Mike Flanagan: Hush was my Halloween

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

When Blumhouse was first looking into directors to take the helm of their reboot of John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN, one of the names thrown into the hat was THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and DOCTOR SLEEP director Mike Flanagan.

And today we're hearing from our buddies over at Bloody Disgusting that Flanagan is glad he wasn't hired by Blumhouse to helm HALLOWEEN – because he already made his ode to John Carpenter's classic with his stellar Netflix thriller HUSH.

Specifically, Flanagan says:

Jason Blum called me once and asked me that. I tried to come up with a take for a minute when Blumhouse got Halloween. The answer to that is, I would do Hush. In a lot of ways, Hush is my Halloween. I found my notes for that very brief period of time when I was trying to come up with a take on Halloween because Jason had said, ‘Hey, if you want to do this we can probably figure something out.’

Flanagan adds:

I’m glad that I didn’t and so glad it did not come to me because the only note that I had scribbled over three days of brainstorming was ‘Dr. Loomis a woman?’ That’s as far as I got on Halloween. They made the right call in not trusting the franchise to me. In a lot of ways, Hush was my riff on the beautiful, simplicity, silence, tension, suspense that Halloween is. All of my love for Carpenter’s film is poured into that. If Hush didn’t exist, and I was doing Halloween, it would look a lot like Hush.

Fair enough. Especially considering HUSH is one of the most beautiful, simple, silent, tension-filled, suspense flicks since Carpenter's original classic. 

HUSH centers on

A deaf writer living a solitary life out in the woods who must fight for her life in silence when a masked killer appears in her window.

Flanagan directed HUSH from a screenplay he co-wrote along with his wife actress Kate Siegel. Trevor Macy and Jason Blum produced and the film features Siegel along with John Gallagher Jr., Michael Trucco, Samantha Sloyan, and Emilia Graves. The Newton Brothers provided the film's haunting score while James Kniest handled the cinematography. and Flanagan edited. Netflix unleashed the Blumhouse Production back on April 8, 2016.

STREAM IT HERE