Doctor Sleep trailer: Prepare for the world to shine once more

The first trailer for the film adaptation of Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep has arrived, and comes with a heavy dose of nostalgia.

After dominating the world of literature, Stephen King is now taking over the film and TV industries, with a number of his works being adapted, but one in particular has fans waiting not so patiently: Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining.

A bit over three decades after The Shining was published, King blessed us with the sequel, Doctor Sleep. The novel, published in 2013, follows Danny Torrance, Jack and Wendy’s son from The Shining, as he still deals with the trauma he suffered at the Overlook Hotel decades ago.

Now, the novel has been adapted to the big screen thanks to director Mike Flanagan (Gerald’s Game) and with Ewan McGregor as Danny Torrance, and the first trailer has finally arrived.

Unlike many trailers from the genre, Doctor Sleep (thankfully) doesn’t give too much away and shares just enough as to not leave us wondering what it is about. What it really does, however, is send us a few decades back to the events in The Shining… Stanley Kubrick’s film version, not the novel. After all, Danny is struggling with the trauma left by his experience at the Overlook Hotel many, many moons ago, and the trailer does a great job in reminding us just that.

The trailer includes many shots recreating some of the most iconic moments from Kubrick’s version, including the ghost girls in the hallway, the woman in the bathtub, and the torrents of blood from the elevator. But probably the moment that made every fan’s heart stop for a millisecond (or at least that happened to me) was when Danny finds the door.

You know, the door. From the iconic “here’s Johnny!” scene.

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In addition to catching up with Danny, Doctor Sleep also follows Abra, a teenager with the brightest “shining” ever, who asks him for help against a tribe of people called The True Knot, who feed off the shine of others in order to become immortal. To help her, Danny will have to deal with his own demons.

Director Mike Flanagan has previously explained that Doctor Sleep is an adaptation of the novel that exists “in the same cinematic universe” as Kubrick’s movie. Basically, it’s not a sequel to the The Shining movie, but it doesn’t ignore its existence either – it takes elements from it to better tell the story. I wonder what Stephen King thinks about this, given his disapproval of Kubrick’s version.

In all honesty, it sounds like Flanagan wants to make peace between the novel and the movie (or between King and Kubrick), and that’s fine by me, especially because we will get to see what Danny has been up to, how he has been dealing with his childhood trauma and powers, and how he will use them to help Abra.

Doctor Sleep, starring Ewan McGregor and Kyliegh Curran, will be released on Nov. 8.