SHINE ON

WALKING AROUND THE Overlook Hotel is a trip. Empire enjoys the privilege of many incredible set visits, from greenscreen planets to vivid real-world locations. This, though, is something else. We’re really here. In that reception area. On that staircase. By that room numbered 237. And a day after we leave, it will all be gone.

It’s November 2018 and we’re in Atlanta for Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep, an adaptation of Stephen King’s 2013 sequel to his 1977 book The Shining, but also a substantial nod to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 masterpiece. Flanagan’s team have meticulously recreated Kubrick’s set. Every inch is as we last saw it in on screen, and there will be flashbacks: this temporary Overlook is new, but haunted by ghosts nevertheless. Room 237’s terrifying, cackling old lady gives us an incongruously cheery hello. From around a corner, the young twins unceremoniously emerge, almost as frighteningly as they do in the original film.

Flanagan greets us, his T-shirt decorated with the classic yellow film poster. “I’ve been wearing a series of nerdy T-shirts,” he explains of his attire. He’s a super-fan. “I never would have believed we’d get a chance to do this,” he says, delight spilling out of him. “It’s very strange to walk onto a set for the first time and know where everything is. Playing in the world of …I never thought it was gonna be possible.” It wasn’t. He made it so.