Stephen King called the creator of this Netflix series “The Quentin Tarantino of Horror”

Stephen King is the author of several horror novels to read, many of which have been transformed into successful films and television adaptations. From “The Shining” to “It” to “” Salem’s Lot “, the writer has proven himself as a real gender master, so whenever he recommends something scary, horror fans take him seriously. In that spirit, King praised the Edgar Allan Poe series by Mike Flanagan,” The Fall of the House of Usher ” He even compared his creator to the filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.

“The fall of Usher’s house (Netflix): I missed it when it bowed because of hip surgery, but it is a delayed case of gratuity. Scary, involving, with the writing of mind and makes the plot move. There is a case to do for Mike Flanagan being the Quentin Tarantino of horror.”

King did not explain the reason for the comparison of Flanagan to Tarantino, but that could have something to do with the fact that the two artists boast of distinct creative voices and like to deconstruct and revise the genres in which they operate. Although Tarantino has made crime, war, horror, action and Western films, his work is almost a kind to be done in Denver when you are dead. “”

Likewise, while Flanagan mainly makes horror films and television shows, he is not faithful to the regular formulas of the genre. “The fall of Usher’s house” is an excellent example of its originality, because the series modernizes the stories of Poe and applies them to a satirical family drama in the vein of “succession”. This may be why he found a big fan of King, who also congratulated Flanagan’s adaptations of his own stories.

To date, Mike Flanagan has brought three stories from Stephen King to the screen – “Gerald’s Game”, “Doctor Sleep” and “The Life of Chuck” – and won lots of critical praise for each of these adaptations. In addition, he is currently working on a “Carrie” mini-series and does his best to adapt “The Dark Tower” in a television program, suggesting that he is more than happy to spend his creative energies on royal inspiration projects for years to come.

This will also come as good news for King, who regularly congratulated Flanagan’s projects, especially those based on his own work. In fact, he passionately supported the series “The Haunting of Hill House” by Flanagan, based on the beloved of the same name of Shirley Jackson, as he revealed in an article shared in X / Twitter in 2018:

“Hill House’s obsession, revised and renovated by Mike Flanagan. I generally do not care about this kind of revisionism, but it’s great. Near a work of genius, I really think. Shirley Jackson would approve, but who knows with certainty.”

Of course, Flanagan’s unconventional approach to narration can also be attributed to the influence of King’s stories on his style. The filmmaker is a fan of the author for life, and he is motivated by his stories of terror, because they are more than fears and bleeding of jump and blood.

The influence of Stephen King on Mike Flanagan goes beyond the adaptation of his work, because some of the original ideas of the creator of television and the film are love letters in the style, sensitivity and themes of the author. For example, Flanagan’s “midnight mass” could easily be confused with one of King’s creations if you didn’t know better. The Netflix mini-series tells the story of a priest who brings miracles to a small town, but terror is hidden in the shadows. He also echoes kings tales like “” Salem’s Lot “and” Storm of the Century “, which focuses on rural communities meeting threats of supernatural horror.

Like King’s stories, Flanagan’s films and series are fascinated by human drama, and supernatural elements are simply there to facilitate the transformative trips of their characters. Flanagan thinks that King’s stories are more than horror, and that is why he revolves towards them, as he formerly explained in an interview with Sunnup Editions:

“His attention to the development of the character, humanity and narrative structure is some of his most decisive features, and these are very difficult to translate into a medium which tends to drop this kind of nuances in favor of shock, blood and fears … [A]The heart of his work is a conversation on the human condition, on defective people in extraordinary situations and on the darker corners of our nature. “”

Although there can be a case to do so that Mike Flanagan is the Quentin Tarantino of horror, he is undoubtedly the natural successor of the genre in King, although in a different medium. No matter who he is comparable, however, many horror fans agree that Flanagan is the real deal.