Horror director Mike Flanagan opened the way his work helped him cope with sorrow and loss.
Closing of the inaugural SXSW London before a first of its new film Chuck’s lifeFlanagan said the creation of his Netflix series Hill House Hanting was an adaptation mechanism after suicide in his family, which was partly represented in the scenario of Nell Crain committing suicide in the series.
“There are images in that these are dreams and nightmares that I had during this period,” he said. “This show is that I try to deal with sorrow and loss. I will face it forever, but have a creative outlet to try to pay it was incredibly therapeutic and I hope it is therapeutic for people who cross a situation similar to me.”
Flanagan noted that some of his other major projects such as Doctor Sleep And Midnight mass had helped his battle against alcoholism, the first helping him to become sober.
Flanagan is best known for the successful series Netflix Hill House Hanting and films of which Oculus, Gerald’s game And Doctor Sleep. It also shows the next TV version of Amazon by Stephen King Carrie.
Fans have often hypothesized that sorrow and suicide served as central themes Hill House HantingA show that was vaguely based on the 1959 Shirley Jackson novel.
“Biases against horror”
During a large -scale SXSW session, Flanagan said that there was a “bias against the horror” of the public and industry which resets when a award -winning project arrives.
He said that there has always been a “erroneous perception of what horror can be”, using the example of the Oscar -winning work of Jordan Peele, who quickly legitimizes the genre before it was forgotten again.
“People outside the genre are perpetually surprised that there is a very good story here and that it is not only fear,” he said. “But that has always been the case. Horror has always been a popular genre in the film, but industry and certain audiences tend to reset and be surprised again that it is just as dramatically viable, complex and beautifully artistic as any other genre.”
A large part of Flanagan’s work was adaptations of the emblematic work of the King horror scribe and he works in close collaboration with King on a long adaptation of the Dark Tower series, while King praised his projects in the past.
For Flanagan, and perhaps surprising, King “is not a horror writer”. He described it as a “charming and sticky heart” which is “kind, fun and clumsy”.
“He writes emotional and empathic stories about human nature and horror elements were born organically from the characters he creates,” added Flanagan. “It took me to the twenty to realize that [Stephen King novel] He Do not concern a fit clown, these are children and friendship. »»
To the applause of the public, Flanagan also made a passionate plea for monologues to remain in the film because he argued that the author must remain strong against the desires of streamers and studios.
“The monologue is a dying art but there is nothing more impressive than looking at an actor completely changing reality with words,” he added. “I chat each time with the studio. They say they love it but ask if it could be half as long. But I like to look at it and that I want to reject this cultural change of weak attempt at attention and entertainment bursts. ”
Flanagan spoke just before Chuck’s life‘s First on the last day of the first SXSW London. The film features Tom Hiddleston as a man whose life is told in the reverse chronological order and apparently has an impact on the world and the universe around him. Chuck’s life Flanagan’s previous work is less openly horror, although it is also based on a King novel.
