Horror and religion are built on similar themes. Themes of tradition, grappling with the unknown, build-ups and payoffs, and happenings that might seem out of our hands. Some of the most successful, iconic pieces of horror media have heavy connections to faith. However, if you exorcise those examples you are left with a sub-genre that is not usually big-budget or front-and-center in the genre. In that way, you’ve got to hand it to Netflix for not reigning in the creative control and freedom here. This is especially impressive for a show set completely apart from the material that made its creator, director, and lead writer (Mike Flanagan of The Haunting acclaim) a household name.

As one character puts it in Midnight Mass, “God finds a way.” Similarly, so does Mike Flanagan. The show chronicles the return of fresh-out-of-prison Riley to the beachy island he grew up on and his family still lives on. This happens in parallel to the arrival of an enigmatic and engaging priest named Paul, whose presence seems to usher in a wave of miracles. While the series is neither an endorsement nor denouncement of faith, this mediation on finding and losing faith deserves all the praise it’s getting. You may have seen its ideas before, but you’ll rarely see them done with this amount of care and craft. Its only real sin might be succumbing to too large of aspirations.

Midnight Mass commits to taking huge swings, and some of those result in cheesiness, contrivances, and on-the-nose and drawn-out exposition. As a full experience, it delivers on godly levels of characterization, long-take monologues, and philosophical deep-dives. Over its 7-and-a-half hours, it relentlessly packs in some of the most moving scenes, imagery, and character relationships that will make it to streaming this or next year. Undoubtedly, it continues Mike Flanagan’s streak of being one of the most dependable directors in modern horror. The creepiness of Midnight Mass rarely comes at odds with the material or feels out of place. When it’s not being scary, it is compelling. However, in its scary moments, it is as compelling as anything you can stream.

While it feels very old-school and Stephen King-esque in design, Mike Flanagan has studied the schematics and updated them for modern audiences. It’s what good horror does: making something that should be hard to watch yet feels impossible to stop watching. Everything from how the camera moves and weaves around like an omnipresent spectator for incredible one-take shots, to how the editing choices mesh with the music, has a baseline of excellence. When you combine the grandeur of this approach with the smallness of the setting, you get a great horror backdrop. From the first step off the ferry to Crockett island, things feel appropriately cut-off.

The church is symbolically (and even a bit structurally) running the show here. Those in the community who don’t subscribe to its teachings feel its effects. Additionally it drives and connects to everything you’ll experience as a viewer, from serving as the perfect framework for the score to underpinning talks around death and existence. There’s a great tension in it slowly showing its hand, hitting where it hurts at the most inopportune times, and making it all feel inescapable. In building towards this fate, it is able to so effectively build up its characters.

The show can feel brutal even when it’s not gory, and that’s because of the investment made in their development. When someone is cut down, it really hits. When someone is lost, it feels like a genuine person whose growth has been halted. When the deaths are forecasted, it just makes it all the more tragic. You may even find yourself pausing before a scene just to get to the needed level of acceptance before proceeding.

All of what has been said wouldn’t mean much without Father Paul. What is a church without its leader? It is unknown what sabbatical actor Hamish Linklater took to slip into this character’s skin so superbly, but the results are transcendental. His dynamic is equal-parts charming, eccentric, and off, but he always finds a way to stay personable and impactful. In the earlier parts of the story, you don’t fully know him and you just want to know more. Once you get more, he stakes his claim as the driving force to keep watching for and as an award prospect in the real world. Things only gets more interesting as his character gets more complicated.

Then again, what’s a church without its parish? From one-off and supporting characters to mainstays regulars, the acting is all-around superb. It makes sense really. You need great actors to sell a story that goes to the places this one does. The main characters Riley (played by Zach Gilford) and Erin, a girl from Riley’s past played by Kate Siegel, effectively rekindle a relationship that feels so natural for all the unnaturalness around them. Samantha Sloyan as Bev gives us one of the great hateable characters of the year, and Robert Longstreet as Joe is excellent as an incredibly flawed resident who you can’t help but hope will turn things around. It does have to be mentioned that at times, some performances may come off a little hokey. Based on how the plot develops and how those characters are positioned, it seems intentional more than anything else.

Now, it’s time to enter the confessional. Throughout the entire experience, there are moments that are unforgettable and unrivaled. However, there are also things that emerge, mainly in the back-half, that feel incredibly flat and are comfortable being.

That is not to say there aren’t highlights right until the very end, the actual end is simply beautiful and it’s very much on a plot point-to-point basis. Sadly, the small-scale beginnings don’t fully gel with the largeness and scope of where it goes. It is disappointing, not because it ever truly gets bad, but simply because it stops being flawless. On a lesser but more targeted note, the CGI is also worth a mention. While it’s not bad by any means, it stands out in a show where everything else feels so visually top-notch.

In more ways than not, this is the best thing Mike Flanagan has ever made. As excellent as it can be, it’s still more a testament to his potential than the peak of his career. Maybe that’s just what faith is: seeing the signs and knowing where they’ll lead. There’s a feeling of disappointment now, but that’s only because I’ve seen the highest of mountain tops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-XIRcjf3l4

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Midnight Mass

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• One of the best performances and characters of the year in Father Paul.
• Incredible tone and sense of presence.
• Fully realized characters who you’ll genuinely care about.
• Near-perfect progression in its first half.

Cons

• Inconsistent in its second half, in most every way besides the filming.
• CGI that, while not terrible, can take you out of the experience.