Ranked: Mike Flanagan’s best horror TV series.

If you’re a horror fan in the 21st century, the chances are that you’ve heard of Mike Flanagan, and you’ll have heard of at least one of these series by now. Flanagan is a writer and director from the US who I first came across when he directed Dr Sleep, the sequel to The Shining. I’ve since fallen in love with everything he has produced in the last two years. His horror has heart, tragedy and the ghosts will be the least of your problems when it comes to your haunted soul.

This is my top 5 starting least to most loved and until I see Carrie, it’s staying this way. What’s yours?

5. The Midnight Club

This one was genuinely creepy and it does often come into the lower ranked titles when people are looking at the limited series Flanagan has done. I think the biggest flaw with this one is that it wasn’t meant to be a short series like the other ones on this list. The Midnight Club left us with so many questions, even though it told us a lot and whet out appetite for a hidden cult and symbols all over this cancer centre for sick teens.

There were a lot of jump scares in this one, and it was good fun with the teens meeting at midnight to tell each other scary stories… but it just left a lot of questions. I know they were going to be addressed in subsequent seasons (none of which have been confirmed) but still… not as gripping as his other series.

I think the ages of the main characters was an issue for me. I don’t really read or watch a lot of young adult fiction so this is probably why it’s my least loved of all the 5 I’ve chosen. The acting was excellent and Ruth Codd was wonderful. It could also be that I wanted to see Flanagan’s usual ensemble or at least, most of them. Can’t happen when they’re all teenagers, though.

4. The Fall Of The House Of Usher

This one was far gorier than the previous productions. but it landed well. This series by Mike Flanagan was based on the story of the same name by the master of American Gothic, Edgar Allan Poe. Reimagined in a modern setting, it tells the story of Roderick and Madeline Usher, two siblings who, in exchange for success and wealth, make a deal with a mysterious woman. The price? A fatal one.

This one was more arty, more under-the-surface, genuinely unpleasant horror. We witnessed cruelty, deceit, the insatiable hunger for power and the classic themes of Prometheus: Man vs the gods. It’s not going to end well.

Perhaps the most shocking thing for me with this one was seeing Henry Thomas not playing a nice, or even a slightly flawed nice guy. It was a great performance from him. Something else that haunted me with The Fall Of The House Of Usher was how each one of Roderick’s six children have something deviant about them. None of them are able to maintain a well-balanced, nurturing relationship with intimacy and love. It was really interesting seeing how they all ended up thanks to choices their father made.

I really enjoyed this series by Flanagan. I think it was a brilliant spin on the original Gothic tale where the Usher family is in decline and the narrator witnesses its descent into madness first hand. To take it to a new setting and make it about a CEO of a pharmaceuticals company and really weigh in on the ethics and choices the Ushers make was so compelling and relevant to today’s audiences.

3. The Haunting Of Bly Manor

The first time I tried to watch this, the accents rubbed me up the wrong way. I’m British, and even though I’m from Liverpool and absolutely do not speak with received pronunciation, the accents of Henry Wingrave and the children were grating. I soon got over it though and tried again, I mean it was Mike Flanagan! I tried and I’m glad I did, because it was fantastic.

Genuinely scary at times, and the lure of the lake in the grounds never went away. The doll house… the children… yeah, brilliant atmospheric, Gothic horror reimagined in a 1980s setting.

I wasn’t expecting to have my heart broken like I did watching this one. The atmosphere pulls you in like the gravity well in the lake, and you can’t get away. Absolutely heartbreaking and a thrilling, shocking tale of love, obsession and desperation.

This series was inspired by The Turn of The Screw by Henry James. It follows an English family whose new nanny is convinced that ghosts are following the children around and mean to do them harm.

Readers of the original ghost story by James either love it or hate it. Some will say the horror wasn’t there, or it wasn’t scary, but it’s all rather subtle. Has the governess seen ghosts, or is she going mad while in the care of the children? What has happened to them?

Flanagan really brought these elements out and drew on them, maintaining that consistent tension throughout with an equal measure of tragedy, humour and jump scares. I think what I particularly loved was the au pair and how her character modelled Father Damien Karras of The Exorcist at times. The tragedy attached to the former au pair was harrowing, and I was genuinely scared of Peter Quint. It was a wonderful adaptation that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

2. Midnight Mass.

Phenomenal. This one took my breath away with the twists, and the story was solid. Midnight Mass is set in America where a young man returns to his isolated hometown on Crockett Island, hoping to rebuild his life after serving four years in prison for killing someone in a drunk-driving incident. He arrives at the same time as a mysterious, charismatic priest who begins to revitalise the town’s flagging faith. However, the community’s divisions are soon exacerbated by the priest’s deeds while mysterious events befall the small town.

This one was highly charged, and I was blown away by Flanagan’s story. A former Catholic himself, Flanagan explores faith and the flaws of communities in their tendencies to let self-righteousness cloud their judgement and restrict their compassion. I loved this series so much.

It’s hard to talk about Midnight Mass for two reasons:

It wasn’t based on a book, so it is completely original and I’d feel awful dropping spoilers for this, whereas you could expect a spoiler from a classic horror novel. The other reason is that it is so full of twists, there’s not much you can tell someone who hasn’t yet seen it. I wouldn’t want to ruin it for them. This one completely caught me out and I loved it.

Flanagan has inspired a lot of my own work, and Midnight Mass was one of the huge ones. I would have put this as number one but when I really, really thought about The Haunting Of Hill House again, Midnight Mass had to come a very close second.

1. The Haunting Of Hill House

This was the first one I ever watched, and on the first go around, it terrified me! Once I got over the haunted house, I was invested in the family trauma and their plagued past. This is everything I have now come to expect from Flanagan: Heartbreaking, gripping and haunting.

I still can’t get over Nelly and how she tries several times to get others to listen, but the way the story unfolded and put together the puzzle was *chef’s kiss* and I am haunted by Hill House. I’ve rewatched it three times. I even convinced my scaredy-cat husband (who is now also a huge Mike Flanagan fan) to watch it, and he ended up loving it too.

I think The Haunting Of Hill House had the most heart, one of the most poignant moments being when Steven Crain learned the truth about how much a parent would sacrifice to shield you from pain.

If you’ve read the Shirley Jackson classic novella that this was inspired by, you’re in for a pleasant surprise if you don’t like comparing: there’s not much to compare. The series is definitely what we consider a reimagining rather than a retelling. When I first read The Haunting Of Hill House, I was enraged on Eleanor’s behalf, and I wanted her to go out there and do something for herself. The character of Eleanor Flanagan’s adaptation is a different character albeit similarly sensitive to the elements around her.

Putting this as number one was probably really predictable, wasn’t it?

Flanagan has taught me so much about horror and how to make it hurt.

What order did you have in your top 5 Flanagan series?

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Coming soon from Mike Flanagan:

Carrie

The Exorcist: Martyrs

Hanna Delaney is a horror author from Liverpool UK. She is the author of the Muldoon supernatural thriller series; Gothic horror novels set in 19th century Liverpool featuring occult detective Daniel Muldoon. She is a huge horror fan and loves a ghost story. hanna has a BA and an MA in English Literature and taught English before publishing her debut novel Oceanus in 2024.