Warning: spoilers ahead for The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor!Since the early 2000s, writer, director and editor Mike Flanagan has terrified audiences with its horror films and TV shows and is also a purveyor of great horror films. He made his name with titles such as the low-budget and surprise hit, Absence As of 2011, the well-received Glass 2013 and more recently TV projects like 2018 The Haunting of Hill House and The Midnight Club from 2022.
His work has been synonymous with creating unbearable tension and character-driven narratives, furthermore, he has also brought a fresh approach to horror tropes such as the often misused jump scare. Ultimately, however, his work has produced some of the scariest moments in horror films and TV shows of all time.
15
Dani gets trapped in a closet
The Haunting of Bly Manor: Episode 1 – “The Big Good Place”
When seeing this scene for the first time, it’s hard to understand why Miles and Flora trap poor Dani in the closet with the ghost of her ex-boyfriend. It’s only when you realize that they had good intentions all along that you begin to see sense in what at first appears to be an extremely cruel act.
The claustrophobia portrayed in the scene is a great way to foreshadow other events to come in the series.
There were one or two scares that foreshadowed this moment, but Dani’s blood-curdling screams, as she is left alone with her dead ex-boyfriend staring at her, truly send a shiver down your spine. Additionally, the claustrophobia portrayed in the scene is a great way to foreshadow other events to come in the series.
14
Doris is possessed
Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)
The Ouija board has been a horror genre trope since it was mentioned in the 1973 horror classic, The Exorcist. The fact that Mike Flanagan managed to conjure up so many scares in his 2016 horror prequel, Ouija: Origin of Evil it’s surprising. When two girls, Lina and Doris, use the Ouija board to contact their late father, what they find is a spirit with much more sinister motives. The moments when Doris’s mouth is contorted beyond recognition by Doug Jones’ terrifying demon are truly disturbing.
13
Dan returns to the lookout
Doctor Sleep (2019)
Directing the sequel to the classic 1980 horror film The Shining With its iconic ending and incredible direction, it was always going to be a tall order, but Flanagan almost managed to adapt Stephen King’s 2013 sequel novel to good effect. One of the most impressive and terrifying sequences occurs when Ewan McGregor’s Dan Torrence returns to The Overlook Hotel for the first time.
Not only can the audience sense his apprehension about returning to the scene of his childhood trauma, but also the tension turns up to 11 when the Overlook’s many spirits take over.
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The tall man terrorizes Luke
The Haunting Of Hill House: Episode 4 – “The Twin Thing”
One of the darkest and most terrifying aspects The Haunting of Hill Houseis that everyone has their own ghost. While this may not initially seem like a bad thing, poor Luke Crain, whose ghostly companion, The Tall Man, appears to have some major issues with him. The use of lighting to create ominous shadows, plus the eerie sound design, perfectly capture Luke’s terror as he hides under the bed, staring in terror as he walks past him. Watching Luke cower in fear when he sees his destiny in front of him it’s incredibly unnerving.
11
Removing the mask
Silence (2016)
Home invasion thrillers have become a staple of the horror genre and Mike Flanagan Silence It can be a tense and disturbing entry in its own right. While it boasts some decent kills, most of the terror comes from the seemingly unassuming nature of the killer’s mask, first glimpsed in a series of well-crafted, tension-building reflections. This becomes almost unbearably tense when the killer eventually takes off his mask to expose his identity to Maddie, meaning only one of them will survive the night. The deaf girls’ pleas to be spared only add to the horror.
10
Jessie escapes the handcuffs
Gerald’s Game (2017)
Stephen King is a master of the horror genrethere is no doubt about it. However, his adaptations didn’t always work so well on the big screen, which made Flanagan’s decision to make the apparently unfilmable Gerald’s game, which takes place in just one room, a kind of bet. A disturbing sequence in the book is Jessie Burlingame’s “degloving”, where she escapes from her handcuffs by cutting a ‘Y’ shape into her wrist and hand to peel off the skin and free the handcuff. It’s as gross as it sounds, but Flanagan nailed it and had a shocking ending.
9
Peter is dragged into the lake
The Haunting Of Bly Manor: Episode 5 – “The Altar of the Dead”
Peter Quint is one of the most intriguing and seemingly most powerful characters in The Haunting of Bly Manor. When he is dragged into a lake and drowned with apparent ease by a more powerful force, it becomes one of the most shocking sequences in the series. Peter’s character was introduced in an intense and frightening passage in the source material, Turn of the screwso when the ghost of Viola Willoughby, The Lady of the Lake drags him to his aquatic death, it’s a shocking and pivotal moment in the series.
