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If you're reading this/are anything like me, the announcement of a new Mike Flanagan project might as well be a mini-Christmas. Hm, or maybe that's not quite accurate - Christmas has a lot to do with not knowing what you're getting, and with a Mike Flanagan movie or TV show, you know you're going to get A) quality horror and B) a cast you've seen before. Yeah, it's always fun to approach a new Flanagan project wondering which frequent collaborator of Flanagan's is going to be which character in it, and I'm not just talking about fun from a fan persepective.

Those actors I mentioned do the exact same thing, apparently.

The story comes from comments Henry Thomas made at Rose City Comic Con 2025. Thomas is a frequent collaborator of Flanagan's himself, having appeared in every Flanagan Netflix series (Haunting of Hill House, Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club and The Fall of the House of Usher, to be exact), as well as films Doctor Sleep and Gerald's Game. Appropriately, Thomas was speaking at the Haunting World of Mike Flanagan’s Flanaverse at RCCC '25, where the actor explained what goes on in the Flanagan family when a new script comes out.

"I really enjoy it," Thomas  "Because you kind of get a feel for what everybody is going to bring to the piece — you worked with them before, and you've had scenes with them before. It's exciting, you know? I don't know, I've always as an audience member, I've always liked seeing the same actors in different roles. It's fun. It's like, ‘Oh, it's the guy. He was the evil guy, but now, he's good, but will he turn evil? Because he was the
evil guy!’ It's great. That's what you want. I have the same thing when I read the script with one of Mike's projects, I think, 'Oh, he's gonna hire Trucco for that one.’ You can kind of do that. 'Oh, this is definitely Samantha Sloyan's role.' You can kind of see these things as you're reading it. So it's a lot of fun." 

It sounds like a lot of fun, Henry. So what are the predictions on who's playing who Flangan's The Dark Tower series? Don't pretend you and the Flavangers aren't talking about that.

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." Join Popverse's weekly explorations of the best opening moments of horror cinema in The Coldest Open, and then check out:

• The best horror movies of all time, according to horror aficionado Greg Silber
• The most underrated horror movies from the past couple years
• All the new and upcoming horror movies for 2025 and beyond

And much gore. Er, more. Much more.