Next Best Picture Podcast

Mike Flanagan knows horror. Any fan of the genre will tell you that he's one of the most exciting directors working today, creating haunting and uniquely terrifying films like "Oculus," "Gerald's Game," and "Doctor Sleep," not to mention his many Netflix series, including "The Haunting of Hill House" and "The Fall of the House of Usher." His latest film, "The Life of Chuck," may therefore seem like a bit of a departure. It doesn't explicitly aim to scare viewers in the ways that they might expect from a Flanagan production. But as the filmmaker himself would explain, it's a logical continuation of the kinds of stories he likes to explore. Namely, it concerns itself with big thematic topics, like the impact of one person on others and the peculiarities of living a finite existence. It's a moving, expansive film that has the capacity to horrify, stun, and affect its audience just as much as anything he's made before, even if it has no broken-neck ghosts or bathtub-dwelling ghouls. Mike Flanagan was kind enough