Mike Flanagan Is So Right About The 2024 Horror Movie With 95% On Rotten Tomatoes

Although not many viewers have heard of one of 2024’s great horror hidden gems, Mike Flanagan is due to spotlight the Irish indie funny As one of the year’s highlights. It may seem hard to believe when there’s a whole slate of upcoming Mike Flanagan TV shows and movies on the way, but there was a time when the genre legend was an obscure indie director. Before the breakout success of his 2018 Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House Making him a major name in Hollywood horror, Flanagan was best known for smaller horror movies like Oculus, Before I wake upAnd Quiet.

Before that, Flanagan was 2011’s helmer of the under-seen indie horror Absentia. Long before his Stephen King adaptation earned Oscar buzz, Flanagan was once a minor indie filmmaker struggling to get his name out there. As such, it’s no surprise that the director continues to promote the work of smaller horror directors online. In 2022, Flanagan called the sleeper hit Terrifying 2 “Ambitions“and”Disturbing“While, in 2024, he spotlights the low-budget psychological thriller First time caller. More recently, Flanagan called attention to a horror that shares a little more in common with his back catalog.

Strange is one of Mike Flanagan’s favorite horror movies of 2024

Director Damian McCarthy’s Irish indie horror is streaming on Shoder

on his letterboxd In consideration, Flanagan called director Damian McCarthy’s second feature funny “A masterclass in fear, atmosphere and suspense.” Not only is the writer-director right on the money with this description, but funny also has a lot in common with Flanagan’s own work. As such, the Irish indie horror is uniquely suited to fans of the director’s prodigious output. Like Flanagan The Fall of the House of UsherThe prominent one funny Has a streak of pitch-black humor that runs through the movie’s gritty, gory tale of revenge, lost love, and deeply screwed-up family dynamics.

funny It opens on a woman, Dani, who is renovating a remote house by herself. When a stranger knocks on her door at night and warns her that he saw someone inside, she is caught between a rock and a hard place. Not sure who to trust, the heroine makes an impossible decision. A year later, on the anniversary of her death, her sister and her husband share a tense reunion in the same house. The eponymous oddity, brought on by the film’s blind, antique-dealing heroine, comes into play when the late woman’s sister seeks the truth about the events of that fateful night, no matter what the cost.

Which was strange to Mike Flanagan

This horror movie blends supernatural elements and murder mystery

Flanagan’s review is full of praise for McCarthy’s direction, Occupation funny “Ingrossing“and”Terrible.” The director went on to praise McCarthy’s earlier WarningSaying that his second film confirms “McCarthy is the real deal.” Flanagan’s praise aligns with what many reviewers have said about the critically adored funnyWith McCarthy’s movie earning an average critical rating of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. Much like Flanagan The Haunting of Hill House And The Haunting of Bly Manor, funny Makes ingenious use of negative space in its framing. Viewers are never quite sure that a room is as empty as it seems.

Not only is there always the unsettling possibility of a ghost popping up noiselessly in the corner of a frame, but funny Also has his titular terror to worry viewers. A wooden sculpture ostensibly meant to look like a human, the Howling Artifact bears a closer resemblance to Stan Winston’s iconic Pumpkinhead. The wooden sculpture may be immobile, but it’s hard not to constantly expect the oddity to move of its own accord, and viewers will find themselves obsessively checking to see if its position has subtly shifted while it’s been off-screen. All this effectively masks the real drama of the movie.

Strange is reminiscent of Mike Flanagan’s work

The horror movie borrows from Oculus and the haunting of Bly Manor

Like Flanagan’s best work, funny Blends tragic family drama with supernatural horror. From her introduction, Carolyn Bracken’s tortured Darcy Odello is a tour de force. The troubled antique dealer cannot rest until she solves the mystery of her sister Danny’s brutal murder, but she is all too aware that returning to the scene of the crime puts her in danger. Gwilym Lee’s Ted is no help, with Dani’s widower hoping to get over the loss as quickly as possible and obstinately trying to ignore all of Darcy’s paranormal theories. The conflict between Ted and Darcy is particularly reminiscent of Flanagan’s work.

In the Stephen King-influenced Midnight massFlanagan delved deeply into questions of science and faith as characters debated belief and corruption. Here, Ted and Darcy’s divergent worldviews form their respective character arcs, as Darcy insists on uncovering the dark depths lurking beneath perception while Ted arrogantly refuses to acknowledge anything beyond the rational and observable. Suffice to say that Midnight mass And funny End in very different places, but both stories play with thoughtful themes of intuition and evidence and bounce between both perspectives without making their heroes and villains immediately obvious to the viewer.

Oddity keeps a great recent horror trend alive

Irish horror movies have recently enjoyed great global success

funny‘s critical success is notable, and its shocking release is a superb achievement for McCarthyBut the movie is also the latest in a string of international successes for the Irish horror filmmaker. Until 2015 The cave and 2012s DiggersIrish horror movies have received international attention. From 2021 You are not my mother to 2024 Prevoca to 2023 All you need is deathIrish horror movies are enjoying a cultural moment and funny is the latest hit to confirm the trend. Impressively, this set runs the gamut in terms of tone.

2016s A dark song is a similarly reserved chamber piece, while 2019’s Extra common is a bad, dirty horror comedy. 2019s The hole in the ground is an effectively uncomfortable calling card for Evil Dead Rise Director Lee Cronin, while 2020s Boys from County Hell is a far more stupid, if equally terrible, story. Irish horror movies manage to bounce from serious chills to self-aware humor without missing a beat, even funny Boasts in its more playful moments. As such, it is no surprise that Mike Flanagan Quote the indie hit funny As one of the year’s strongest horror movies.

Source: letterboxd