Pouring Joy at the Overlook Hotel

Write what you know, that’s the old adage, right? I mean, it’s crap, but it’s what they say. I once had that line thrown at me when, as a callow twenty-something in my first job out of university, I presented a short play I had drafted to a member of my amateur dramatic society, who had herself just had her first script sold to Samuel French. With hindsight, given that her play revolved around a character’s absent father being revealed as having transitioned, and that it did so with all the grace of a noughties TV talkshow, I would say that it was a bit rich. But, it’s a saying that has pervaded the creative industries for many, many years. And, there’s a kernel of truth in it. Many of us, myself included, use places that we know, incidents and feelings that we have experienced in our writing. Often, it’s what makes it resonate with our audience. I set my debut novel in a prison because I used to work in one. My other novels are set in my hometown of Oxford, because I know it.

There are other things that writers will use, things that we know. In particular, we use our demons, our traumas and our fears (the day I write a creature feature about giant centipedes is that day I truly face my phobias). And sometimes we write a story that really captures them. 

Today I want to talk about Stephen King. Or specifically, one of his novels and its rather excellent film adaptation. Today I want to talk about Doctor Sleep.

If you discount The Dark Tower which has always been a series, Doctor Sleep was the first time King had written a direct sequel to a previous novel. Since then he’s written the Mr Mercedes trilogy as well as several follow-ups revolving around Holly Gibney, who first appears in Mr Mercedes. But Doctor Sleep was the first time he returned to an older character and setting – in this case the character was Danny Torrance and the setting was the Overlook Hotel and The Shining. 

If you haven’t read the book, I heartily recommend that you do. But, I am going to primarily focus on the film (this is a movie site after all). As research for this article (the sacrifices I make, honestly), I watched the Director’s Cut of the film, largely because more Mike Flanagan is usually a good and spooky thing. I enjoyed it greatly and I really want to read the book again now.

But, why start the article in the way I did if my main purpose was to write about a horror movie? Well, because I think that the source material for the film is a prime example of ‘write what you know’. When King wrote The Shining, he was drinking heavily, a functioning alcoholic, and that bleeds into the words. King famously dislikes the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of his book, and one of the reasons is its relegation of Jack Torrance’s alcoholism. When King returned to the Torrance family, namely Danny, the scared and psychic child of the first book was now an adult who had himself turned to the bottle as a way of drowning his ghosts. Flanagan manages to pull off the very neat trick of adapting the book in a pretty faithful manner while also making it a direct sequel to the much-loved original movie while keeping the novel’s themes of addiction, hauntings of the past, and ultimately of recovery.

Danny is running from himself and his actions before he finds the courage to ask for help. He is offered it and takes it with both hands. Unlike his father who never managed to overcome his addiction, Danny finds sobriety. He has, effectively, two sponsors. One is living and the other is the ghost of Mr Halloran (wonderfully portrayed by Carl Lumbly in the film). But still, Danny is scared and when approached by Abra, another young psychic like he was, but much stronger, his initial response is to tell her to go home, even though he knows she’s in danger. As Halloran tells him, he grew up okay, but he still owes a debt. And so Danny becomes Abra’s protector, a recovering victim and addict doing what he can to keep her safe from the predators that circle them.

Here again you see the themes of addiction in the film, because Abra is being hunted. There is a group of travellers that call themselves the True Knot. They are long-lived powerful individuals who feed off the ‘steam’ that is given off by people like Danny and Abra, and to get the best hit they need to feed on children. Specifically, scared and hurting children – the greater the pain and the fear, the bigger the hit these energy vampires get. The True Knot’s leader, Rose the Hat explains it as ‘eat well, stay young, live long’. The problem is that in order to live long, they must eat well and so they drift across the US in their convoy of motorhomes, hunting, hurting and feeding on children as they go. If they fail to maintain a proper supply, the consequences (as seen in one upsetting scene in the film) are fatal. They are addicts who have utterly sacrificed themselves to the darkness of it. If Danny represents the hope that addiction can be broken and moved on from, the True Knot are what can happen if you choose to go the other way. When you consider how many monsters King has created in his career, it says a lot that the True Knot, and especially Rose the Hat, are as frightening as they are.

Throughout the film, Flanagan maintains the air of unease and creeping dread that he is so very, very good at, but when the film reaches its climax as Danny and Abra prepare to confront Rose in the one place that might defeat her, the goosebumps become mountains. The film sees Danny and Abra return to the boarded up hulk of the Overlook – the hotel that claimed Danny’s father and nearly killed him too. The malevolence of the place is evoked beautifully as Danny walks its corridors, waking the evil up. And it feels him, and it remembers him, and it speaks to him. And this is where the film makes its most radical departure from the book. When the hotel speaks with Danny, it does so through his father.

The scene between Danny and the ghost of his father, now the Overlook’s bartender, is wonderfully done. It’s unsettling, tense, emotional and it works. That’s obviously down to the actors playing the scene - Ewan McGregor is excellent as Danny and Henry Thomas does a fine job portraying Jack, even drifting into Nicholson’s mannerisms when he loses his temper. The hotel (the management, as Jack tells his son), wants Abra too. Why not just leave her here, it says. Why not just take the easy way out? No one will ever know. Just think of yourself, look out for number one, and if you start to feel guilty, why not just take a drink?

This change upset a lot of people, and I can understand why. It can be argued that it removes Danny’s own agency in his recovery, and it comes at the expense of the redemption arc that runs through the story, as well as Danny’s guilt over his actions at the start of the book (you see these in the film too). But if you take the film as its own beast, it works.

To my mind, there are three phases of Stephen King’s writing. There’s the early years, where he was in the depths of addiction. Then there’s the recovery years, marked by the publication of Needful Things, and finally there’s what has become the longest phase, the survived-being-hit-by-a-van phase, which is where Doctor Sleep sits. In my opinion, this book covers aspects of King’s entire writing life – it looks back to his time spent in addiction as well as considers his journey to recovery. Finally, it looks at themes of passing on, both in terms of helping others but also mortality and what that really means. And, as he has done and I am sure will continue to do, Mike Flanagan nails it.

"Medicine. Medicine is what it is. Bona fide cure-all. The mind is a blackboard, and this is the eraser."

Lloyd the bartender/Jack Torrance, Doctor Sleep (2019)