Mike Flanagan

Thanks to 'It,' you're going to see the studios take a lot more chances on a very specific vision. An R-rated horror film about children being eaten by a monster that lives in a sewer is not normally something that a studio would throw their weight behind. But we've seen the success of it, which props everyone up.

There's nothing scarier than silence. A lot of horror movies lean on hits and score to try and create tension, which actually does the opposite. The best scares come from a desire to see the character overcome what they're dealing with in the scene. If you care about the character you'll care about the scare.

I never shoot my movies like I'm shooting 'a horror movie,' I shoot them like dramas. Dramas and then something horrible happens.

I always tend to tilt dark on an ending, because I feel like, especially with horror movies, those are the endings that don't evaporate. Those are the ones that stick with you.

A viewer's imagination is a powerful storyteller, and can often come up with things way more frightening than what you can explicitly show in a horror movie... try to engage that imagination, and the results can be magical.

I associate a family as the safest place in the world. So when it comes to things that scare me, introducing instability and tension into where you're supposed to be the safest really strikes a chord with me.