Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel are two names who have shot up among the horror genre in a relatively short time with the pair’s work on several horror films and series. Oculus, Hush, The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass are just a few to name, but Flanagan has adapted several of the iconic horror author Stephen King’s novels, most notably The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep.
At the Fan Expo Canada convention in Toronto Flanagan and Siegel held a panel where they discussed their careers, including some of their future projects like Flanagan’s upcoming Exorcist remake. Most of the panel was about their Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House which Flanagan created, wrote and directed while Siegel starred as Theodora Crain, the middle child of the Crain family who could sense people’s emotions and secrets through touch, forcing her to wear gloves most of the time.
“Theo Crain came to me at a time when I felt the weight of perception a lot,” Siegel said of her character. “I felt very observed in my life and I think that’s something that happens with Theo as well. She’s taking on way more than she’s putting out and the weight of that can be detrimental to your health physically and emotionally. On the page she’s written as this clenched fist with hair and everyone says a lot of things about Theo, but even in reading the script I was like that is the opposite of who this woman is. I felt that squishy interior of hers and hardened candy shell.”
Siegel shared the role with McKenna Grace who played the young Theo in flashback scenes depicting the live of the Crain siblings when they were young. Siegel revealed she and Grace, despite never sharing the screen, worked together to shape their respective ages by passing journals written in character back and forth between each other, Grace’s being young Theo’s and Siegel’s being adult Theo.
“I don’t know if it informed my character. What it did, and I haven’t spoken to her about this in a long time, was it created a sense of calm for McKenna,” Siegel said of their journaling. “McKenna’s the type of actress who loves to get deep into it emotionally. If you’ve listened to me ever, I talk about making arbitrary weird choices to distract my brain. But I did feel a certain amount of protection toward McKenna and ownership of that relationship and wanting her to be safe, wanting her to feel like a part of it. I would do that journal back and forth. We would trade gloves back and forth. I would make sure to check in with her, I wanted to be like her camp counsellor leading her through this.”
For Flanagan on the creative side, he revealed much of the series was built around the series’ sixth episode ‘Two Storms’ with the majority of it presented in one-take tracking shots. Hill House had to be constructed around this concept with Flanagan revealing he had no idea how complex it would become at the time he pitched it. “I had no idea what I was promising and then we actually had to do it. I was like ‘Okay, how do we do it?’ and my DP Mike Fimognari went ‘I have no idea’. The whole show was built around that episode. The sets were built physically to accommodate that episode,” Flanagan said. This included the two story Hill House complete with secret passages for the crew to hide in during these tracking shots and months of practice, all for Flanagan to discover their camera dolly was on the edge of collapse during the final take they ended up using for the show during the Crain family’s argument.
Flanagan also reiterated how much of a horror fan he is as he praised several recent horror films like Longlegs and Skinamarink while pushing back on the notion that ‘horror is having a good year’ by noting horror always has a good year due to the passion of horror fans.
“The amazing thing about horror is that you don’t need to spend $200 million and throw giant movie stars on the screen to connect with an audience,” he told the crowd. “Last year we saw Skinamarink go up and actually make a splash theatrically without anything. It’s incredible what these things can do and it’s the versatility of the genre. This year we have some amazing hits, last year we had Barbarian and Smile leading the charge. It always works. The thing of it is horror fans know that. They’re the most passionate fanbase out there. When they come out to the theatres they can take a movie that otherwise the studio would say ‘this will never catch on’ and turn it into a smash hit. Right now we’re still riding on Longlegs which has lifted all boats.”
As for their future projects, Flanagan’s next film The Life of Chuck will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in two weeks. It is based on Stephen King’s novella of the same name from his collection It Bleeds and has quite a cast attached to it with Tom Hiddelston, Mark Hamill, Karen Gillan, Chitiwel Ejiofor, Jacob Tremblay, David Dastmalchian and Matthew Lillard starring. However, unlike most King novels and Flanagan’s own adaptations of King’s works, Life of Chuck is not a horror film.
“What I can tell you about The Life of Chuck is it’s not a horror story. That’s the biggest thing I want people to know going in. It is based on a Stephen King story and it is me so it’s a very reasonable assumption that it would be scary. It’s not. It’s a side of Steve that wrote Stand By Me and Shawshank, it’s that Steve. It’s a completely different world for me to be in and it’s my favourite film I’ve ever worked on by a mile. The cast is extraordinary. I am so proud of this one whatever happens with it because it is such a strange, fragile little animal. I hope you guys enjoy it, just check your expectations if you’re expecting scary because you’ll be very disappointed. But if you’re expecting something that is a life affirming celebration of joy and existence and mortality, you’ll be very happy.”
Siegel, meanwhile, is directing a story, which Flanagan wrote, in the next V/H/S anthology V/H/S/ Beyond titled ‘Stowaway’. “This fall in October, V/H/S/ Beyond premieres which is all sci-fi and I directed a short. I did a pretty good job, I think – ” Siegel said before Flanagan interrupted and said “She did a great job, a phenomenal job.” Siegel followed up by revealing with bigger news about the short’s future, saying “It looks like it’s going to be turned into a feature and I’m going to direct it.”
In addition to a feature film of of their V/H/S/ short, Siegel is also gearing up to direct a short in an anthology project that will be directed by her and other female directors and filmmakers. “Kate got real jealous of what Mike was doing. I was like ‘What are you doing? I want to do it, what you got going on over there?’ and with a group of female filmmakers decided to produce a series of horror shorts for YouTube.”
Siegel revealed the shorts will be made by “Some of your favourite horror writers. I’m not going to name names because deals aren’t fully closed, but they’re close to, but my favourite writer – who isn’t sitting next to me – my favourite horror writer has written the short I will direct.” While she couldn’t name names, she did later offer a tease that her favourite writer is, like Flanagan’s, Stephen King. Perhaps we’ll see her directing her own work from the Master of Horror.
Ricky Church – Follow me on Twitter for more movie news and nerd talk.
