What True Horror Is Supposed To Be
Mike Flanagan has been my go to horror director for the past 5 years, I mean when it comes to completely gruesome horror, some filmmakers do it a lot better. But that's obviously never his intention. The way he creates a horror atmosphere is through time, grace, and deception. Guy is smart. He employs so much creativity into his work, by making things stand out till you get a good look at it and realize the brilliance before you.
When it comes to telling a story, a narrative that is sewn by clever writing and brief opulent images of true terror makes a horror show come into full effect. Flanagan likes to spellbind people, reel you in entirely on the spectacle he's selling. By the time it's all over, you're left with a gaping jaw.
Of course, not everything he's worked on requires to be a slow born. He's done mainstream horror movies that offers ample amounts of good storybeats and jumpscares from established works like Ouji, and some of Stephen King's work.
But, Midnight Mass, to me is some form of a spiritual successor to his earlier show, The Haunting of Hill House. The build-up, atmosphere, music score, and over-arching themes has quite a bit of similarity, but it's also different to suit it's setup and narrative. Though, maybe he's gotten too comfortable with his work that am starting to get very familiar with his stuff. Like, maybe I've seen it all pretty much.
The Premise
Based around the fictional island town of Crockett, just off the coast of Washington. Where the denizens seemingly are pretty blue about some things. I mean, a lot has happened in the town. Not good things. Then comes a man on a mission to save them from its turmoils, bringing in crazy miracles that would question the very purpose of divinity and what truly lurks behind such miracles coming to life.
You have two major characters to look at, one is a prodigal child who found success within Silicon Valley, but after a drunk car accident that killed a girl, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison. Coming back home, he was no longer his usual self anymore. While also dealing with the fact that he was now the town's pariah. Then there's the priest, some people couldn't figure out that who he is and where he came from, all they know is that he wants to bless this town. Becoming a somewhat blessed/cursed subject matter to the small island.
A secluded place that is an easy target to the mysterious and ominously bad is a pretty good way to create a premise that could take you to a lot of, terrible yet interesting areas when it comes to storytelling. Knowing Flanagan, there's going to be a build up right before everything starts revealing itself and the ensuing horror that follows leaves you completely distraught, where a completely new situation develops.
Analysis/Critique
This show, combines two worst things. Religion and Nosferatu. If you're smart enough, you'll realize what it is exactly about after the first 2 of the 7 episodes. But what really suspends your disbelief is how they'll reveal all of it. Because the show will take a lot of its time, you'll have to be patient until all is revealed.
Till then, you have to deal with heavy-handed monologues and allegories about religion and fanatics between them. There's a lot of that, among the dialogues between the townspeople. Whom are also subjected to the show's mystery and eerie, unsettling developments. There's no breathing room for the audience as every bit of information thrown is to key to understand the circumstances around the place. Like with what the priest has unleashed and his ah, fellow clergy, Bev Keane has done to further their religious agenda.
And boy, what a clergy she is. Bev is every religious fanatic's wet dream absolutely coming true. She has terrible psychopatic behavior, she's manipulative, conniving, sometimes even downright a despicable human being whom you honestly wish her life would get snuffed out. Not only did she realized the priest's secrets, she fasttracked the plan he had carefully laid by using deadlier options. She even killed a harmless animal out of spite.
After a certain miracle has fixed a paraplegic girl, the whole town is buying into his miracle sales pitch and have started doing gatherings, daily. It is after once the priest dies from the same poisoning that killed the animal, then reawakening, is where we finally get to see what he actually is. This has also to do with the container he brought, of which from the first episode, you hear knocking noises coming after he brings it from the boat to his cabin.
So, you have a priest that truly believes that the thing he brought is a gift of god, and that it will bring salvation to this town. That it will save them. While, I could call this priest a madman, he had noble causes and beliefs, there was nothing else that was telling him that this project of his was all going to be bad news for the town. Bev Keane didn't help either by assisting and enabling his misguided crusade.
The last few episodes deal with revelation. Where everybody that has joined mass all day, finally got to see the truth of it all. The end result is something that is straight out of a biblical nightmare and has all the townspeople screaming for help. Sh*t really hit the fan.
The guilty party, Riley, is an interesting dichotomy against the priest. After doing prison, he spent the time in the island ruminating, dealing with the guilt while questioning his place in the world. It was when the priest started talking to him is where we see his character shine. Riley is a smart guy, he is a voice of reason in a geriatric town that can't look past things. He provides so many reasonable doubts and good questions that tap into the gray area of morality.
Other characters that are within the lens of the audiences, is Riley's old schoolmate whom he had a crush one. She left for New York City, before escaping from there, pregnant and out of an abusive relationship. The other is a muslim sheriff, whom with his teenage son recently moved into this place, expecting peace out of the bigotry he has constantly suffered from over the years of his law enforcement career, only to end up dealing with the same problems, but also exascerbated when he started inquiring about what's going on in the town.
The show explores the cult like religious idiosyncracies of most American people these days, puts in a Nosferatu twist, before all of it comes winding down. Flanagan, provided enough runtime to know the inner dwellings of the small town. Who the people are and why they are like this. Most horror shows don't spend so much on the dialogues to tell a good story. Although, while I was ok with all of this, the part where the priest throws his sermons and biblical anecdotes is where I started to snooze a bit. Yeah, that part was really overdone. Had said more than should have.
I wasn't exactly scared to death, it had jumpscares but not the type that catches you completely off guard and startles you. But the premise and how it was set up, yeah, that does kind of get in my sleep. Makes you think. After episode 3, my interest started fading away, that was until the reveal happened in episode 5, now that is where things got really interesting. Story doesn't end on a happy but rather a sour note.
Closing Notes
This is a brilliant show, of that no doubt. But I rather prefer his Hill House series. It had everything from crazy jumpscares, chilling atmosphere, haunting score, strong character conflicts, and amazing writing.
This is a biased opinion, but I didn't enjoy watching it as much as I did his other projects. Maybe it wasn't for me. Also, sorry this turned out to be a lengthy post, scrutinizing everything just to get the point across made me pretty busy.