored to powerful effect before, in both The Haunting of Hill House series and his previous Stephen King movie adaptation, Gerald’s Game. The filmmaker has excelled at examining these issues through the horror genre for much of his career, really, so he ought to be comfortable tackling them yet again here.
Similarly, Flanagan and his team appear to have done a terrific job recreating the Overlook Hotel and even specific camera shots from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining in Doctor Sleep. The movie functions as a sequel to both King and Kubrick’s versions of The Shining, so it will have to tweak a few of the details from its source material. For the most, though, the plot still appears to revolve around Danny helping Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran), a teen girl with powerful “shining” abilities who’s targeted by Rose and the True Knot - a cult of semi-immortals that prey on children with “shining” powers and feed on the psychic essence (or “steam”) their dying bodies give off. It’s a pretty twisted story, for sure, but one that Flangan ought to do justice by on the big screen.
Source: Warner Bros. Pictures
- Doctor Sleep Release Date: 2019-11-08
