Mike Flanagan knows how to make horror. He also knows how to make serialized TV. His most recent show is a mix of most of the things we’ve come to love about him: his bond with Stephen King, his skills as an adapter, his great eye for casting, and his ability to deliver pathos. But one key thing is missing: fear.

Carrie came out in October of this year, sparking much conversation, with many praising how it brought King’s ‘70s novel to 2026. One of its major criticisms, though, is that it’s not scary, especially for Flanagan, a guy who’s known for making some truly spooky stuff. Case in point: The Haunting of Hill House.

Released on Netflix in 2018, The Haunting of Hill House was Flanagan’s first TV show. Based on Shirley Jackson’s landmark novel of the same name, Flanagan takes her characters and reimagines them, at times scrapping their identities completely. While Jackson collected a group of strangers in a haunted house to explore their deepest traumas, Flanagan turned them into siblings, transforming Hill House into a story about their childhood home.

It’s an adaptational choice that many hardcore Jackson fans don’t forgive. Still, if Flanagan does one thing, it’s commit fully to the haunted house concept, taking the psychological fear that permeates the novel and literalizing it. Hill House is a true house of horrors.

Rather than leaning on jump scares, Hill House runs on dread, the type that has your eyes scanning through every inch of the screen so you’re not caught off guard by something that looks out of place.

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