Editorials
Before ‘Doctor Sleep,’ We Traveled With Horror’s Original Winnebago Vampires in ‘Near Dark’
In Doctor Sleep, Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Stephen King’s sequel to The Shining, Danny Torrance teams up with a powerful young girl to fend off a cult known as the True Knot. The True Knot is a makeshift vampire family of caravanning misfits. They travel the country in campers, EarthCruisers, and Winnebagos in search of victims to satiate their appetites and longevity.
They’re hardly the first nomadic vampire clan to grace the big screen, though, nor the first to call a Winnebago home. The psychotic vampires in Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark were pioneers of the Winnebago lifestyle, and they left an indelible mark on the genre.
Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasdar) thinks he’s in for a night of necking with Mae (Jenny Wright), the pretty gal he’s just met. He’s not exactly wrong. Just before dawn, their makeout session ends with a bite on the neck before Mae flees in a panic. The sun rises during his walk home, which causes his skin to smoke and blister. As his home is in sight, a Winnebago barrels through the pasture and picks him up. It’s Mae and her family. Just before Mae’s family destroys what they suspect is Mae’s unfinished meal, she reveals that she’s turned Caleb.
He’s now one of them. That is, if he can show he’s worthy.
This particular bunch revels in their bloodlust, and the only hard and fast rule seems to be that any witnesses to their carnage be snuffed out immediately. Mae’s family is led by patriarch Jesse Hooker (Lance Henriksen). His companion, Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein), has a progeny in Homer (Joshua John Miller), a decades-old vamp trapped in a child’s body. Then there’s Severen, the most gleefully sadistic of the bunch, played to memorable perfection by Bill Paxton. Severen’s bulletproof cowboy persona combined with Paxton’s charm gave us one-liners like “It’s finger-lickin’ good!” and “It ain’t what’s goin’ on, son. It’s what’s comin’ off. Your face. Clean off.”
The word “vampire” is never uttered in Near Dark. This blood-sucking family wields guns and weapons, traveling throughout the south in a Winnebago with blacked-out windows. They sleep in bungalows or cheap motels during the day and feed at night by exploiting the kindness of strangers. Homer lures victims by pretending to be a hurt child in the middle of the road. Severen uses his Good Ol’ Boy charm to woo ladies while hitchhiking. Jesse and Diamondback prowl together, reminiscing of their Confederate days during the Civil War when Jesse was newly turned.
They sometimes come together for an all-out brutal feeding frenzy in small-town dive bars, too. Leaving destruction and a high body count in their wake. Mae’s family is so bonded together and distinct in personalities that you almost wish Caleb would give in and join their ranks, just so we could spend more time with them. It’s brilliant casting. Bigelow cast Henriksen, Goldstein, and Paxton hot on the heels of their stint in Aliens. They’d already forged a shorthand and friendship working together on what was essentially a war movie, and Bigelow used it to create a believable family with deep roots. It’s easy to grasp straight away that this vampiric bunch has a profound love and respect for one another. Blood is thicker than water, right?
Bigelow and co-writer Eric Red set out to create a Western, which proved difficult to obtain financial backing for. Instead, they blended the western with horror, creating one of the most unconventional and engaging vampire films of all time. This beautifully shot gem is a gritty western that trades traditional black hat villains for a clan of vicious nomadic vampires. Jesse, Diamondback, Homer, and Severen make for an iconic bunch that steals the film. They live in poverty and constant upheaval, but they love their life and they revel in carnage.
The True Knot feed off of humans in a very different way, but there are still a lot of similarities between these two vampiric families. The impenetrable bonds, the Winnebago lifestyle, and the careful selection of who can join their ranks; it’s hard to imagine that Near Dark wasn’t some sort of touchstone in creating the cinematic version of the True Knot.
Mae’s family were the originators of the Winnebago vampire, but Doctor Sleep‘s True Knot carries the torch admirably.
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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