Jocelin Donahue joins Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Mike Flanagan is assembling an awesome cast for his new film DOCTOR SLEEP, which is an adaptation of a Stephen King novel that happened to be a sequel to the King classic THE SHINING. Picking up decades after the events at the Overlook Hotel, the film is set to star Ewan McGregor as the adult Danny Torrance.

The story Danny gets mixed up in this time: 

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and tween Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted readers of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.

The supporting cast Flanagan has built around McGregor includes Kyleigh Curran as Abra Stone, Carl Lumbly as Dick Halloran, Alex Essoe as Wendy Torrance, Bruce Greenwood as Danny's friend Dr. John Dalton, Rebecca Ferguson as cult leader Rose the Hat, and Zahn McClarnon as her right hand man Crow Daddy. 

Now there has been another great addition to that line-up: THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL star Jocelin Donahue has signed on to appear in the film, taking on an unspecified role.

Donahue's other horror credits include THE BURROWERS, INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2, SUMMER CAMP, HOLIDAYS, and DEAD AWAKE.

I haven't read the DOCTOR SLEEP novel so I can't imagine how the story will play on the screen, but Flanagan is making sure that it's going to be brought to life by some of my favorite actors.

DOCTOR SLEEP is scheduled to reach theatres on January 24, 2020.