Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings. This week’s Femme Fatale Friday post is about Rose the Hat, the primary antagonist of Doctor Sleep. I find Rose the Hat to be truly one of the scariest female horror villains, which is why I wanted to write about her. After all, she is a truly fatal female, and that makes her a perfect subject for a Femme Fatale Friday post. I also chose to do this post today, as it is the fifth anniversary of the release of the film Doctor Sleep!
I read the book upon its release, and my husband and I went to see the film in theaters. Both the novel and film are incredible. Mike Flanigan was able to make the film both an adaptation of the novel, which is a sequel to King’s The Shining novel, and a sequel to the Kubrick film The Shining (famously loathed by Stephen King). The fact that this film is actually loved by King makes me very happy! Given that today is the anniversary of the film, I will be discussing the story using the film as the main reference point.
Now that I have covered my preamble about the film, I want to examine Rose the Hat. Rose the Hat is the first main character in the film that the audience is introduced to. She appears as an enigmatic woman who is talking to a young girl about magick. The little girl is drawn to Rose the Hat like a moth to a flame, sensing the power of this woman but not the danger until it is too late. Rose the Hat has friends waiting in the wings, her group, the True Knot. All of them are psychic vampires who are attracted to people who have the Shining, as they have steam that the True Knot feeds on to keep themselves living very long lives!
During the film, Rose the Hat is shown initiating a new member into the True Knot, using the last of the steam from the little girl at the beginning of the film. New members are initiated when they have proven that they have psychic abilities that would be beneficial to the True Knot, making them more than food! This is an interesting aspect of the True Knot that they are both psychics, therefore having steam themselves and feed on other psychics to keep themselves alive. The boundary between being a member and being food to keep the collective of psychic vampires alive is often hazy.
As the story progresses, Rose the Hat picks up on a young girl named Abra when she tries to track Rose after having a psychic vision of a young boy who was the True Knot’s latest victim as he died. This is when Danny Torrence, now simply going by Dan as an adult, gets involved in a battle with Rose the Hat as he is protecting Abra! Abra and Dan are shown to have shared a psychic bond since Abra was young, being able to communicate at long distances. Abra is smart in the way she approaches the psychic interactions with Rose the Hat after being instructed by Dan. Rose the Hat’s friends and followers at the True Knot are all killed off by Dan in his desire to protect Abra.
When Rose the Hat finally meets Dan, she is impressed by his psychic ability and is surprised she had never picked up on him as a child, but he had been protected. Dan is able to kill Rose the Hat by unleashing all of the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel on her in an epic ending to the film! Rose, the Hat’s reign of terror, ends when she loses all of her True Knot and cannot convince Dan Torrence to join her.
I hope you have enjoyed this short look at Rose the Hat, a truly terrifying horror villain who was willing to kill children to keep herself alive. What is the most interesting thing about Rose, in your opinion? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is Rose the Hat from the beginning of the film. I found the picture on https://www.amazonmandy.com/cosplay-2/rose-the-hat.
LINK TO AVALONIAN ROSE FAERY MYSTERIES PATREON: https://patreon.com/AvalonianRoseFaeryMysteries?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Further Reading/Watching
- Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
- Doctor Sleep (2019)