THIRTY-FIVE YEARS after the publication of his novel The Shining, Stephen King has announced a sequel.
Called ‘Dr Sleep’, it’s due to be published next year – more than three decades after Jack Nicholson’s iconic turn as Jack Torrance, rampaging through the haunted Overlook Hotel.
It’s fair to say that the movie has probably caused more nightmares than Stephen King’s had hot dinners. So what has he got in store for the sequel?
Based on what he’s told fans at various book fairs, here’s what we know:
- King was prompted to write the sequel because he “always wondered what happened to that kid, Danny Torrance”.
- Danny and his mother Wendy, who escape the possessed Jack Nicholson character at the end of the original, received a “small settlement” for the trouble of being chased round a terrifying hotel by an axe-wielding lunatic.
- This keeps them going for a while, but they lead a troubled life. Danny is still haunted by some of the phantoms from the Overlook Hotel, including the dead woman from room 217.
- In middle age after a lifetime of drinking and moving around, he discovers a hidden community of vampires disguised as regular people who travel around America in RVs.
- “Most of them look old and many of them are pretty darn fat”.
- They’re called The Tribe. “What they sucked out was not blood but psychic energy from special people like Danny Torrance,” King has said.
- Danny has to fight them.
Bonus: Here’s one of the reasons the original film was so terrifying. Warning: contains a LOT of blood.
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