Just my two cents, but I think a lot of this stems from the fact that horror has had to work within the subtext for much of its existence and also that it’s not getting a bit of a mainstream resurgence with the whole “elevated” horror thing.

Horror has always been elevated, but it’s message has been highly subtextual for a very long time. Take something like the queerness in The Haunting being highly coded to Theo openly being a lesbian on The Haunting of Hill House. Couple the fact that a lot more can be openly said with the popularity of highbrow horror and a general audience that might not be super familiar with horrors history and I think you have some filmmakers who don’t trust their audience to get what they are trying to do so they do a shit ton of hand holding. Instead of just leaving a lot of stuff up to the viewer to get or interpret Flanagan verbally tells the audience what he wants them to know. I’m his effort to make elevated horror he’s just making super easy and digestible horror. That’s not necessarily a bad thing depending on what you like.