Netflix’s ‘Midnight Mass’ Review: Mike Flanagan’s New Blood Ritual
Netflix billed its new seven-episode miniseries “Midnight Mass” as a horror supernatural thriller from Mike Flanagan, the guy behind “The Haunting of Hill House” and its follow-up, “The Haunting of Bly Manor.”
It shares with those miniseries rich filmmaking, a stellar cast (with a lot of repeat stars, including Flanagan’s co-writer and wife, Kate Siegel, in a key role) and deep character exploration. But it differs from them in the depth of its thematic ambition: “Midnight Mass” deals with subjects no smaller than religion, faith, life, death and everything in between.
Light Spoilers Ahead
The faith/religion stuff is front and center: The story centers on a small island community of devout Catholics into which a new, charismatic priest arrives —with a big secret. His arrivals sparks a revival of fervent faith — and, maybe, miracles? — that energizes believers, fosters doubt among the skeptics and challenges the entire community to face the consequences of unwavering belief.
The deft thing about “Midnight Mass” is that it is not just a polemic. It actually finds the heart of why faith means so much to people, especially those struggling just to get by. And it does more than that. It gets you to feel it yourself.
In Episode 2, we see the love and hope radiating from Father Paul in his visit to Sarah’s mom. And the Ash Wednesday sermon he delivers hits home, nearly bringing you to tears with the shining promise of hope, light and healing in the darkness.
Miraculous.
(Credit to Hamish Linklater, who plays Father Paul not with hubris or condescension, but with love and humility that makes you believe people would follow him to extremes).
But there’s a catch. In Episode 3, a sermon mentions the covenant with God, the contract “scrawled in flesh, inked in the blood of the martyrs.” Once you’re in, you can’t pick and choose which parts of the covenant are “palatable” to you, says chief acolyte Beverly.
“God will ask horrible things of you,” Father Paul says. “What is otherwise horrible is good because of where it’s headed.”
True Horror
And boy do things get horrific. Midway, the show pivots to true horror with fantastical story developments that make all too literal where this kind of faith leads you.
Throughout, the show offers up a based-in-reality depiction of Catholic faith, right down to the hymns, rituals, Bible quotations and liturgy of the real Catholic mass. The show finds apt if obscure Bible quotes to bolster its extreme themes: The blood of Christ, we learn, “shall cleanse our consciences of acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God.”
By the end, the show gives the lie to the promise of such religion — in the most literal, apocalyptic way — while finding a way to demonstrate how limited and small religious thinking is compared with the epic reality of life and death in the vastness of a godless cosmos.
Along the way, we get to know the emotional and spiritual struggles of all the main characters, brought to life in long, conversational scenes that may slow down the narrative but are so well-acted that they carry you along if you’re willing to spend the time. Flanagan and his writing team demonstrate his gift with revelatory dialogue in these scenes, and they are the heart of the show.
The show isn’t subtle, and it isn’t flashy, but if you’re interested in a thoughtful if bloody rumination on big issues, you may like it. I did.
