A Faith Overpowering, Monologue-Filled, Supernatural Tale That Leaves an Undeniable Taste That Lingers a Long While. (Midnight Mass) (Spoiler-Free Review)

Mike Flanagan is known to write the best storylines within the horror genre by creating characters that are not only haunted by their pasts, whether literally or metaphorically, but also creating characters that are suffering from loss, mental health, and checkered beliefs influenced by parental figures. Flanagan returns with an original limited series for Netflix after the success of Hill House and Bly Manor. With some of the cast members from those respective shows including Flanagan's wife Kate Siegel, comes a new story that will definitely leave you with chills by the end of each of the hour long episode.  

Midnight Mass is set centered around the residents of an island that take their faith a little too seriously (well, at least most of them do). When a new priest comes to take over their parish, miracles occur along with mysterious outcomes that involve the well-being of these new and old residents. Although marketed as a supernatural horror show, Midnight Mass tackles faith in a way that hasn't been dealt with before, or at least not as often. 

There is a lack of movies or TV shows that portrays what really happens when Christians or Catholic go for their weekly mass, usually cutting straight towards end of it where people come together for Sunday lunch to either talk trash or gossip about their scandalous neighbors. In this show however, we see what almost seems like everything a Catholic mass can offer when one attends. Unlike most faith-based movies, Midnight Mass doesn't try to preach to you the wonders of prayer or being in a religion, it influences you positively at first but eventually we head into what might possibly a cautionary tale. 

The one problem that comes with this show handling elements of faith while taking a magnifying glass to analyze it, as almost all of the main characters of this show is given the chance to present 10 to 12 minute monologues about how faith has influenced them as child or currently as an adult. As compelling as that sounds, these monologues go on for lifetimes. If you listen closely to these monologues, or preaches as some people hear them , have a deeper meaning to them. It is hard to appreciate Flanagan's writing when it came to these particular dialogue heavy scenes because they were too many of them and possibly made every episode a tad too long to consume. 

About the runtime, I have been especially been advocating a number of shows lately (I'm looking at you, Marvel Studios) to make their episodes longer, to avoid ever worrying about gripping narratives from ending too soon. Midnight Mass changes my perspective on that almost too quickly. Each episode is an hour long, with one of them being an hour and 10 minutes. None of them even touch the 50 minute mark. The credits only take 2 minutes of the episode away and there's no opening credits either, something most Netflix shows have. Never-ending episodes or not, it was somewhat necessary especially since Midnight Mass is also considerably a very slow paced show. Due to its pace, viewers really have to pay attention to the dialogue and character developments - whether its short lived developments or not - to really understand and let the narrative takes it course, stick in your brains to keep track with everyone on that tiny island and let it affect you the way Flanagan definitely intended. 

Midnight Mass is definite recommend for those who not only watched Hill House or even Bly Manor, but whoever that has managed to enjoy and rewatch those shows more than twice. They show off Mike Flanagan's recurring use of directing styles and camera work as a director and also his style of character studies and gut-punching, quotable dialogues as a one-of-a-kind writer. What is worth marvelling over when it comes to this show is that it is completely flushed out from the mind of Flanagan himself. It is not adapted or loosely based on classic horror books or short stories that were published more than 50 years ago. It is original and it might end up considered as one of Flanagan's best works yet (not in any way surpassing Hill House, of course). 

Unlike Hill House or Bly Manor, I can subtly say that Midnight Mass does not feature any ghosts whatsoever or characters being haunted (well, except for one character but, this ghost unfortunately, is apart of a forgettable subplot by the time the real big twists start to kick in). I can't spoil too much but Flanagan instead, jumps head on towards a story about 'creatures of the night' in a fresh new way. If you know what I mean by 'creatures of the night', GREAT! If you don't, well.... watch the damn show. Midnight Mass is streaming on Netflix today.