With the release of Doctor Sleep, the highly anticipated sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, the expected comparisons to the 1980 horror masterpiece have begun. Fans of Stephen King’s novel, on which the film was based, were elated to find out that Doctor Sleep would also be a continuation of that storyline as well, taking inspiration from the sequel novel that King wrote featuring an adult Dan Torrance grappling with his demons from the Overlook Hotel.

The Overlook Hotel (really the Timberline Hotel) in Colorado was as much a character in Kubrick’s film as the rest of the cast, with its curious geometric carpets, hedge maze, and spectral guests. Built on an old indigenous burial ground, its denizens seemed to be starved for anyone that possessed the “shining”, Dan’s special ability that wasn’t featured as much in The Shining but makes a big appearance in Doctor Sleep.

THE TRACKING SHOTS ARE THE SAME

As Dan and Abra make their way to the infamous Overlook Hotel for the final showdown, audiences are greeted with identical tracking shots from the opening scenes of The Shining film. Whereas Glacier National Park was on stunning display in broad daylight, Doctor Sleep show it at night covered in snow.

Once they arrive at the hotel, Dan has to “wake it up” by walking through its cobwebbed corridors. The tracking shots are identical to his father Jack Torrance strolling through the hotel, complete with the usage of Steadicams just like Stanley Kubrick.

THE OVERLOOK OFFICE

When Danny interviews with his AA group leader, John Dalton, to become a hospice caretaker, he’s seated in an office that is an exact replica of the one occupied by Mr. Ullman, who interviewed Dan’s father Jack to be the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. This seems to indicate that wherever Danny goes, the Overlook Hotel will be a part of him forever.

The details in the office are exact, right down to the small American flag, and the yellow and blue curtains that frame the “impossible” window. In the film Room 237, fans of The Shining explain that according to the Overlook Hotel blueprint, Ullman’s office is in the middle of the hotel, and would therefore have no window that looks to the outside.

THE ENCOUNTER ON THE STAIRS IS THE SAME

There are many similar scenes in Doctor Sleep that directly reference The Shining, and the majority of them take place at the Overlook Hotel. There’s a key scene where Rose the Hat slowly walks up the stairs in front of an axe-wielding Dan, a mirror of the scene in which his father Jack slowly ascends the stairs towards an axe-wielding Shelley Duvalle.

Other scenes include Rose the Hat standing at the same table where Jack Torrance’s Eagle typewriter sits, untouched and as new as the day he set it there. Dan tries to use it as a gateway to trap her in one of his mind boxes, but she proves too powerful.

OF MINIATURES AND MEN

The maze was one of the many new elements that Stanley Kubrick introduced to The Shining film that wasn’t found in the pages of King’s novel. He felt it represented the labyrinth of the mind, and the many ways a person could get “lost” in it if they weren’t careful. A miniature of the hedge maze is found in the Overlook Hotel.

Miniatures take the form of just one of the many visual echoes that prove adult Dan can’t escape from the Overlook Hotel in Doctor Sleep. When he arrives in a small town to start his life anew, he encounters a miniature version of the town square, where he ends up operating a train.

237 AND 217 ARE THE SAME ROOM

Much fervor has surrounded Room 237 ever since Kubrick’s The Shining was released, especially since that room number never appears in King’s novel. The room in the novel is 217, but the Timberline Hotel (which was used for the Overlook Hotel) wanted the room number changed to 237 as it felt it would frighten guests from staying in Room 217.

Room 217 makes an appearance in Doctor Sleep as a nod to The Shining novel, in the hospice facility where Dan works as an adult. 217 is the room where he encounters Dick Halloran, whom he befriended at the Overlook Hotel as a boy, and who also possesses the “shining” gift.

A FALSE FACE

After Dan has been attacked by the guests of the Overlook Hotel, he is possessed by its demonic spirit and chases Abra throughout the hallways and rooms with an axe. She confronts him and explains she knows the real Dan is still alive, and that he’s wearing a “False Face”. This is a term that young Danny used in Stephen King’s novel to describe his father, who had also been possessed by the hotel and was chasing him with an axe.

The concept of the “False Face” came up earlier when adult Dan sat in the Gold Room and engaged with Lloyd the bartender, who didn’t appear as he did in the The Shining but assumed the appearance of Dan’s father, Jack Torrance. The hotel uses the guise of people closest to the individual it’s trying to possess to psychologically break down their defenses.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE OVERLOOK HOTEL

While there were many differences between Stephen King’s novel and Stanley Kubrick’s film of The Shining, one of the biggest occurred at the end and concerned the fate of the Overlook Hotel. At the end of the novel, Jack Torrance neglects the boiler and it bursts into flames, taking down the Overlook Hotel and all the spirits inside.

In Doctor Sleep, Dan Torrance purposefully heads to the boiler room first, overloading it in order to destroy The Overlook once and for all. While this didn’t make it into the Kubrick version, it’s included in the 1997 mini-series version of The Shining, which is a much more faithful adaptation of Stephen King’s novel and one he personally worked on.

DANNY USES THE SAME AXE JACK USED TO ATTACK ROSE

In order to stand against Rose the Hat, Dan reaches for the same iconic weapon wielded by his father Jack Torrance in The Shining; an axe. The axe that Danny uses seems surprisingly new, especially given that everything else in the hotel is fairly eroded after 40 years.

However, as Danny makes his way around the Overlook Hotel with Abra, the hotel seems to feed off their “shine”, making bulbs burn brighter and certain areas (especially the Gold Room) seem almost returned to their former glory. When Dan is possessed by the spirit of the hotel, much like his father, he chases after Abra with the axe, accompanied by the same limp his father had (albeit this time courtesy of Rose the Hat).

THE OWNER OF THE OVERLOOK HOTEL

As an adult, Danny Torrance had to learn to deal with the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel following him. Hungry for his “shine”, they would appear whenever he was at his lowest point and most vulnerable, especially when he drank. One ghost in particular, a party guest covered in confetti tells Danny, “Great party, isn’t it?”.

In Doctor Sleep, this ghost appears again at the Overlook Hotel when Danny and Abra return, and absorbs Rose the Hat’s essence when she comes to claim them. This is supposed to be the ghost of Horace Derwent, the deceased owner of the Overlook Hotel.

THE SHINING NEVER SHOWED THE INSIDE OF ROOM 237 FROM DANNY’S PERSPECTIVE

One of the many classic scenes in The Shining involves Danny rolling around on his Big Wheels bike down the famously garish geometric carpet of the Overlook Hotel. He stops at Room 237, which we see is open in Doctor Sleep, and he gets a glimpse of the rotting woman in the bathtub.

Kubrick never explicitly showed viewers Room 237 from Danny’s perspective, leaving some fans to wonder what exactly happened to him in there. Some fan theories included his father abusing him, but now we see that Danny was haunted by the rotting woman. Even after he escapes the Overlook Hotel and his mother moved them to Florida, he had to learn how to confront his fear of the Hotel ghost.