Fans of Stephen King will have a lot of digest in Doctor Sleep. Not only is Mike Flanagan’s new film the sequel to The Shining, but there’s at least one Easter Egg that eagle-eyed King fans can get excited about.
In a new interview with Bloody-Disgusting, Mike Flanagan talked about the villains in Doctor Sleep, “The True Knot,” who have been traveling the world and devouring the magical essence of psychic children all over the world, which they call “steam.” Of course, there’s no shortage of psychic children who already exist in Stephen King’s novels and stories, so that raises the question: did The True Knot kill any other characters we’re already familiar with?
“I love that implication, that The True Knot was operating under the radar all over the world, so I think there’s absolutely room for that in that universe,” Flanagan said.
“And I thought too, there were even cousins to The True Knot in other of his stories. I tried to put a little reference in to… there’s a creature in the Dark Tower universe named Dandelo,” Flanagan reminds us. “And it’s an emotional vampire but the emotion that it feeds on, instead of fear, the steam it gets from people it gets while they laugh. And so it had become this stand-up comedian. People would laugh themselves to death.”
“We put a poster for his stand-up show in front of the movie theater, trying to kind of point to some of the other creatures like this. Because I do think the True Knot, in the book as I read them, I was like… I feel like I’ve bumped into things like this before in his world,” Flanagan adds.
“So I think it would be, I think yeah, absolutely, let the True Knot tear up some of those kids. I just feel bad, I haven’t read The Institute yet so I don’t know if that is even what happens, because that from what I understand, he really leans into that idea of just how many of these kids are out there,” Flanagan says.
The book Flanagan is referring to is Stephen King’s latest novel, which is all about a group of psychic children who find themselves trapped in a secret facility with adults who want to steal their powers. You can find out for yourself whether The Institute has deeper connections to King’s other work by reading it now.
As for Doctor Sleep, if Mike Flanagan is such a huge fan of Stephen King (which he is), and if he’s so detail-oriented that he’d stick a poster for a minor Dark Tower reference in the background of his latest film (and he is), then there’s probably a lot more to uncover in the new film.
So get cracking, Stephen King fans! What other Easter Eggs can you find…?!
