I try to keep this blog bookish but Midnight Mass is basically an early Stephen King book so I will review it and gush about it and I don’t feel bad.
This is gonna be a spoiler-free praise.
Midnight Mass is the newest addition to Mike Flanagan and Netflix’s partnership and I think at this point this man can do no wrong. While it was sad to hear that Flanagan had departed from the Revival adaptation, seeing him still made a show that is a Stephen King book at heart was great. So yes, I have no way of being objective for this series. I loved everything about it.
Midnight Mass is the story of a small fishing community living on a remote island called Crockett Island. Their daily lives mostly revolve around their religious beliefs. The priest who had led them for a long time, Monsignor Pruitt, is temporarily replaced by a young outsider, Father Paul and with his arrival, mysterious events begin to occur on the island.
Midnight Mass does not hide much about what it is about and how things will unfold. Trained eyes won’t have any problem seeing the signs. It doesn’t act like it needs to hide anything either. In the first couple of episodes my husband and I had figured out what was happening, and how things would progress more or less, and then we were immersed in the story nonetheless.
Like all Stephen King stories, Midnight mass is not about the big bad, it’s about the people. Crokett Island is filled with people haunted by their own personal demons. So as a huge Stephen King fan, it wasn’t hard for me to get into Midnight Mass. It’s a very dialogue-heavy and slow-burn show. But this is perfectly fine because the important thing is not the action or the scares, what’s important is the people living on the island, their personalities, their reactions to the events that took place, and their approach to each other as a result of these events. What is important is the choices they make.
The negative comments I’ve read about the show are mostly about these long, religion-based dialogues I mentioned, the slow pacing of the series, and the fact that it doesn’t have as much tension as Hill House. While these are understandable complaints, I felt none of them. If you love Stephen King’s books such as Salem’s Lot, The Stand, The Shining and start watching the series with this expectation, there is no reason not to enjoy Midnight Mass.
If you are familiar with Mike Flanagan’s work, expecting to explore emotions like guilt, grief, belonging, and suffering, you’re not gonna be surprised to find similar themes in Midnight Mass. In these respects, while Midnight Mass carries traces of Flanagan’s previous Netflix collab The Haunting series, it handles them differently. Although the mention of religious texts is abundant and lengthy, Flanagan does not impose any ideas on his audience. The show neither condemns the church nor blindly submits to its will. It just asks the audience to make their own inferences. Flanagan honors the individual’s personal relationship with God and gives voice to an array of perspectives in this context.
I wouldn’t even call Midnight Mass a horror. It’s more of a supernatural drama. Yet, despite all its wordy, monologue-heavy nature, the show pulls you along. It is bone-chilling but not in a scary way. It’s more like the Handmaid’s Tale. Every character (major or minor) is tested on death, rebirth, and eternal life. What comes out of the other end is what’s chilling, and makes you think.
After his minor involvement at Bly Manor, Flanagan’s heavy influence is felt at Midnight Mass. This time, Flanagan is involved in every aspect of the series, from production to writing to direction, and the positive effect of this is delicious. His camera movements, tilts, angles, long shots, figures looming in darkness are all there. He directed all seven episodes of Midnight Mass and Mike Flanagan is at his absolute best.
It would be unfair to not talk about the acting in the show. Midnight Mass works as an ensemble and everybody gets their chance to shine. While especially Samantha Sloyan as Bev Keane and Hamish Linklater as Father Paul shines the brightest, I would like to mention Rahul Kohli’s name as the most sympathetic and relatable character performance in the series as Sherrif Hassan.
Midnight Mass will not devastate you emotionally like Hill House but it will stick with you for a long time if you give it a shot.
Give it a shot.
Peek-A-Book 