The Haunting of Netflix: Ranking Mike Flanagan’s Top Streaming Series

October is right here, which implies it’s time to look at the sacred 31-day ancestral feast generally known as Spooky Season.

Clearly, our favourite strategy to rejoice is by revisiting beloved horror classics from years previous.

However whereas most popular culture websites are specializing in motion pictures that can hold you up at evening, we right here at TV Fanatic desire to look at essentially the most memorable horror restricted collection — particularly, those created by Mike Flanagan.

For the uninitiated, Flanagan is mainly the streaming world’s reply to Stephen King:

He’s prolific, he’s wildly widespread; and whereas his tales provide loads of chills from the supernatural realm, he’s usually extra fascinated by moments of real poignancy than low-cost bounce scares.

Whereas non-Netflix subscribers could be extra accustomed to Flanagan’s characteristic movies (Hush, Oculus, and, appropriately, the King adaptation Dr. Sleep), current years have discovered the horror maestro helming sprawling, deeply private streaming reveals that usually recall the work of his Maine-based mentor.

Starting with 2018’s The Haunting of Hill Home, Flanagan has churned out 5 restricted collection as a part of his growth take care of the OG streaming large.

And every has an amazing quantity to supply when it comes to thought-provoking terror.

So whether or not you’re new to his work or questioning which Flanagan favourite is most worthy of a second binge session, take a look at our definitive (and, after all, extremely subjective) rating of his unforgettable Netflix tasks:

The Haunting of Hill Home

A unfastened — very unfastened, the truth is — adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s traditional 1959 novel, Flanagan’s freshman foray into the world of collection tv is simply as within the traumatic after-effects of an encounter with the spirit world as within the titular haunting itself.

Using the non-linear, flashback-heavy narrative model that Flanagan usually favors, the present facilities across the more and more beleaguered Crane household.

When a husband-and-wife workforce {of professional} house-flippers (perennial Flanagan favorites Henry Thomas and Carla Gugino) buy the ominous Hill Home, they and their 5 kids transfer in and hunker down for what guarantees to be a prolonged renovation challenge.

However the home, as you may need guessed, has different plans.

Clearly, haunted home tales are nothing new, however Flanagan places a recent spin on the standard tropes through a story that strikes seamlessly between previous and current, exploring the traumatic affect of the world’s most ill-fated actual property deal.

That is psychologically charged gothic horror at its most interesting, and with apologies to Ghosts, it could be one of the best haunted home collection of all time.

Her stoic demeanor may say in any other case, however someplace, the spirit of Shirley Jackson may be very proud.

Midnight Mass

Should you had been disenchanted by the current Max adaptation of King’s 1975 novel Salem’s Lot (as you have to be), then Midnight Mass could be simply what that you must fulfill your thirst for a nuanced small-town vampire saga.

Arguably Flanagan’s richest and most private work, this collection is as invested within the very human struggles of the residents of Crockett Island as it’s within the supernatural happenings round them.

The present mines the standard vampire tropes and finds satisfying motherlodes of subtextual gold.

The alcoholics’ cravings, the spiritual seeker’s quest for immortality, and the common want for everlasting youth are all given their due right here.

Full with prodigal son returning to his troubled hometown and a bloodsucker infestation that quickly goes from unhealthy to worse, the story definitely owes some thematic money owed to King’s authentic exploration of the query, “What if Dracula, however in rural America?”

On this case, nonetheless, the pupil could have surpassed the grasp.

The Haunting of Bly Manor

Often, when horror followers gush in regards to the ending of a favourite movie or collection, they imply that the story delivered a last scare that left them reeling.

However The Haunting of Bly Manor delivered a really completely different form of memorable conclusion.

We gained’t spoil it right here, however imagine us after we say that the finale of this collection can have you dabbing at your eyes and blaming it on seasonal allergy symptoms.

A non secular sequel to Hill Home, Bly is a bit uneven at occasions.

It’s not fairly as chilling as its predecessor, and a minimum of one installment calls for a lot endurance that we are able to’t assist however suppose its most important operate was fulfilling Netflix’s episode order.

However the framing system results in a conclusion during which a mysterious narrator (Carla Gugino! Once more!) affords a memorable lesson on the which means of affection, loss, and grief.

Is it dusty in right here, or is it simply us?

Gerald’s Recreation

What’s that you just say? It is a film and never a restricted collection?

Effectively, you’ve acquired us there. However no dialogue of Flanagan’s Netflix contributions could be full with out this deeply disturbing adaptation of King’s equally effed-up novel.

In information that’s positive to astonish you, this one options Carla Gugino and Henry Thomas, alongside Bruce Greenwood, who additionally options prominently within the subsequent merchandise on this record.

As psychologically complicated as Hill Home, the movie manages to craft edge-of-your-seat suspense from the story of a girl who spends many of the film handcuffed to a bedpost. No imply feat!

Sadly, this flick goes off the rails a bit with a 3rd act that may solely be described as … effectively, monstrous. You’ve been warned.

The Fall of the Home of Usher

The primary Flanagan collection that could be described as a darkish comedy, this one takes lots of its tonal cues from an surprising supply — particularly, HBO’s Succession.

And whereas it’s usually an excellent factor to emulate the greats, the fast-talking banter of Jesse Armstrong’s iconic company satire is a troublesome trick to tug off.

Trying to re-interpret Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic story of a household’s downfall (as with Hill Home, this can be a very unfastened adaptation) by way of such a particular lens could have been a mistake.

As with all Flanagan tasks, there’s a lot to admire right here.

Greenwood is reliably sharp as the rich patriarch, and Henry Thomas (did we point out Flanagan loves this man?) shines in his sleaziest position but (full with unlucky man bun).

However whereas Flanagan’s skewering of company America is delightfully sharp, this collection fails to ship both the scares or the poignancy of its predecessors, and revealing the episodic construction on the outset results in a degree of predictability that undermines lots of the tried twists

The Midnight Membership

Look, we’re massive, massive Mike Flanagan followers right here at TV Fanatic — which is why it pains us to say that the auteur’s first younger grownup providing was a giant ol’ swing and a miss.

What may have been a nostalgic throwback to youth-oriented horror collection like Are You Afraid of the Darkish? as a substitute felt like a glacially paced and overly self-serious try at one thing loftier.

We respect Flanagan’s refusal to be tied down, and his staunch perception that horror and coronary heart can and may go collectively.

And it’s price noting that for all our youthful vitality, we do not belong to the goal demo for this present.

However typically, even essentially the most well-intentioned experiments merely fall flat, and admittedly, The Midnight Membership left us wanting on the clock and eager for bedtime.

Over to you TV fanatics! Hit the feedback part under to share your ideas on Mike Flanagan’s unimaginable physique of labor!

Watch Haunting of Hill Home On-line