Mike Flanagan’s favourite horror comedy: “A real delight across the board”
Even if you don’t know Mike Flanagan by name, chances are, he’s haunted your nightmares. The filmmaker has made a small empire of terror, spearheading the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and The Fall of the House of Usher, and directing Stephen King adaptations like Doctor Sleep, Gerald’s Game, and The Life of Chuck.
Flanagan specialises in the nuts and bolts of horror. He isn’t trying to make genre-bending Oscar bait, but he has mastered the art of straight-down-the-middle horror. That might sound damning with faint praise, but as countless horror movies demonstrate every year, nailing the basics is a lot easier said than done. As if to illustrate the point, some of our time’s greatest experts of the genre have praised Flanagan for his work.
Quentin Tarantino called Doctor Sleep, based on King’s sequel to The Shining, one of his three favourite films of 2019, alongside Alexandre Aja’s Crawl and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, landing it in solid company. William Friedkin, the New Hollywood director who made one of the most notoriously scary movies of all time, The Exorcist, took time out of his day to praise Flanagan’s 2016 release Hush, writing on Twitter that the slasher movie was “a great horror film” and “terrifying”. Even King, a horror expert if ever there was one, and a tough critic to boot, has singled out Flanagan’s work on more than one occasion.
In addition to churning out hits and impressing horror royalty, Flanagan has been an outspoken fan of cinema over the years. In 2020, just as the pandemic was shutting down theatres and forcing people indoors, he helpfully provided a list of underrated terror features for people to stream at home. One of them, 2019’s Harpoon, takes a distinctly comedic approach to the genre.
“This wickedly funny thriller by Rob Grant puts three characters onto a boat, sets them adrift in the middle of nowhere and then lets their individual natures do the rest,” Flanagan wrote, praising its blend of darkness, unpredictability, and ‘downright mischievous’ sense of humour. “A real delight across the board,” he concluded.
Suffice it to say that this movie goes hard. It stars Munro Chambers, Christopher Gray, and Emily Tyra as three friends with violent tendencies who agree to make amends by spending some time on one of their yachts. Things spiral out of control from the get-go, thanks in no small part to a harpoon that one of them is gifted for their birthday. Any further plot details would ruin the many twists and turns, but you should know going in that this film is nasty, ridiculous, and probably not everyone’s cup of tea.
It’s the kind of self-aware horror that is saving the genre these days, but instead of sacrificing humour for gore or vice versa, it leans into both to an extent that is truly impressive. Gutsy, scrappy, and relentless, it starts with a brawl and ends…well, somewhere even more violent and unhinged. Calling it a ‘delight’ is a bit of a stretch, but if you’re a die-hard fan of low-budget horror, that descriptor will probably resonate.
