One of the decade's most successful genre directors, Mike Flanagan introduced himself into the commercial market with this twisting psychological chiller.
Mike Flanagan broke into the mainstream with this
high-concept horror film about an evil, mind-controlling mirror only two years after his micro-budget debut,
Absentia (2011) - it was made on only $70,000. Over his short career so far, Flanagan has already established some auteur-level trademarks throughout his filmography (which includes
Hush [2016],
Gerald’s Game [2017], and the Netflix series
The Haunting of Hill House [2018-].
One of Flanagan’s notable trademarks is the timeless, permeating lore he creates for the evil creatures, objects, and places in each of his stories; they’re evils which spread outwards in every direction, without beginning or end, like unfathomable tentacles from a bottomless abyss; evils that are both ancient and infinite, with no apparent purpose but to exist (even his non-supernatural villains are killers without motive).
Flanagan’s other notable trademark is the way he seamlessly blends past, present, and hypothetical storylines; swirling the real with the imaginary; continuously twisting and looping the audience’s expectations of what to believe, keeping us on our toes until the very end.
Based on his current trajectory of both quality and quantity, I believe Mike Flanagan could easily become one of the all-time greats of the horror genre. He’s already released six genre films and one television series this decade, still has two more highly anticipated projects slated to come out this year (an
adaptation of
Stephen King’s sequel to
The Shining -
Doctor Sleep - and the second season of
The Haunting of Hill House), and all but one of his projects so far -
Before I Wake (2016) - have been commercially successful and positively received by critics and audiences. That level of consistency in the horror genre is typically unheard of, especially at the pace Flanagan turns them out. Also, most importantly, his shit is legit scary.
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