All good things must come to an end, as they say, and that includes Mike Flanagan’s intricate world of horror TV shows on Netflix. The writer-director wraps his killer run on the streaming platform with The Fall Of The House Of Usher, which debuts October 12, five years to the day after the premiere of his first Netflix drama, The Haunting Of Hill House. So yes, the prolific showrunner’s partnership with the streaming service is over (to Prime Video’s benefit), but he bows out ably with the strange, eviscerating family saga Usher.
Last year, we dug into how “the Flanaverse” had become one of Netflix’s most unique offerings thanks to the filmmaker’s insightful, disquieting, and—let’s face it—often emotionally fucked-up take on horror. His episodic storytelling kneads genre tropes for in-depth, character-driven stories that explore sinister subjects with sentimentality and heart. And his noticeably timely sendoff series for Netflix is no different.
Hill House, The Haunting Of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and now Usher cement Flanagan as a storyteller capable of molding singular nightmarish tales. So to toast the guy, The A.V. Club has ranked his five dramas based on their storytelling, fear factor, tragic narratives, and, obviously, overall spooky impact.
5. The Midnight Club (2022)
Don’t get us wrong, we’re big fans of The Midnight Club, Flanagan’s attempt at YA horror. The show adheres to Christopher Pike’s sensibilities, nicely blending them with Flanagan’s signature style: wholesome, lengthy monologues about mortality combined with elaborate, inventive jump scares. (The Midnight Club broke a record for the number of jump scares in a premiere.) Co-created by Flanagan and Leah Fong, the show lets the writers and directors experiment with various forms of horror—serial killers, witches, cults, ghosts, a deal with the devil, etc. It also spotlights emerging talent like Iman Benson, Ruth Codd, Igby Rigney, Annarah Symone, and Sauriyan Sapkota, as opposed to Flanagan’s usual roster of actors, who get recurring roles instead.
But The Midnight Club doesn’t quite hit the same way as Flanagan’s other series. The format—teens in hospice care ruminate over life after death by swapping scary stories—leans on heavy emotional beats, taking focus away from the characters and putting it onto their made-up fables. And the show juggles an incomplete narrative by introducing Brightcliffe Manor’s past as a cult’s former home. That plot doesn’t get fleshed out, and it ends on a cliffhanger that could have been explored in season two, if only The Midnight Club had become Flanagan’s first drama to get another batch of episodes. (He took to Twitter to reveal what a second round would’ve explored.)
4. The Fall Of The House Of Usher (2023)
Netflix’s latest drama is a neat exit for Flanagan because The Fall Of The House Of Usher is thematically familiar to his first series. This one also explores a family’s traumatic, haunting experiences, but while Hill House featured the close-knit Crains trying to move on with their life, Usher takes the opposite approach. Thanks to a fateful choice made in 1980 by siblings Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and Madeleine (Mary McDonnell), the Ushers are constantly facing brutal deaths. The actions by Roderick and Madeleine have a grotesque impact on Roderick’s six adult children, who suffer the consequences of the entire family being a bottomless pit of greed. (Think Succession meets Dopesick.)
Usher is gorgeously filmed and performed, thanks to Flanagan’s usual writers (Dani Parker), directors (Michael Fimognari), and actors (Kate Siegel, T’Nia Miller, and series MVP Carla Gugino). However, the show is a formulaic slow burn, with each episode revealing how Roderick’s toxic offspring are psychologically manipulated and killed by a mysterious entity. It makes Usher immediately less suspenseful, as you already know death is inevitable.
One of Flanagan’s greatest strengths is making viewers empathize with his leads, like the messed-up Crains, The Midnight Club’s kids, and the residents of Bly Manor and Crockett Island. The challenge here is for Flanagan to make us care about selfish billionaires dying, which he accomplishes with mixed results. Usher, however, is his timeliest and sexiest show yet, and it reminds us that sometimes the most effective horror—even with its spirits, bloody hallucinations, and vicious gore—is internal. While the show attempts to send a relevant message about the state of corporate greed and politics, it’s too broad in its execution. It might take a little time to grow on you, but Usher still carries Flanagan’s trademark flair.
3. The Haunting Of Bly Manor (2020)
Bly Manor’s fatal flaw is that it had the misfortune to follow Hill House, Flanagan’s critically acclaimed and beloved Haunting anthology. Still, it’s a mostly terrific, sentimental feat based on Henry James’ The Turn Of The Screw. First and foremost, Bly Manor gave us the incredible romance between Dani (Victoria Pedretti) and Jamie (Amelia Eve). It follows the misadventures of Dani, the new au pair to two orphaned children. Dani moves to England’s Bly Manor to escape her devastating past—except the estate’s resident ghosts have other plans. As with most haunted-house stories, Bly Manor is a little too trapped by its premise, much like the souls here who are caged in the place where they died. Dani and the others working there, like gardener Jamie, chef Owen (Rahul Kohli), and housekeeper Hannah (Miller) struggle to protect the kids, themselves, and the house’s legacy.
Bly Manor succeeds because it has a fierce beating heart, and it quickly develops bonds between the characters to help sell it all. The fear factor isn’t high, though, which might not be everyone’s idea of a horror binge. While it’s not terrifying, there are a few atmospheric scares. And the plot twists (like one in “The Altar Of The Dead,” written expertly by Angela LaManna) live up to the expectations created by Hill House.
2. Midnight Mass (2021)
Remember that signature storytelling move in The Midnight Club in which Flanagan combines lengthy monologues with scares? Well, Midnight Mass is built on that foundation. The hearty sermons can be off-putting, but damn if the show—inspired by Stephen King—doesn’t revel in them.
Set in an isolated fishing village called Crockett Island, Midnight Mass captures the foreboding loneliness of its location and its people. The performers— Hamish Linklater, Samantha Sloyan, Zach Gilford, Siegel, and Kohli comprise a fantastic ensemble—deliver weighty dialogue with equal parts vulnerability and dread. Linklater, in particular, commands every scene, making the show soar.
Midnight Mass takes an unnerving approach to extreme faith and religion, exploring both through the lens of zealousness, addiction, guilt, and, of course, death. Yes, it’s preachy, but the seven episodes are exceptionally well crafted. Piece by piece, Flanagan paints a calamitous final picture, with the townsfolk paying the price for their actions. Midnight Mass isn’t an easy watch, but it offers an ambitious take on horror tropes like angels, demons, zombies, sins, heaven, and hell.
1. The Haunting Of Hill House (2018)
The Haunting Of Hill House is a beauty, particularly with episodes like “The Bent-Neck Lady” or “Two Storms,” the latter of which unfolds like an impressive oner. (Flanagan later explained how it was made.) The show is the first example of how effectively Flanagan tackles episodic storytelling, and it flaunts his keen ability to combine horror and heart, past and present, nuance and exposition. As kids, the children of the Crain family suffered while living in a mansion where their mother took her own life. Now as adults, those sinister forces come back to haunt them again. The show is broody, with the hallmarks of Flanagan’s films: the blue-and-green tones, the music, the writing—only it all feels elevated.
Hill House is a chilling take on the Shirley Jackson novel of the same name, and it balances the jump scares, of which there are plenty, with subtlety. The show gradually builds the terror and the twists (“The Bent-Neck Lady” reveal is a prime example). Each Crain sibling’s motivations and experiences are clear-cut and gutting, and their combined trauma brings Hill House together. Barring a disappointing payoff in the finale, it’s an almost perfect season of television. It’s not just Flanagan’s best show, but one of Netflix’s finest originals to date.