Last Updated: 27th August, 2022

Doctor Sleep: Since the prequel book/movie’s success, a sequel to Stephen King‘s 1977 cult novel ‘The Shining‘ a mystery/psychological horror film, Doctor Sleep by Mike Flanagan is centered after several decades. The movie features Ewan McGregor as Danny Torrance, the son of The Shining lead character Jack Torrance, directed and written by Mike Flanagan.

Danny is a fellow who’s had psychic prowess termed ‘The Shining’ and has been grappling at the Outlook Hotel with all of psychological trauma since his childhood.

Doctor Sleep also features an ensemble case of Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, Carl Lumby, Zahn McClamon, Emily Alyn Lind, Bruce Greenwood, Jocelin Donahue, Alex Essore and Cliff Curtis.

With the movie (Doctor Sleep) released in theatres on Friday, 8th November 2019, here are a few things you need to know before watching the Ewan McGregor starred.

Doctor Sleep, however, is a sequel to the novel as well as the timeless classic The Shining by Stanley Kubrick.

The original story of The Shining saw Jack Torrance take up the job of a winter caretaker for the secluded Overlook Hotel, thinking the seclusion would help him overcome his writer’s block.

However, the hotel itself is a place for malevolent beings, and Danny, Jack’s son, is able to see them because of his gift of ‘The Shining’. The story tracks their stay in the hotel as the spirits observe the child for their powers and gradually overpower Jack’s own being when he becomes homicidal, vengeful and vindictive.

The book sees Danny being able to escape with his mum after mentally overpowering his dad, while Jack, in a moment of heroism, sets the boilers to explode, killing him and destroying the hotel. He got trapped in the labyrinth in the screen adaptation and froze to death.

Set decades later, after The Shining, Doctor Sleep focuses on a now-adult Dan Torrance, who too, like his dad, struggles with substance abuse and alcoholism. The alcohol, in a way, subdues his abilities.

However, he mends his way and joins a hospice, where, thanks to his abilities, he becomes Doctor Sleep, easing patients in their last moments before death.

Consequentially, Dan is approached by Abra, a teenage girl who seems to have the Shining, and also the story shows how he and the girl are confronting a cult regarded as True Knot since the girl for her ability.

Nonetheless, for Stephen King’s sympathizers, the novel’s resolution is completely separate from the movie, but maybe in a wonderful way.

In fact, while Stephen King’s dislike for Kubrick’s version of his novel is well documented, during a recent interaction with Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King went on to say that Doctor Sleep ‘redeems’ Kubrick’s The Shining.

Stephen King said that he would be reading the script extremely critically and in Doctor Sleep he was reconciled for just about everything he resented about the Kubrick interpretation of The Shining.