Mike Flanaganhas a magical touch. Thanks to his intuitive understanding of the genre’s workings, his profound utilization of said techniques, and his ability to craft compellingly humanistic characters, the writer-director’s creations hardly miss. Like the best horror,Mike Flanagan terrifies usbecause we care, and we care because he unflinchingly plumbs the depths of relatable human psychology. Not coincidentally, Flanagan’s best works involve the most iconic of horror staples: women protagonists.The Haunting of Bly Manor,Gerald’s Game,Hush,Ouija: Origin of Evil, and evenAbsentiaandOculusare proof of Flanagan’s skills in this specific area. (Surely this will continue withThe Fall of the House of Usher.) Centering women elevates Flanagan’s work from character pieces contextualized within a horror subgenre to modern masterworks everyone can appreciate.
Mike Flanagan Writes Compelling and Complicated Women
Whether they’re the unfortunately victimized orthe transformative Final Girl, women have long dominated the horror genre. It’s a staple of which Mike Flanagan is undoubtedly aware. Women have led most of his work since 2011’sAbsentia, his first feature film. Such a consistent practice normalizes their appearances and naturalizes their inherent humanity, a requirement for the horror genre. It’s also atestament to Flanagan’s trademarks: gnarly but adoring family bonds, how grief is both contrasted and paralleled with supernatural threats, and approaching characters with empathy. His women protagonists aren’t mere stereotypes to be haunted or hunted. Each is a richly developed, palpably realistic individual and a beautiful portrait of complex womanhood. Despite producing phenomenal cerebral works likeDoctor SleepandMidnight Mass, Flanagan’s heroines are more adeptly sketched than his men. Their flaws and strengths are equally potent, and those aspects are essential in crafting acutely effective horror.
Given the genre’s requirements, these women are frequently imperiled. Thankfully, Flanagan’s touch is a delicate one, extracting Olympic-level performances from his actors and emphasizing emotion in the edit without lingering on a woman’s pain or sexualizing it. The pain exists, undoubtedly; that’s the catharsis of horror, seeing how women combat existential terrors, supernatural beasts,serial killers, andbody horror, yet they emerge intact. Even when tragedy befalls Flanagan’s heroines, said tragedy isn’t reductive to their previous triumphs. Regardless of whattype of subgenre Flanagan employs, he details every woman’s complicated nature and highlights different shades of vulnerability. Sometimes their gender is incidental to the plot; often, it’s inextricable from the scenario. This balance would be perilous and even ring as insincere in the hands of a less capable writer. In this regard, his filmsHush,Gerald’s Game,Ouija: Origin of Evil, andOculus, and the seriesThe Haunting of Bly Manorall feature overlapping threads.
‘Hush’ Is the Perfect Modern Slasher
Mike Flanagan definitively applies the “human first, scares second” principle tohis 2016 slasher masterpieceHush. He collaborated with his wifeKate Siegelon the script, which follows Maddie Young (Siegel), an author who is deaf and mute and finds herself assaulted by a sadistic stranger (John Gallagher Jr.) taking advantage of her isolation (Maddie lives alone in a rural area). Although Maddie’s gender doesn’t define her, it’s essential toHush’s premise. A plot featuring a man who lives by himself isn’t as inherently frightening. This is a gender-based fear, a situation that’s a bottomless vacuum of anxiety as much as it’s a trope that’s informed the slasher subgenre since its inception.
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To Flanagan and Siegel’s credit, Maddie stands tall as a formidable protagonist.Hushuses its first 30 minutes to paint a human being through slight yet telling details. Maddie has friends, a loving family, and a messy relationship with her ex. She can’t cook to save her life and when she’s struggling with her current book, she dryly types in all-caps that she’s a terrible writer. (What a mood!) Although initially and understandably terrified by this nameless stranger, Maddie fights with ingeniously clever tactics. She might always be prey to a predator, but this prey has jagged teeth and an intellectualism stemming from being an author. Her creativity ensures her survival. And those jagged teeth? She writes taunting messages in her blood and rips her already blood-soaked hands to shreds trying to pull a crossbow into place. She lacks the muscle but overflows with willpower. Even being a person who isdeaf makes her more attuned to the worldrather than placing her at a disadvantage. When a barely conscious Maddie stumbles onto her front porch and pets her cat, her survival is more than earned — it’s a demand.
‘Gerald’s Game’ Is an Exercise in Empathy
IfHushdeals with womanhood in implicit terms,Gerald’s Gameis as explicit as they come. Flanagan peels back the layers of Jessie Burlingame’s (Carla Gugino) heartbreaking interiority with a brutal yet tangible tenderness. After her husband Gerald’s (Bruce Greenwood) death during a sexual misadventure that leaves Jessie handcuffed to the bed, she hallucinates from a combination of terror, grief, and lack of food and water. An autonomous, clear-headed version of herself guides Jessie through means of escape, reminding the terrified woman that her life holds innate worth. Meanwhile, a vision of Gerald hauntingly murmurs, “Women alone in the dark are like open doors, Jessie. And if they scream for help, who knows what might answer?”
