Doctor Sleep Dvd

Doctor Sleep is a 2019 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Mike Flanagan. It is 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. Ewan McGregor plays the lead role 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, Dan Torrance, now an adult, must protect a young girl with similar powers from a cult known as the True Knot, whose members prey on children to extend their lives.

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.

Doctor Sleep held its world premiere at the Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles on October 21, 2019, and was theatrically released 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. Grossing just $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. However, despite the box office performance, the film enjoyed a resurgence of interest and popularity when it premiered on streaming services in 2020.

Plot

In 1980, Danny Torrance and his mother Wendy live in Florida. Dick Hallorann, now a benevolent spirit, explains that the hotel’s ghosts feed on Danny’s psychic ability, his “shining”. Now that the hotel has been abandoned, the starving ghosts are pursuing Danny. He teaches him to lock them in imaginary “boxes” in his mind. Meanwhile, the True Knot, a cult of psychic vampires 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 “Dan” has become an alcoholic to suppress his shining. After stealing money from a single mother, Dan realizes he has hit rock bottom. He moves to a small New Hampshire town and befriends Billy Freeman, who gets him an apartment. Billy then becomes Dan’s AA sponsor; 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 greater than his.

In 2019, the True Knot are starving; the steam has become rare. They abduct a young boy, Bradley, and torture him to death for his steam. A teenage Abra senses the event, and alerts Dan, in the form of the word REDRUM (‘murder’ in reverse) appearing on his wall, and Rose. Rose watches Abra, planning to extract her steam. Abra visits Dan 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 physically injures Rose. After cult member Grandpa Flick dies of starvation, Rose sends the remaining members after Abra.

Dan tells Billy about the True Knot and they 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. Rose consumes the cult’s remaining steams, 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 coax Dan into drinking again, but Dan ultimately declines.

Rose arrives at the Overlook. Dan and Abra pull her consciousness into Dan’s mind, resembling the Overlook’s endless hedge maze. Dan tries to trap her in an imaginary box but fails. When Rose 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 kill her, consuming her steam and then possessing Dan. He and the ghosts pursue Abra to Room 237, where she tells the hotel that Dan sabotaged the boiler. Dan, regaining control, tells her to flee. Possessed, he rushes to the boiler room but regains control before the hotel can make him deactivate it. 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.

Sometime later, Abra talks to Dan’s spirit; they assure each other that they will both be okay. Abra’s mother learns to adjust with her daughter’s powers, especially in communicating with the spirit of her deceased husband. As her mother leaves the room, Abra notices the ghost of the rotting woman from the Overlook is in the bathroom and prepares to lock the ghost up just as Danny did.

Cast

Ewan McGregor as Danny “Dan” Torrance, an alcoholic man with psychic powers known as “the shining”. The character first appeared as a child in the film The Shining, played by Danny Lloyd.
Roger Dale Floyd plays a young Danny Torrance.
Rebecca Ferguson as Rose the Hat, leader of the True Knot, a cult that feeds on people with psychic powers.
Kyliegh Curran as Abra Stone, a girl with “the shining”.
Dakota Hickman plays a young Abra Stone.
Carl Lumbly as Dick Hallorann, the late head chef of the Overlook Hotel who has “the shining”. Dick was played by Scatman Crothers in The Shining.
Zahn McClarnon as Crow Daddy, Rose the Hat’s lover and right-hand man in the True Knot.
Emily Alyn Lind as Snakebite Andi, a young member of the True Knot who is able to psychically control people.
Bruce Greenwood as Dr. John Dalton, leader of Dan’s AA group and his boss at the hospice.
Jocelin Donahue as Lucy Stone, Abra’s mother.
Cliff Curtis as Billy Freeman, Dan’s friend, co-worker, and AA sponsor.
Robert Longstreet as Barry the Chunk, a member of the True Knot.
Carel Struycken as Grandpa Flick, an aging member of the True Knot.
Alex Essoe as Wendy Torrance, Dan’s mother. Wendy was played by Shelley Duvall in The Shining.
Zackary Momoh as Dave Stone, Abra’s father.
Jacob Tremblay as Bradley Trevor, a victim of the True Knot, known to Abra as the “baseball boy”.
Henry Thomas as The Bartender, an apparition who calls himself Lloyd but has the face of Dan’s father, Jack Torrance. Thomas also portrays Jack briefly in flashback scenes. In The Shining, Jack Torrance was portrayed by Jack Nicholson and the bartender Lloyd was portrayed by Joe Turkel.
Additionally, Catherine Parker appears as Silent Sarey, Met Clark as Short Eddie, Selena Anduze as Apron Annie, and James Flanagan as Diesel Doug, all members of the True Knot cult. Violet McGraw portrays Violet, a child who is murdered at the start of the film by the True Knot cult and later fed to Snakebite Andi as part of her induction into the group, whilst Bethany Anne Lind portrays Violet’s mother. Sadie and KK Heim portray the Grady sisters, with Kaitlyn McCormick and Molly Jackson providing their voices; the characters were originally played by Lisa and Louise Burns in The Shining. Sallye Hooks portrays Mrs. Massey, Michael Monks portrays Delbert Grady and Hugh Maguire portrays Horace Derwent, respectively; played by Lia Beldam and Billie Gibson, Philip Stone and Norman Gay in The Shining.

