The Haunting Of Hill House Review: 7 Ups & 2 Downs

2. It Cements Mike Flanagan As A Master Horror Director

Mike Flanagan has been an up-and-coming horror filmmaker for quite some time now, having enjoyed mainstream success with both Oculus and Ouija: Origin of Evil, while his two Netflix offerings Hush and Gerald's Game have also been well-received by fans and critics alike.

It's his work on this series, however, serving as director for all 10 episodes, which cements him as one of the smartest and most artful filmmakers working in the genre today.

The result of having Flanagan direct the entire series is that the vision feels incredibly consistent throughout, while benefiting from an ambitious plot structure - aided by fantastic editing - in which earlier events are re-contextualised later in the series.

The show's sixth episode is, quite simply, a masterpiece of horror television, with the majority of the episode unfolding over just a few long takes running close to 20 minutes a-piece.

They're not incredibly showy by any means, but they're wonderfully intimate and give the cast - especially Timothy Hutton - an incredible opportunity to showcase their acting chops.

Flanagan's already hard at work shooting the Ewan McGregor-starring follow-up to The Shining, Doctor Sleep, and off the back of his work here, it's extremely easy to have total confidence in him knocking it out of the park.