More than the grounded situational horror, it’s Jessie’s psychology that feeds this fable. There’s noGerald’s Gamewithout her gender-specific anguish, the horrid truth of her father’s molestation, and the open wounds it left upon her psyche. Jessie isn’t scarred from her trauma, but rather, she’s a walking lesion.Gerald’s Gameis survivalbody horror at its finestbecause it concerns a completely vulnerable woman who endures hell and emerges triumphant. Even details like Jessie wrapping her degloved and bleeding hand in menstrual pads are inextricably contextualized within the traditional femme experience. The film ends with Jessie confronting a real-life manifestation of her trauma and walking away healed. The handcuffs are a metaphor, but the self-actualization Jessie achieves by surviving her seemingly fatal situation is tactile to the point of agonizing. Yet, it’s the right kind of agony, the type that stitches itself upon one’s heart.
‘Ouija’ and ‘Oculus’ Let Women Take the Lead
In contrast,Ouija: Origin of EvilandOculusoccupy the tragic side of Mike Flanagan’s oeuvre.Origin of Evilmight ostensibly be a prequelto Blumhouse Production’s filmOuija, but it populates a period piece about an evil board game with multifaceted women. Male characters? Nah, they’re secondary love interests.Origin of Evil’s focal points are Alice Zander (Elizabeth Reaser), a widowed mother, her teenage daughter Lina (Annalise Basso), and her nine-year-old daughter Doris (Lulu Wilson). The sudden death of Alice’s husband has left them close to destitute, so the trio makes money by running a scam medium service. All three mourn their loss while operating as different people. Alice struggles under the overlooked weight of single motherhood, Zina’s a defiant teen tentatively excited about her first boyfriend, and Doris is the kind, sensitive one. When spirits from an Ouija board possess Doris, the family’s fracture is heartbreaking; Flanagan has ingratiated Doris so deeply into a position of love both given and received. Ultimately, Zina’s the only one who survives the ordeal, but she and Alice fight demonic possession with every screaming bone in their bodies. It’s the connective tissue of this trio’s grief and the defiance of their love that propels the narrative.
Oculus, meanwhile, aka Mike Flanagan’s underrated miracle, starsKaren GillanandBrenton Thwaitesas siblings Kaylie and Tim Russell. Here’s another case of familial love anchoring the proceedings, yes — but here’s another case of Flanagan’s characters ringing as true individuals informed by their traumas but not economized into stereotypes.Oculuswas a passion projectof Flanagan’s for years, and it shows in the ingeniously simple premise of a haunted mirror and how the hallucinations it induces have destroyed countless families. As such,Oculusis highly Lovecraftianand psychological. Technically one might call Tim the protagonist, but it’s Kaylie who’s devoted her life to destroying the mirror. Her efforts are to avenge their mother Marie (Katee Sackhoff), whom the mirror’s influence killed when they were children — and who was also a fully-fledged person robbed of her autonomy. Not only is Kaylie clear-minded and driven in her fixation, but she’s also smart enough to record her findings. Because of the film’s character-focused unfolding,Oculus’s final sequence will clamp itself into your memory like a bladed vise.
‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’ Couldn’t Exist Without Its Heroine
The Haunting of Bly Manormight not topThe Haunting of Hill House, but it remains masterful, meaningful, and a true haunting. As withHill House, Flanagan inhabits thecore themes of the work he’s adapting—Henry James' short story “The Turn of the Screw” — while reinventing them from the inside out. And sinceHill House’s defining moment is thehorrifying reveal of the Bent Neck Lady, it’s no wonderVictoria PedrettileadsBly Manoras Dani Clayton, an American au pair for two English children. Dani, too, has a traumatic past influencing her demeanor. She’s individualistic, empathetic, and an undeniable hero. She may willingly die to protect the love of her life, but remaining a survivor in spirit is what matters. Her passionately tender love story withJamie Taylor (Amelia Eve), another woman, grounds the narrative front to back. Unlike the psychological tension of James' novella, which questions whether the governess lost her mind or if the ghosts were real, Dani’s legacy isn’t of a dead woman who “went crazy.” She’s drawn into compulsory tragedy while still enduring, and if that isn’t something for the ages, then what is?
Nothing’s technically wrong withMike Flanagan’s male-led works likeDoctor Sleep. Nevertheless, a certainje ne sais quoiis lacking without a woman’s perspective. Flanagan is all about horrifying via emotion; the ghosts and demons are just icing on the cake. Between the horror genre’s infamous Final Girl history and Flanagan frequently placing complicated, messy, and beautifully active women at the center of his stories, the writer-director produces his best works when he spotlights the female perspective. After all, women are the beating heart of the horror genre — something Flanagan understands, respects, and uplifts.