Danny Lloyd, who played Danny Torrance in The Shining, makes a cameo appearance as a spectator at Bradley Trevor’s baseball game. Lloyd had been retired from acting for roughly 38 years, and was direct-messaged on Twitter by Flanagan to appear in the film. Producer Trevor Macy said of Lloyd’s involvement, “[Lloyd] was excited to do [the cameo]. He hadn’t acted since [the original]. He’s a schoolteacher, and a very successful one at that, like making the world better. He came back for a day, and we were thrilled to have him.” When pressed as to why the filmmakers did not extend the same offer to Jack Nicholson, Macy responded, “With Jack, I knew that they approached him for Ready Player One, and that he seems to be very serious about being retired. I had known that he was supportive [of the sequel] but retired.”

Regarding the recast characters, Flanagan explained, “We explored everything, and there were only really two options as I saw it: It was either going to be something that was performed, or something that was digital. And even if we had Nicholson come back, based on the rules of the hotel and how the ghosts appear with respect to their age, he’d be performing the part through a digital avatar.” Flanagan said that de-aging and digital actors, while improving rapidly, were still inadequate. “The idea of having a digital Danny Torrance riding a trike five minutes into the movie, that just seemed like we were making a video game at that point. It felt disrespectful.” Noting that any solution would be controversial, the director decided that the best approach “was not to do impressions; it was to find actors who would remind us of those iconic performances, without ever tipping into parody… I just want to be able to tilt people’s memories toward those original actors, but then let the characters be their own. I want to cast someone to play Dick Hallorann; I don’t want to cast someone to play Scatman Crothers.” The idea of casting a Nicholson impersonator as Jack was also considered, as was casting a big-name actor associated with or reminiscent of Nicholson, such as Leonardo DiCaprio or Christian Slater. Nicholson was also invited to make a cameo appearance as another character, but declined.

Connections to The Shining novel and film
Further information: The Shining (film) § Comparison with the novel
Doctor Sleep is based on the 2013 horror novel of the same name by Stephen King. The 1977 novel The Shining was adapted into a 1980 horror film of the same name by director Stanley Kubrick. King was critical of Kubrick’s film adaptation to the point of writing and executive-producing a new adaptation with the 1997 television miniseries.

While the film Doctor Sleep is intended to be a direct adaptation of the 2013 sequel novel, director Mike Flanagan said Doctor Sleep still “acknowledge[s] Kubrick’s The Shining in some way”. Flanagan said, “It is an adaptation of the novel Doctor Sleep, which is Stephen King’s sequel to his novel, The Shining. But this also exists very much in the same cinematic universe that Kubrick established in his adaptation of The Shining.” He explained working with all the sources, “Reconciling those three, at times very different, sources has been kind of the most challenging and thrilling part of this creatively for us.”He first read the novel, and then had a conversation with King to work out adapting all the sources. As part of the process, Flanagan recreated scenes from The Shining to use in flashbacks. Same as The Shining, Flanagan also avoided the horror film trope of jump scares.

On why he wanted to present the film as a continuation of Kubrick’s film, Flanagan expressed, “The Shining is so ubiquitous and has burned itself into the collective imagination of people who love cinema in a way that so few movies have. There’s no other language to tell that story in. If you say ‘Overlook Hotel,’ I see something. It lives right up in my brain because of Stanley Kubrick. You can’t pretend that isn’t the case”. King initially rejected Flanagan’s pitch of bringing back the Overlook as seen in Kubrick’s film, but King changed his mind after Flanagan pitched a scene within the hotel towards the end of the film that served as his reason to bring back the Overlook. Upon reading the script, King felt that the elements of Kubrick’s film that he disliked were “redeemed” for him in Doctor Sleep.

While the climax of the film does differ from the novel, it closely adapts the original events from King’s source material of The Shining, centered around the final events at the Overlook Hotel (but with Dan and Abra reenacting the roles of Jack and young Danny, respectively); which was heavily omitted from Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of the latter much to King’s disappointment. Thus this film can be seen as a bridge for King’s Doctor Sleep and The Shining, incorporating events from both novels. Flanagan said that in his film, “Almost everything Dan does [is] Jack’s story from [the original novel].” In including these elements into the Doctor Sleep film, Flanagan explained, “I saw it as this gift, to me as a fan, and from me to him as well — that yes, we’re going to bring back this Kubrickian Overlook world, and I wanted to celebrate that film. But what if, in doing so, at the same time, you get elements of that ending of that novel, The Shining, that Kubrick jettisoned? Then you start to get the ending you never did, and that King was denied.”