Why Baseball Boy’s Death Scene Was Almost Even Worse

The death of the Doctor Sleep baseball boy was the most brutal scene in the film, but it was almost worse. It was so traumatic that Doctor Sleep author Stephen King intervened, convincing director Mike Flanagan to scale it back a bit. Baseball Boy died at the hands of The True Knot in Doctor Sleep, as the nomadic, vampiric cannibals fed on the “steam” that comes from killing people gifted with the Shine, such as Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) and Abra Stone (Kyleigh Curran).

When Dan and Abra deduced that Baseball Boy was Rose the Hat and the True Knot’s next victim, they raced to save him, but they were too late. Audiences saw that failure depicted during the young boy’s graphic death scene, which focused on the boy’s face as he begged to live before eventually succumbing to The True Knot. The scene is heartbreaking and extremely hard to watch, but it was almost even worse. Flanagan initially had the group get in a few additional stabs before King convinced him to tone the brutal scene down.

Stephen King Demanded The Original Scene Be Changed

When a scene is too traumatic for Stephen King, it has to be something terrifying. King has never been scared of killing kids, but when it came to depicting the Doctor Sleep baseball boy death, it was too much for the horror master. When Flanagan, who has adapted other King novels, including Gerald’s Game, brought the death from the novel to the big screen, he tried to give it the gravitas it deserved. King hated Stanley Kubrick’s changes to The Shining, and Flanagan wanted to remain loyal. However, when it came to the Doctor Sleep baseball boy death, King felt that showing this was too much.

Mike Flanagan was on the Kingcast podcast and said that King asked him to scale back on the death scene in the movie. “He leaned over and he was like, ‘That’s a little brutal isn’t it?’ I was like, ‘Sh-t I gotta go back, I gotta go back and edit this. I gotta pull stuff out.‘” Flanagan pulled out a few extra stabs and said it satisfied King, who felt the scene needed to be in there, but only by editing it down a little and pulling back some. It still achieved the same purpose in the movie.

Toning Down Baseball Boy’s Death Benefited Doctor Sleep

Kids are not exempt from the horrific scenarios endured in Stephen King stories. IT has an iconic opening sequence that ends with Pennywise brutally killing Georgie. Audiences witness Pennywise rip the boy’s arm off, but the clown drags him into the sewer to finish him off. How these events play out takes the viewer to the brink of what’s bearable to watch, but spares them the gory details, as Georgie is killed off-screen. With the Doctor Sleep baseball boy death, Flanagan drags out Baseball Boy’s death, nearly to the point of excess. Extending that scene would have just been violence for the sake of violence.

When it comes to gore in horror movies, sometimes too much is counterintuitive. Being violent for the sake of being violent sometimes borders on torture porn, which has been popular in the horror genre, but isn’t usually geared toward child victims for numerous reasons. The theatrical cut of the Doctor Sleep baseball boy death is already heartbreaking and nearly too brutal to watch without the extra details. By choosing to pull back from his original vision just a little bit, Flanagan left something up to the audience’s imagination.

Whatever audiences envisioned happened in the last moments of that poor boy’s life are probably far more horrifying than anything that could have been shown on the screen. Besides, the King of Horror himself told Flanagan he took the scene a little too far; this speaks for itself. By heeding King’s wise advice, Flanagan pulled off a death scene in Doctor Sleep that was equal parts gut-wrenching and terrifying, without taking advantage of his audience’s emotions.

The Final Doctor Sleep Baseball Scene Was Disturbing Enough Already (And The Cast Agrees)

The Doctor Sleep baseball boy death scene not only traumatized audience members but also the cast itself. The actors who played The True Knot were ready to get started on the scene and had practiced and prepared for the brutal murder. However, in Doctor Sleep’s Making Of, it turned out that when the cameras started rolling and actor Jacob Tremblay began crying and screaming, it took the cast by surprise, and many of the adult stars had to step back and take a break from the filming. It likely told Mike Flanagan on the spot that this scene, above almost any other, would work in the movie.

It also might explain why he pushed it so far initially when he edited it together, knowing that if it affected the cast filming the scene, it would destroy audiences and show how evil and terrifying The True Knot was. Humorously, Mike Flanagan was amused by the cast’s distraught attitude when Tremblay started crying, which speaks volumes about the child actor’s performance. Luckily, Stephen King was on hand to convince him to pull back some, because the Doctor Sleep baseball boy death scene was emotionally devastating and traumatic for viewers, and it is unfathomable to imagine how much worse it could have been.