Was lucky enough to attend a Q&A after a showing of SLC Punk in Orlando. Matthew talked about how amazing it was to work with Mike and had to share with you all 🫶🏼

*SPOILERS*

This was a story of the people in the town, which Flanagan fleshed out SO well throughout the season. Why, in the finale, did we shift to effectively new characters in order to set up an MCU for King's work at the expense of the characters we spent so much energy getting to know? I ADORED every episode coming up to it, and I really thought we were going to get a fully realized and brutal rampage giving each character either an opportunity to complete their arc or at least experience the horrifying event, but instead, we got an OC taking control of Carrie, making two moves that hurt or killed people instantly and then we moved on to the organization that has apparently always been there. The fire, the destruction of Carrie's house, and the hole in the middle of the town were barely given any gravity at all. Margaret was killed by a character introduced in that episode. I was interested in the culmination of the story of the town, not how other figures orchestrated the whole thing and have their own agenda. Grayle's death was embarrassingly silly and brief for his arc, we gave no time to the guidance counselor, no time for D, almost no time for Chris or Tina. Carrie and Margaret didn't even have a proper conclusion. I truly think half of the runtime was squandered, as was the significance of the event we'd been leading up to. Even independent of the book I like, this adaptation had a frustrating end to me for the story it was telling.

Does anyone else have these thoughts or even disagree?

Overall, I think this whole series is not about magic, but something more relatable - manipulation.

Margaret manipulates Carrie and the community, Chris manipulates Carrie, but her dad influences her behaviour as well as him hiding the truth about her behaviour to her mom. Emilien manipulates Carrie. The Tina manipulates Chris into fighting with her sister at the party, Billy probably manipulates Chris or at least distorts her values even more. The teacher manipulated the student by grooming her. That woman at the interview manipulates the witnesses.

The harm was not caused by telekinesis, it was caused by people not being genuine - i.e manipulation and deception - is more toxic than having powers.

Mike Flanagan initially wrote the script for the recent film Clayface but stepped away but if this was a full on Mike Flanagan project. The following is whom I think would be cast in the roles below or would be best suited. Although he does work with a variety of actors often for his theatrical movies. The structure of this story which has the main character transforming into other people would give a lot of his regulars some scenery to chew which is probably how he envisioned it when he wrote it.

I can’t remember any of these character’s damn names though.

Clayface - Oliver Jackson Cohen
(Although for his movies he typically gets one off move stars like Hiddleston, Ewan McGregor or Scarjo)

The Mob boss - Matthew Lillard (I think this would be fun)

The Business manager - Mark Hamill

The Detective - Zach Gilford or Rahul Kohli

Clayface’s agent - Samantha Sloyan

Mob Henchmen - Henry Thomas, Matt Biedel, Robert Longstreet, take your pick.

The scientist lady - Karen Gillan

Mob boss’s girlfriend - Victoria Pedretti

Talk show host - Hamish Linklater

Batman - Carla Gugino

And FUCK Bev Keene. Oh my god. Just got to the easter potluck. Samantha Sloyan is so good at playing despicable characters

I’m curious what he thought of the movie. I know he wrote the script, briefly developed it, and handed it off to DC Studios.

Has he talked about it?

well, I finished Hill House a couple weeks ago at least, finished Bly Manor earlier today.

I think as of right now they were the last 2 of the FlanTVerse that I needed to catch up on.

(not including The Midnight Club)

and oh my god they're both amazing shows, the characters especially, are incredibly likeable. (at least the likeable ones are)

Wow, the ending to Bly Manor, For a while I was wondering how it'd tie into Hill House because I've seen people saying to watch Hill House first, either way I haven't cried because of a film/TV show like this in forever, they deserved to be together for the rest of their lives 💔 same goes for Hannah and Owen :( . Flanagan does not hold back punches when it comes to the characters who deserve everything.

please can we somehow get Amelia Eve and Victoria Pedretti back for future projects even if they aren't even in the same show together, they're incredible actresses!

Story by and screenplay co-credit. Pretty great flick. Made sense when I saw his name at the end.

I think the reason why almost everyone had mixed feelings about her was because she was reminded of their mother. She played that character so well, it felt strange hating her because she cared for Carrie and tried her best but we all knew she was terrible to her.

Discuss.

Nobody really talks about how Sue abandoned Carrie to find her way home from an unknown area all alone after dark while extremely high and crying, knowing Carrie’s a sheltered 15 year old who’s barely left the house before and doesn’t even have a cell phone so she could call someone if she gets lost or is in danger.

All because Chris shamed Sue and called her performative when she tried to find Carrie. That was more important than basic human decency.

Female friends always make sure their friends get home safe, especially those in a super vulnerable state. In fact I would go as far as to say that many people would try to ensure a stranger got home safe if they saw a sobbing 15 year old wandering the streets alone at night.

ETA: by “female friends” I mean true, healthy female friends. Fake or bad friends abandon and mistreat friends all the time.

Imo it would be perfect for him. It has all the flanagan hallmarks; death and loss, tradegy, horror, serenity, beauty, etc.

Plot:
Guy dies and goes to purgatory/heaven and finds out his wife is in hell because she committed suicide years earlier so he has to travel down through the many different levels of hell to find her and bring her back

The way Mike writes his horror stories this could be amazing and heartbreaking.

I’d especially be interested in his portrayal of hell.

How the fuck was Carrie from the book fully unaware what a period even is let alone not know what a tampon even does? I'm pretty sure every women's restroom have a tampon bin to throw away the tampons so it makes zero sense for book Carrie who has been going to public school since elementary to not notice the tampon bin being filled up with bloodied up tampons. Like there's no way she wouldn't be able to atleast notice it or talk to other people about it.

The show adaptation has a much better explanation for why Carrie doesn't know what a period even is as a result of her isolation from society and her mom restricting her education.

Just finished season 1 and I just wanna say, if Adelaide is telepathic and she can "persuade" and command others to do as she says, then why did she have to pretend to be a "documentary filmmaker"? (I guess thats her title) to interview the witnesses? Why not just command them to tell her whatever they saw/know and then command them to forget the whole encounter like she did with Sue when she said she's not really sure of what she saw. I know, I know, it's a show. It's just a logical thought. Also, shes interviewing them like right after everything happened, it's hard to believe that they would agree to meet an interviewer to talk about anything so early on, especially Margaret, it's not like her character to agree to speak to a filmmaker and answer questions. Unless they were of course under Adelaide's "mind control" to go there and speak to her.

Before Adelaide's powers became obvious, I found it odd that Margaret listened to her immidately when she said "sit down" especially after she seemingly made Adelaide tell her about Emmaline, up until that point it felt like she was in control. I initially thought she killed her because she knew she wasn't going to stop searching for carre and emmaline, but then seeing the disappointed reaction when Maragret said no to her being able to use her powers again, it seems as though she killed her because she's of no use to her in that she rejects her powers and has no interest in using strengthening them again. Although they could be both - she killed her so she doesn't find carrie and makes things more difficult for her and the others and because she rejects her powers.