“The
Haunting of Hill House” has just arrived on Netflix! Hurray! The 10
part adaptation of Shirley Jackson's short story (which has already
spawned one all time classic scary film) arrives courtesy of Mike
Flanagan, who may well be Mildly Unnerving's favourite horror
director working right now. So to celebrate I've ranked his feature
films from my least amazing to most amazing. “Absentia” is absent
because I haven't seen it.
Before
I Wake
The
first half of “Before I Wake” is a perfect demonstration of
Flanagan's strengths as a director. There are some subtle background
scares that some viewers may not even notice first time through, an
atmosphere of creeping dread and characters you may actually care
about. There are also some moments of genuine wonder when the
supernatural shenanigans start kicking off. However, the second half
is a bit of a let down, with the old horror mistake of
over-explaining dragging stuff down a bit. Still very much worth your
time though.
Ouija:
Origins of Evil
Wherein our man does a prequel to “Ouija”, which was no-one's idea of a good
film. He makes “Origins of Evil” a million times better than it
has any right to be though, bringing his trademark subtly to bear
where the original was obnoxious and loud. It dips towards the
obvious towards the end, but the increasingly bleak and hopeless
atmosphere is rare for such a mainstream outing.
Hush
A deaf woman living alone in an
isolated house in the woods is menaced by a masked killer. “Hush”
takes this simple premise and runs with it, putting some inventive
slants on the old slasher film tropes. It also features a great
performance by co-writer Kate Siegel (who is also in “Haunting of
Hill House”) and doesn't bother with a motive for the antagonist,
which is entirely the right choice.
Gerald's
Game
An adaptation of an unadaptable
Stephen King novel, the success of which presumably got Flanagan the
gig on “The Shining” sequel “Doctor Sleep”. Artfully turning
a novel that was very heavy on internal monologues into something
filmable by having characters show up as figments of the
protagonist's imagination, this only amps up the terror when the
Moonlight Man makes his appearance. Faithful to King's novel and
showing the director's usual restraint when it comes to the scares,
it still makes time for one of the most harrowing and gory scenes
I've seen for a while.
Oculus
As far as your correspondent is
concerned “Oculus” is a legitimate masterpiece. A brother and
sister seek to prove that a haunted mirror was responsible for the
death of their parents 10 years earlier. The subtle scares are
present and correct, but thing that really got under my skin was
mercilessly escalating atmosphere of dread. Perfectly paced even as
it switches between past and present (before the two start merging)
and constantly wrong-footing the audience and the protagonists as to
what is real and what isn't, “Oculus” is one of the few films
that I find actually frightening.
All films are on Netflix. Except
Oculus unfortunately
