Doctor Sleep Actress Shares Behind-the-Scenes Photos of The Shining Hotel Recreation

Heading into Doctor Sleep, fans knew that it was a sequel to The Shining, but with the source [...]

By Patrick Cavanaugh

Heading into Doctor Sleep, fans knew that it was a sequel to The Shining, but with the source novel featuring the complete destruction of the fictional Overlook Hotel, audiences were shocked to see how director Mike Flanagan had found a way to bring the iconic location back to life. Alex Essoe, who played Wendy Torrance in the film, recently took to Instagram to show off some behind-the-scenes photos of the recreation of the massive set, which also includes a glimpse of Henry Thomas doing his best impression of Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance from the original 1980 Stanley Kubrick adaptation of the Stephen King novel.

"I've been going through old photos and found a grip of [behind-the-scenes] shots from [Doctor Sleep]," the actress captioned her post. "The best memories ever on this shoot. More to come!"

From the hotel's iconic carpet to the young Danny Torrance on his tricycle, the photos give us an even better look at how faithfully the sequel revived the famous location.

In Kubrick's 1980 film, Wendy and Danny Torrance are able to escape from Jack when he becomes lost in the hedge maze and freezes to death. In the original novel, the hotel is also totally destroyed when the boiler explodes. In the Doctor Sleep novel, a grown-up Danny is haunted by horrifying events from his past, with the climax taking place at the ruins of the Overlook. These conflicting storylines required Flanagan to get creative with how to conclude his film.

In addition to reviving locations, he also had to enlist performers who could match the effectiveness of the stars from the 1980 film.

"That was the hardest part of this, I think, because the only other option is to do some kind of digital thing where you try to recreate another actor and I don't feel like the technology is quite there yet," Flanagan previously shared with ComicBook.com. "It always distracts me and I always start looking at the tech, so I didn't wanna do that."

He added, "Because we're using so much of the visual language of the Kubrick film, I wanted these actors to remind me of Shelley Duvall and of Scatman Crothers and that was enough, if they could have just a couple of notes that reminded me of those other actors and then, take the character over from there into a new place, that's what I wanted. I hope we pulled that off. It's gonna be one of the more controversial aspects of the movie, to be sure."

Doctor Sleep is available now on home video.

What do you think of the behind-the-scenes images? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

Trending Now: