Who is Kyliegh Curran? [And How Did She Use Magic to Solve a Murder Case?]

If you didn’t know it, I’m a huge horror fan. I read horror novels, watch horror movies and TV shows, and write my own horror books—both real-life and fictional.

You may have guessed, then, that as a child of the ‘90s I grew up devouring R. L. Stine and Stephen King, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and Tales from the Darkside. (Anyone else here remember the talking banana episode in nightmarish detail? No? Just me? Click here for a scream.)

So, when Dr. Sleep came out last fall, you might also have surmised that I went opening week to see it.

And you would be wrong.

For as great as I think King, the uncontested master of horror, is, I didn’t like his sequel to 1977’s The Shining. I thought Dr. Sleep the book was boring. I thought the trailer for Mike Flanagan’s adaptation looked even worse.

But in this case, I was the wrong one.

After watching it on Amazon Prime over the weekend, I decided it was fun. Not Top-Ten-Horror-Movies-of-the-Decade fun, but a creative tribute to the original Overlook Hotel odyssey and an entertaining new story in its own right. Largely thanks to fourteen-year-old actress Kyliegh Curran.

Kyliegh’s relatively new to the industry; Dr. Sleep was, in fact, just her second film role. She had, however, been preparing for the opportunity for more than half her life, having started taking acting classes at age seven.

In Dr. Sleep, Kyliegh plays a girl with “magical powers”—including the abilities to psychically “drop in” on events that are happening far away from her, and thought-speak to people inside their minds. When she witnesses the murder of a boy around her age as it happens several states over, she becomes embroiled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a cult whose members will stop at nothing to make her their next victim.

Luckily, she’s not alone in the fight. Teaming up with Ewan McGregor (who plays a grown-up version of The Shining’s Danny Torrance), and drawing on a depth of magic that even she doesn’t fully understand yet, Kyliegh’s character does ultimately get justice for the murdered boy. But whether or not she survives her own encounter with the cult … well, you'll just have to watch Dr. Sleep.

Like me, Kyliegh is a real King fan. In this interview for Collider, she talks about reading The Stand. I was also fourteen when I tackled that weighty tome for the first time. Twelve when I read my first King novel, Needful Things. (I bought it at a garage sale that summer for fifty cents and tore through it in days.) Listening to Kyleigh talk about reading reminds me of how all-consuming books felt at that age. And how the very best ones, when paired with a hammock and a quiet afternoon, still are.

If you're ready to write your own “all-consuming” story, reach out to Cider Spoon Stories today. Whether you want a ghostwriter to get it down for you, a coach to talk you through the process, or an editor to polish your draft before print, I want to help you pen the next bestseller.

And who knows? If it gets made into a movie, maybe Kyliegh Curran will be available.