Stephen King, the master of horror, returned to the universe of The Shining in 2013 with the book’s sequel, Doctor Sleep. Now, the book is getting the same treatment as its predecessor and is heading to the big screen.
And yes, it looks like Stanley Kubrick’s iconic hotel set will be revisited and terrify us once again.
The final trailer for upcoming horror film adaptation Doctor Sleep dropped on Sunday, featuring a glimpse at the film’s main protagonists, Ewan McGregor and Kyliegh Curran, and their battle against the angry ghosts who want to harm them, led by Rebecca Ferguson.
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The events of Doctor Sleep take place 40 years after The Shining and follows a now grown-up Danny Torrance (McGregor) helping teenager Abra (Curran) cope with her own powerful extrasensory gift, known as “the shine.” The pair must, however, be careful as a group called The True Knot, led by Rose The Hat (Ferguson) intends to feed off their gifts to reach their goal of immortality.
Aside from just the Overlook Hotel itself, with its brown, red, and orange carpet, the trailer also calls back to the creepy twins, and the horrifying “Redrum” door in Torrance’s old room. That door still has the hole where Jack hacked away at it with an axe.
Oh, and also that lift blood scene. Just in case you weren’t haunted by The Shining enough as a kid.
Despite King not being a huge fan of Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining, Doctor Sleep’s director, Mike Flanagan, explained in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he wanted to marry the book with the universe that Kubrick created, and that he sought King’s approval in that process.
“This project has had for me the two most nerve-wracking moments of my entire career,” said Flanagan. “The first was sending the first draft of the script to Stephen King, and that was utterly terrifying, but he thankfully really loved it. And the second was at the end, very recently, of this post-production process, when the film was sent to Stephen to watch and also to the Kubrick estate. Both went very well.”
Doctor Sleep will be released in theatres on 8th November.