"Thanks to 'It,' you're going to see the studios take a lot more chances on a very specific vision. A..." — Mike Flanagan

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.