The Pumpkin King: DOCTOR SLEEP (2019)

We Go On

(spoilers for DOCTOR SLEEP follow)

2019’s DOCTOR SLEEP, from writer/director Mike Flanagan and based on the 2013 novel by Stephen King, is about a whole host of things: addiction, legacy, power, and more. But one of its biggest themes is death. The Biblical phrase “in the valley of the shadow of death” lingers throughout every frame of this movie, whether it’s Dan (Ewan McGregor) moving through the trauma of his father’s murders and death, or his job at a hospice, or simply the many ghosts that surround him. The pull of Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) and the rest of the True Knot is to elude death as long as possible while it hangs over them. Hell, they need others to die to evade their own mortality for a while longer. Death hovers over the film like the grim specter it is in our own world.

Dan says of his prospective job working with the dying: “The world's just one big hospice with fresh air.”

Rose The Hat says to Abra (Kyliegh Curran): “But I think the only difference between you and me? Time. You don’t know yet what you’d do for more time. Promise you, dear...oh you’d be surprised.”

Abra: “We go on...after. We go on. And he’s okay.”

There is the push/pull amongst these psionic characters of being haunted by the phantasms of death while also clearly knowing there is something more than life. It’s an interesting contradiction that; most people are afraid of death because they don’t know what happens next, if anything. Here’s a group of people that know for certain that there is another plane of existence, and yet they are all held in the fearful grip of an impending demise.

It takes an apparition to spur Dan into action, to remind him that death can be confronted. This intervention also dovetails into the third step of A.A. for this recovering alcoholic: We came to be aware that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. For some this means God, for others it simply means community. In this moment, it means that Dan is awakened to the fact that he is part of something bigger and that, even though scared of the possible outcomes, he is aware that there’s a grander cosmic scheme at work.

The fact that death is such a major motif in the film and book is reflected in the title. This isn’t called THE STEAMING, or TRUE KNOT, or ABRA, or THE SHINING II: REVENGE OF THE OVERLOOK. It’s DOCTOR SLEEP, the name bestowed upon Dan by a dying patient who finds solace as he shuffles off this mortal coil. This is in the same instance that Dan assures the patient that we go on, that we needn’t be afraid, that maybe dying is just like going to sleep. That last part is mildly contradicted by the gruesome deaths that happen throughout the film, but in general the idea is that death needn’t be this grand mystery that terrifies us but simply part of the greater scheme of things. It’s something you can’t literally behold but you know it’s there, it’s coming; in that respect, we all have a bit of the shine when it comes to death—we anticipate its arrival and can see what is otherwise invisible.

But why is death such an important figure in DOCTOR SLEEP? Let’s look at the source material.

It’s the 51st novel by Stephen King (that doesn’t count novellas or short stories) who wrote it when he was about 65 years old. It’s a sequel to arguably one of his best and most popular books of all time that was essentially untouched (outside of some references and Dark Tower stuff) for 36 years. King knows he is looking down the twilight of his life and he knew it could be folly to revisit this beloved story (especially when throwing in psychic vampires to boot).

But the larger story is one of acceptance of death, that stories continue beyond the exciting climax up to the moment the characters die...and as DOCTOR SLEEP makes abundantly clear, even then the story goes on. Death comes for us all—even the nigh immortal True Knot monsters are not impervious to it. But that’s okay. It’s okay to be afraid of it but it’s better to embrace the fact that it needn’t be the end.

Obviously this could be seen as some higher power/heaven/afterlife screed and part of King’s ever-expanding personal beliefs. But I think it ties into one of the other themes of the story: legacy. There’s the genetic and learned component of addiction that Dan wrestles with, passed on from his father. There’s the long history of the great accomplishments of the True Knot that Rose recites as Grandpa Flick is dying. There are the wandering ghosts from the Overlook that, despite being “defeated” years ago, still persist and seek out their former prey. There’s the echo of Jack Torrance (Henry Thomas), eternally stuck serving drinks in his own tomb. And there’s the lessons that Dan taught Abra about standing up and shining on in the face of monsters.

Maybe that’s how we truly go on. It’s the actions that we perform in life that reverberate through others down through the centuries. Those lessons and values that we exhibited staying through the years with those with whom we interacted. Jack never really left Dan, due to the trauma of his rampage but also the rage-fueled alcoholism he passed on to his son. And while Dan worked A.A. to help purge some of that from himself, it still lives inside of him and will always be a part of him—even if only to react against in his actions and daily life.

Here's another example of legacy in DOCTOR SLEEP: TeenyTown. The model city that the kids in the town built (acting as a sort of foil to the Pet Sematary) is what these children have left behind. And now it’s a place that allows for a fresh start for a broken-down psychic. It’s a place where friendships are forged, between Dan and Billy (Cliff Curtis) and it’s where Abra and Dan meet in person for the first time. This literally small, seemingly innocuous creation stands the test of time and still causes change on a scale that no child could have ever predicted.

In other words, we go on.