Sadistic guards, brutal inmates, crooked prison wardens and the horror of being stuck in prison for a murder you didn’t commit: yep, The Shawshank Redemption sure is one of cinema’s most uplifting experiences. The movie version of Doctor Sleep is arguably more satisfying than the novel, since Dan actually has to go back into that hotel. King’s Kubrick antipathy is legendary, but King burnt the Overlook down while Kubrick left it standing.

On the page and on screen it’s all an odd business, but Flanagan’s great success here was his insistence that Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining couldn’t be ignored. The antagonists this time are an itinerant cult called the True Knot, headed up by Rebecca Ferguson's Rose the Hat, who travel the States in Winnebagos and feed on a psychic essence they call 'Steam’, which they harvest by murdering children who have the Shining (something Flanagan doesn’t shy away from, with appropriately appalling results). The grown-up 'Dan’ Torrance ( Ewan McGregor) now lives in New Hampshire, working in a hospice where his psychic ability helps ease terminally ill patients in their final moments. Having achieved the supposedly unachievable with Gerald’s Game, he was the obvious choice for the daunting task of King’s belated 2013 sequel to The Shining. Chapter Two is a more muted affair than its predecessor, but crucially it fixes King’s clunky ending, and, as before, it’s the characters and relationships that are It’s absolute strength. Bev ( Jessica Chastain and Sophia Lillis) also has some arguably even darker stuff to confront. His job is complicated by the fact that, while the other Losers do recall some great traumatic event of their past, they've all blocked out exactly what it was. Mike (now played by Isaiah Mustafa) starts to get vibes that ancient evil Pennywise ( Bill Skarsgård indescribable once again) is returning, so rounds up the Losers Club – who've all gone their separate ways in the intervening decades – for the rematch they promised with their childhood blood oath. The second half of Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of King’s 1100-page doorstop picks up 27 years later, and swaps in an adult cast – although there are still flashbacks to the kids, meaning the delineation between the two films wasn’t quite as clear cut as expected.

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