Mike Flanagan

“At home, people are more likely to be distracted than in a theatrical environment. They're checking their phones, pausing to get a snack, or sometimes jumping from show to show.”

“Building and sustaining tension is always my priority, so home entertainment provides challenges to that.”

“I think it was in sixth grade, though, when I picked up my first Stephen King book, which was 'It,' that knocked me over and terrified me for years. Then I never went back. I had to own every Stephen King book and read them at least three times. They would terrify me completely, but I couldn't stop. That became my preferred source of fiction.”

“People will bemoan the quality of horror but then they'll go out and support horror films that are lacking qualities that they say they want.”

“We always try to leave room for the actors to come in and make discoveries on set, in their interpretation of the scene. The shot list is scaffolding.”

“When I got to high school, they had a morning TV show you could become a part of, and I started making short films for that, most little satirical, laugh-y films about the dean of students being chased by a dinosaur or something like that. And I really just enjoyed it.”

“I tend to over-prepare my shot lists.”

“I'm always drawn toward family drama, and dysfunctional family stories. It speaks to me, in a really profound way, and I think there's so much to explore within it.”

“Whenever I would see horror movies I would be traumatized and I'd have to watch them behind my hands or behind the couch sometimes. So I grew up first with authors like John Bellairs and R.L. Stine for kind of the young adult horror. But I found Stephen King in the sixth grade and that was it. I became a rabid fan.”

“I'm a natural born skeptic.”

“When horror is about something - capital-A about - that's when it's really landing.”

“There is only one act of violence in 'The Strangers' and it comes at the very, very end... the movie could have worked just as well if we didn't see it, in my opinion.”

“I saw 'The Shining' in eighth grade. I watched it on VHS at a sleepover and was petrified, totally petrified. And I didn't really start to digest the movie properly and understand it from a filmmaking perspective until I got older. But it pretty much defined what it meant to be scared of a movie for me.”

“When I read Doctor Sleep, when it was first published, I was so taken with getting to spend time with Danny Torrance again.”

“I don't like the fact people watch things on their phones and tablets, it kind of hurts my heart.”

“Whenever you take a general meeting, inevitably you run out of things to talk about, they'd always say, 'What's your dream project?' I would always pull out 'Gerald's Game.' If they knew the book, they'd say, 'Well, that's unfilmable.' If they didn't know the book it would take about 30 seconds of my pitch to say, 'That's not a movie.'”

“I always tend to tilt dark on an ending, because I feel like, especially with horror movies, those are the endings that don't evaporate. Those are the ones that stick with you.”

“I like to say that Hollywood is one of the most democratic entities in the world and the reason why is every ticket is a vote.”

“Horror is fascinating because it's so seasonal and it's like you've got these periods where slasher movies are in and it's like everyone loves them. Next thing you know zombies are in. Then vampires are acceptable.”

“What's so exciting and unstoppable about the horror genre is that I view it all as metaphorical exploration. It's the safe place that we, as a culture, can deal with things that upset and frighten us - the darker side of our nature.”