TV Review: Midnight Mass (2021)

Midnight Mass (2021) co-written and directed by Mike Flanagan

An isolated fishing village on Crockett Island has two new arrivals. First is Riley Flynn (Zach Guilford), just out of prison for drunken vehicular manslaughter. He comes back to his parents and brother trying to make sense of his life and deal with the guilt of accidentally killing a young woman four years earlier. He reconnects with childhood friend Erin Greene (Kate Siegel) who has left an abusive husband and is pregnant. She returned a few months ago and is teaching at the one school on the island. She lives in her dead mom's house.

The other new arrival is Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linkletter) who has come as a substitute for their regular priest who fell ill during a Holy Land pilgrimage. Father Paul is dynamic and engaging in his preaching at Saint Patrick's and his pastoral care around the island. He goes to the local doctor's house to offer Mass for her home-bound elderly mother. He starts an AA meeting at the church hall so Riley doesn't have to take the hour-and-a-half ferry (each way) to the mainland. The event that really shakes the community is when Father Paul asks wheel-chair-bound teen Leeza (Annarah Cymone) to get up and walk. She does. And that's just the first miracle that happens on the island.

The town has been having a tough time. Beyond the hardship of a fishing life, the locals dealt with an oil spill years before the start of the show. In the first episode, a lot of mutilated cats from a smaller nearby island wash up on the shore after a storm. During the storm, Riley thinks he sees the old priest walking through the storm, which is impossible since he's recuperating on the mainland. The start of the miracles brings a ray of hope to the people that is not so encouraging for the viewers. Father Paul brought a person-sized trunk with him and starts having a lot of health difficulties. 

The mystery and horror slowly build over the seven episodes of the series. The show begins with a lot of character introductions and development, showing a very diverse community on the island. The sheriff is a Muslim who is also a relatively recent arrival. His son is bored and shows interest in the church, which does not sit comfortably with the sheriff. The doctor is more of a materialist and has a girlfriend on the mainland who seems to be in the story only to establish that she's a lesbian. Bev Keane (Samantha Sloyan) is the most active member of St. Patrick's, but she is more of a crazy fanatic who wants to control other people and has misused finances in the past. Other parishioners, like Riley's family, Erin, Leeza and her family, are more normal and much better people than Bev. Father Paul seems very sincere but viewers quickly discover that he has problems and is misguided about some key things. By the end, things have gotten crazy for everyone.

But also by the end, everyone has talked about how they feel about their religious interactions and about dying and death. The show bends over backwards to include every possible view point and winds up more in favor of an empty, emotionally overwrought pantheism. I was rolling my eyes a lot at the pseudo-profundity in the final episode. Still, I was surprised to find so much discussion and candor about religion in what is a horror story. 

The story has quite a bit of gore sprinkled throughout the episodes, with a lot more at the end. Occasional jump-scares don't fit in with the melancholic tone of the show and are more jarring than frightening. When the show takes its time, the terror works much better, even for cliched moments like visions of two glowing eyes in the dark or a barely seen figure peeking in a window.

Like Flanagan's other shows (Haunting of Hill House and Haunting of Bly Manor), the show has a strong cast of well-developed characters, some good creepy moments, and a finale that's not entirely satisfying.

Mildly recommended.

This show is streaming on Netflix.