Horror director Mike Flanagan has opened up about how his work has helped him deal with grief and loss.
Closing the inaugural SXSW London before a premiere of his new movie The Life of Chuck, Flanagan said the creation of his Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House was a coping mechanism following a suicide in his family, which was part represented in the storyline of Nell Crain committing suicide in the show.
“There are images in that that are dreams and nightmares I had during that time,” he said. “That show is me trying to deal with grief and loss. I’m going to be dealing with it forever but having a creative outlet to try and pour that into has been incredibly therapeutic and I hope it’s therapeutic for people going through a similar situation to me.”
Flanagan noted that some of his other big projects like Doctor Sleep and Midnight Mass had aided his battle against alcoholism, the former helping him get sober.
Flanagan is best known for hit Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House and movies including Oculus, Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep. He is also showrunning Amazon’s upcoming TV version of Stephen King’s Carrie.
Fans have oft speculated that grief and suicide serve as central themes of The Haunting of Hill House, a show that was loosely based on the 1959 Shirley Jackson novel.
“Bias against horror”
During a wide-ranging SXSW session, Flanagan said there is a “bias against horror” from audiences and the industry that resets when an award-winning project comes along.
He said there has always been a “misperception of what horror can be,” using the example of Jordan Peele’s Oscar-winning work, which quickly legitimizes the genre before this is once again forgotten.
“People outside the genre remain perpetually surprised that there is a really good story in here and it’s not just about the scares,” he said. “But that’s always been the case. Horror was always a popular genre in film but then the industry and some audiences tend to reset and be surprised again that it is just as dramatically viable, complex and beautifully artistic as any other genre.”
Much of Flanagan’s oeuvre has been adaptations of iconic horror scribe King’s work and he is said to be working closely with King on a long-gestating adaptation of the Dark Tower series, while King has praised his projects in the past.
For Flanagan, and perhaps surprisingly, King “is not a horror writer.” He described him as a “gooey-hearted, lovely humanist” who is “kind, fun and goofy.”
“He writes emotional and empathetic stories about human nature and the horror elements are born organically out of the characters he creates,” added Flanagan. “It took me until my twenties to realize that [Stephen King novel] It is not about a shapeshifting clown, it’s about kids and friendship.”
To audience applause, Flanagan also made an impassioned plea for monologues to remain part of film as he argued that the auteur has to stay strong against the desires of the streamers and studios.
“Monologue is a dying art but there is nothing more impressive than watching an actor completely change reality with just words,” he added. “I argue every time with the studio. They say they love it but ask if it could be half as long. But I love to watch it and want to push back against this cultural shift of low attention spans and bursts of entertainment.”
Flanagan was speaking just before the The Life of Chuck premiere on the final day of the inaugural SXSW London. The movie stars Tom Hiddleston as a ma whose life is chronicled in reverse-chronological order and is seemingly having an impact on the world and universe around him. The movie is less overtly horror than Flanagan’s prior work although it is also based on a King novel.
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