Trying to match Stanley Kubrick is a dangerous game
The first trailer for Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining has dropped, and it makes liberal use of callbacks to Stanley Kubrick’s sublime horror classic.
Doctor Sleep is actually kind-of-not-actually a sequel to the cinematic version, instead just an adaption of Stephen King’s follow-up novel (King infamously hated the Kubrick version of his book). Set 40 years later, it stars Ewan McGregor as a grown-up Danny Torrence.
Still, this trailer is full of nods to the 1980 film. There’s the scary twin girls, the blood in the elevator, and that iconic carpet. It is not the first time The Shining has been recreated in a recent movie – the otherwise god-awful Ready Player One had a fun scene where the characters ran around a VR version of Overlook Hotel.
The official synopsis reads:
Doctor Sleep continues the story of Danny Torrance, 40 years after his terrifying stay at the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson and newcomer Kyliegh Curran star in the supernatural thriller, directed by Mike Flanagan, from his own screenplay based upon the novel by Stephen King.
Still irrevocably scarred by the trauma he endured as a child at the Overlook, Dan Torrance has fought to find some semblance of peace. But that peace is shattered when he encounters Abra, a courageous teenager with her own powerful extrasensory gift, known as the “shine.” Instinctively recognizing that Dan shares her power, Abra has sought him out, desperate for his help against the merciless Rose the Hat and her followers, The True Knot, who feed off the shine of innocents in their quest for immortality.
Forming an unlikely alliance, Dan and Abra engage in a brutal life-or-death battle with Rose. Abra’s innocence and fearless embrace of her shine compel Dan to call upon his own powers as never before—at once facing his fears and reawakening the ghosts of the past.
Doctor Sleep is in cinemas November 8th.
