Mike Flanagan makes spooky things.
(Is that reductive? Midnight Mass, Doctor Sleep, Haunting Of Hill House; there’s a lot of “spooky” on his resumé, is all we’re saying.)
As such, we can assume that Flanagan has good taste in horror—something he confirmed on Twitter earlier this evening, when he posted a spec script for his most bone-chilling/reviving project yet: A dramatization of “The Day That Robert Palins Murdered Me” (a.k.a. “The Night That The Skeletons Came To Life”), from Tim Robinson’s sketch series I Think You Should Leave.
And, look: Is any of this going to make the remotest lick of sense if you’re not already obsessed (as apparently both we, and Flanagan, are) with this particular sketch, which sees a Johnny Cash-style singer get upstaged by a more enthusiastic, if less improvisationally talented, band mate? Or if you’re not deeply amused at Flanagan poking fun at his own penchant for allegorical, psychological horror by making something so exceptionally silly? Of course not. But that’s on you, since “Robert Palins” is either the best (Flanagan’s ranking), or third best (ours, although this author swears he tried to get it even higher), sketch in the whole of Robinson’s wonderful odyssey of awkwardness.
The genesis of Flanagan’s script apparently came from artist Daniel Danger, who mocked up a parody of Flanagan’s Haunting shows for “The Haunting Of Skeleton Town” last year, complete with assigned parts for a number of Flanagan’s regulars. (We can’t wait to see Oliver Jackson-Cohen as the sinister Palins himself.)
Thus inspired, Flanagan then apparently decided to take a crack at a joke version of the script, cramming in as many references as possible to the original song into a single page.. He also noted his deep love for ITYSL, Robert Palins, etc.
Anyway: Congratulations to the Netflix executive who just got this hand-crafted slam dunk of a project served up to them. Just remember: You’ve got to pull the hair up, but not out.
If you pull it out, you turn to bones.