The Gore Connoisseurs

Mike Flanagan has been one of our most consistently brilliant horror directors. His character-orientated stories and explorations of trauma and grief have resulted in some of the best horror films of the 2010s . Despite being impressively prolific, he's never made a bad horror movie. Thanks to a distinctive artistic voice and a close knit team of collaborators - screenwriting partner Jeff Howard; producer Trevor Macy; actors Kate Siegel and Henry Thomas among others who have starred in several of his films - we have a clear idea of what makes a Mike Flanagan movie essential viewing. But which is his best? Starting with 2011's  Absentia -  not the director's first film but his first feature-length entry into the horror genre - his seven horror movies so far have been ranked below. Note:- This article does not contain spoilers for any Mike Flanagan movies. 7/ Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) What goes down: It's 1967, and the Zander family run a phon...

The set-up for this low-key 2014 horror flick may seem like a Sinister rip-off, but stick with it and chills will ensue. The opening of The Canal leans into haunted house clichés hard. Mark (Rupert Evans) and his pregnant wife Claire (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) are introduced in the midst of a house viewing . Mark straight up sees a ghost, but still goes ahead with the purchase. Some may argue he deserves what's coming for him. Yet these are patient ghoulies. We flashforward five years to find Mark has discovered through his job as a film archivist that - surprise, surprise - the house boasts a history of gruesome murders. More pressingly, it looks like Claire might be having an affair with a Hot Ponytail Dude. The parallels to Sinister are clear. Mark - like Ethan Hawke's dickish true crime writer - has a job which makes him naturally inclined to deep dive into his new home's dark past. There's a lot of business with old timey film projectors and creepy ar...