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Award-winning Jump Scares
The Midnight Club: Episode 1 – “The Final Chapter” (2022)
Scares can often be the worst way a horror film instills fear in its audience.unless you do them right, like the underwater head reveal in Spielberg’s 1975 classic Jaws. Even Mike Flanagan hates jump scares, so when he managed to break the Guinness World Record for most consecutive jump scares in 2022, he must have been pleasantly surprised.
The sequence is incredibly well crafted and although the scares might traditionally be seen as a gimmick, Flanagan manages to make them unbearably tense, over and over again.
7
Death of a sister
Glass (2013)
Glass was one of the first proper horror films that helped propel Flanagan into the world of mainstream horrorand deservedly so. Its Lovecraftian story about two brothers, Tim and Kaylie, who try to solve the mystery of their parents’ murder, is frightening and often very disturbing.
The moment Tim flips a switch to destroy the mirror and unintentionally kills his sister is devastating.
The brothers attempt to document the powers of a mirror that led to their parents’ death when they were just children, but in doing so, they unwittingly become part of their doomed existence. The moment Tim flips a switch to destroy the mirror and unintentionally kills his sister is devastating.
6
Hannah’s death is revealed
The Haunting Of Bly Manor: Episode 5 – “The Altar of the Dead”
Episode 5 of Excellent The Haunting of Bly Manor series, provides a major revelation about one of its main characters, Hannah Grose, which reveals something that has been mentioned throughout the series; that Hannah was actually a ghost. The clues to his death were there for all to see; the way she scratched her neck, the cracks in the walls she saw, and how she frequently walked away all alluded to the fact that she was dead. The moment this is revealed, when she looks at her dead body in the well, is incredibly disturbing.
5
Riley says goodbye
Midnight Mass: Episode 5 – “Book V: Gospel”
One of the most heartbreaking and frightening moments in all of Mike Flanagan’s films and TV shows occurs in episode 5 of the hit Netflix show. Midnight Mass amidst all its hidden meanings. After learning of Father Paul’s plan and being turned into a vampire, Riley reveals everything to his friend Erin, while on a boat off the coast of the seaside town.
Erin, who fears Riley is just there to devour her blood, screams as she watches her true love sacrifice herself in the sunlight.burning to ashes and dying in the process.
4
Death of baseball boy
Doctor Sleep (2019)
The danger and death of children in horror films has long been one of the genre’s constant tropes, but Mike Flanagan managed to up the ante with the brutally Doctor Sleepthe follow-up The Enlightened, dealt with it. The film’s antagonists, the True Knot, are a group of “psychic vampires” who feed on children with the ability to ‘glow’ and do so by inflicting pain and torture on their victims.
This moment is truly shocking.
In a very disturbing scene they torture and kill a boy named Bradley Trevor and while the film may not live up to the endlessly quotable original in terms of horror and originality, this moment is truly shocking.
3
The sad revelation of the lady with the crooked neck
The Haunting Of Hill House: Episode 5 – “The Lady With The Crooked Neck”
There are several twists and turns in Mike Flanagan’s great horror series, The Haunting of Hill House. However, no one compares to the shock factor of a specific revelation in the episode titled “The Bent-Neck Lady.” Since staying at Hill House, Victoria Pedretti’s Nell Crain has had terrifying visions of the mysterious Lady with the Crooked Neck and decides to return home to investigate. Once there, however, she is tricked into hanging herself by her mother’s ghost, only for this to be revealed. that Nell was the lady with the crooked neck all along.
2
The Church Massacre
Midnight Mass: Episode 6 – “Book VI: Act of the Apostles”
Influenced in part by the mass suicide in Jonestown in 1978, episode 6 of Midnight Mass features familiar images as Father Paul reveals who he really is as well as what he has planned for the city. He then exhorts his congregation drink poison to be reborn as vampires. The subsequent horror that unfolds when most of them do this and come back as bloodthirsty demons is deliciously morbid, and watching them succumb to their demons is truly terrifying in its own right.
1
The car jump scare
The Haunting of Hill House: Episode 8 “Witness Marks” (2018)
This is another excellent example of a scare that is created perfectly because you never see it coming. Sisters Theo and Shirley are arguing in the car because Theo had the audacity to kiss Shirley’s husband, which, to be fair, is a good starting point for some tension. However, just as you think the tension couldn’t escalate any further, the ghost of Nell Crain appears out of nowhere between the feuding siblings, scaring everyone to death in the process.