Mike Flanagan Is Working On A Unique New Horror Movie

Mike Flanagan loves a repertory cast. You can track the same actors throughout his television and film work, whether it's his wife, Kate Siegel, or actors he’s familiar with, like Henry Thomas and Carla Gugino. That loyalty isn’t limited to the front of the camera: you’ll often see the same names producing his work, and now, one of those producers is taking on the director’s chair, with Flanagan working as producer and some of Flanagan’s favorites in the cast.

Deadline reports that longtime Flanagan collaborator Alexandra Magistro will make her feature directorial debut with Rot, a new horror movie based on a script from the 2024 Black List, the annual list of unproduced scripts judged to have the most potential.

While the announcement didn’t include a plot description, the 2024 Black List described it as being about “an antisocial man suffering from obsessive compulsions” after his hoarder mother passes away. He “takes work as a trauma cleaner in hopes of facing his past, but the job soon begins to infest and unravel his mental state.”

This wouldn’t be the first movie produced from the Black List: 2024’s top entry was the comedy One Night Only, and the Anthony Bourdain biopic Tony was also featured. Rot is written by Geo Bradley, a queer Canadian screenwriter, who developed it after receiving the Blumhouse x K Period Media Screamwriting Fellowship, which supports emerging talent in the horror genre.

Magistro is another emerging talent, but she and Mike Flanagan go way back. She served as his assistant on Doctor Sleep, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and The Midnight Club, before moving into an associate producer role for The Fall of the House of Usher and The Life of Chuck. She then became VP of Creative at Flanagan’s production company, Red Room Pictures. She’s also credited as an executive producer on Flanagan’s upcoming movie The Exorcist: Martyrs, and as a writer and producer on his Carrie adaptation series for Prime Video.

It also looks like Flanagan is lending more than his producing talents to the film. Matthew Lillard and Amber Midthunder, two of his actors from Carrie, are attached to star, along with Cooper Koch from Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Both Lillard and Midthunder have plenty of experience with horror, while the recent success of Obsession and Backrooms has made it clear that there’s a desire for unique premises from younger creators. With Mike Flanagan’s endorsement and two notable actors, this could be the start of a fresh feature filmmaking career.