WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Doctor Sleep, in theaters now.
With Mike Flanagan's Doctor Sleep building on Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, one of the most intriguing aspects of the sequel is the new individuals who can "shine" as well that the older Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) encounters. These people, both good and bad, have seemingly magical abilities that sometimes make them appear as as gods walking among men, resulting in the Shining-Verse becoming a much different place than we first assumed.
Taking these gifted people into consideration and what they use their powers for, it's pretty clear Danny and his kind are actually Stephen King's X-Men.
For decades, Marvel's Children of the Atom have been the voice of the different, the outcasts and those who society fear because they just don't understand them. And these are the kinds of people -- super-powered introverts turned heroes and secret cabals plotting world domination -- we meet as Flanagan continues to bring King's vision to life on the big screen. Danny's at the forefront, basically a version of Professor Xavier with his telepathy and mind-control abilities, made even better by his ability to possess bodies with his mind. He's not the only omega-level "mutant" in this story, though, as he has his own protege and Jean Grey-like figure in the teenage Abra (Kyliegh Curran).
She's just like Marvel Girl, with powers of telepathy, telekinesis, astral projection and more. She even has a dark side to her, as she tries to protect herself and the people she loves. In fact, she's hidden from society just as Jean's parents hid her, all because of that fear of rejection triumphing over acceptance. That parenthood issue is a common theme in Flanagan's movie that also runs in so many X-Men stories. Nonetheless, Abra rises above like Jean, taking important advice from Danny as if he were the Professor, to guide her as she moves on to form a legion of her own.
What's also very interesting is King's mutants have to remain hidden because of the vampire Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), who goes around sucking steam, or the life force, of these gifted people. She's a bit like the X-Men's vampiric villain Selene, but with the mentality of Magneto, as she believes her kind is better than humanity and other shiners who don't meet her criteria. Her legion, the True Knot, also has members with various powers and actually comes off like the Brotherhood of Mutants, purifying the world in their image.
We even see Rose's right-hand man, Crow, with a serum that can suppress the powers of Danny and Abra, which reminds us of the cure for mutanthood from so many X-Men books, and also, of inhibitor collars which are thrown around mutants' necks to stop them from using their powers. Crow nullifies Abra's powers with it and almost kills her journey off of being a messiah meant to find and liberate others. With this in mind, Crow, his inner-circle and Rose also possess shades of the seedy Hellfire Club, looking to assert dominance in secret with their seedy empire. You do feel sorry for them as well, because like Magneto's squad, the Knot's being manipulated into the crusades of the powerful mutants in Flanagan's movie. Ultimately, they're all outsiders who don't feel like they belong and end up finding a place to call home with these tyrants as all they've searched for their entire lives is a family.
This battle of good versus evil, of people hidden in the shadows so mankind won't be affected, draws so many parallels to the X-Men, it's a no-brainer why Warner Bros. was eager to get this out. It's definitely the studio's spin on mutants and shows how diverse King got in this franchise by introducing new and mysterious aberrations left, right and center to ruin Danny's quest for closure and happiness.
Written and directed by Mike Flanagan, Doctor Sleep stars Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, Carl Lumbly, Alex Essoe and Zahn McClarnon. The film is now playing everywhere.