Rise & Shine

THE SEQUEL TO THE SHINING IS FINALLY HERE. DIRECTOR MIKE FLANAGAN AND STARS EWAN MCGREGOR AND REBECCA FERGUSON TELL TOTAL FILM ABOUT THE TERROR OF RETURNING TO EVERYONE’S FAVOURITE OLD HAUNT WITH DOCTOR SLEEP…

- Jamie Graham

It’s kind of crazy,” muses Mike Flanagan, a gentle, quietly spoken, unassuming man who is one of the hottest horror directors on the planet right now. “I spent the first part of last year in the foyer of Hill House, and ended it in The Overlook.” He chuckles. “It was a fine way to spend a year.”

‘Fine’ doesn’t come close. For a self-confessed “fanboy” such as Flanagan, it is the stuff that dreams (nightmares?) are made of. Consider, also, that Flanagan successfully unpicked the handcuffs of Stephen King’s ‘unfilmable’ novel Gerald’s Game in 2017, and he must feel like he’s living in a King Extended Universe right now. Think about it: Flanagan’s 10-part Netflix triumph The Haunting Of Hill House was an ingenious reimagining of Shirley Jackson’s seminal 1959 novel, which was the key influence on Stephen King’s 1977 classic The Shining. And now Flanagan’s adapting King’s 2013 novel Doctor Sleep, the long-awaited sequel to The Shining. “It’s completely surreal,” nods the writer/director. “The snake eating its own tail.”

But if you think that’s complicated, then how about this: as well as serving as a faithful adaptation of King’s (very personal) novel, Doctor Sleep sets out to be a sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s revered 1980 movie. Revered, that is, by everyone but King, who famously loathes it. “In the novel, Jack Torrance is… fundamentally a sympathetic character,” King said. “I saw these characters as warm, being threatened by forces from without – from ghosts, from real supernatural creatures. The film is extremely cold, and Stanley Kubrick saw the haunting coming from Jack Torrance. We had a fundamental difference of opinion.”