A hypnotic and unashamedly unhurried confession of Mike Flanagan, author of The Ghost of the Hill House.
Every night, Riley (Zach Guildford) has the same dream: the glossy surface of the lake, the lonely boat and the dawn lightning yawning at the horizon. The deceptively serene image destroys the horror of awakening: in front of it is neither a tenant nor a dead man, a ghostly body - the spirit of a young girl who will not see the rising sun even in her sleep. Although it is rather a matter of faith: after a young man, having gotten a lot of kicks, got behind the wheel and knocked life out of the girl at full speed, he decided that God had turned away from him or he was not at all. Having received an early release, Riley returns to his native piece of land - Crockett Island, where Sunday service is the main event in the lives of those few locals who have not yet moved to the mainland.
Mike Flanagan has established himself not only as a director of very scary cases on the big screens (although "Doctor Sleep" rather disappointed most of the audience), but also as a master of the serial form. On the same Netflix (where "Mass" was released), you can find two sagas about restless souls and morbid nepotism: "The Ghosts of the Bly Manor" and "The Ghost of the Hill House". Flanagan returned to the streaming library with a story spanning 7 episodes and an eternity, much more personal and all-encompassing at the same time. The mystical events that the new priest brought with him in the chest, Father Paul (the strongest role of Hamish Linklater), the noise of the water, fishing boats and tiny houses, the church parish, embraced by the crowns of trees - all these signs of provincial pastoral by themselves awaken interest in the next deconstruction big sins of a small town. Crockett can be safely put on the same card with Twin Peaks, Hawkins, Broadchurch and even Gravity Falls: the coastal strip is covered with the bodies of cats, and miracles happen right during the service - time turns back, the legs gain lost strength, and the arteries of the parishioners flow with blood immortality.
Religious horror as a genre template can be presented quite concretely and traditionally: inverted crosses, a suspicious pastor and a sugary smile of a heart-rending believer (Samantha Sloyan embodied an image on the screen that is not inferior in strength to Sister Retched). However, owls and Flanagan's series are completely different from what they seem, and to describe what will actually happen behind the closed doors of the church is a film-critical sin, not otherwise. Flanagan, once an altar boy, himself returned to his native parish: his faith and religion sympathize with each other in the same space and consciousness, but do not draw an equal sign among themselves. The scrupulous construction of rituals, sacraments and energies of parishioners - the birth of unity and the subsequent worship - on the screen side by side with pathologically unhurried dialogues (and sometimes monologues) about the structure of the world, about time and eternity, about death in the end or at the beginning of beginnings. Sometimes it even seems that "Midnight Mass" could have been born in another medium - in an audio performance, in literature, and even in painting. To some extent, one can simplify the narrative and say that the central figure here is precisely the "guide", who can be considered the pastor, who reads the scriptures and deciphers the meanings in his own way and in his context. For Flanagan, there is no absolute (is it only for him?): He very consistently and in detail illustrates the plasticity of any text (be it the Bible or newspaper headlines) and any remark - they can be used to preach any ideas, sharpening and dulling the content.
"Midnight Mass" is built on semitones, and this is the main difference from the genre, where good and evil traditionally clash in a decisive battle. A battle will take place here, but within every citizen of Crockett. In some of its passages, the series breathes the legacy of Stephen King: he and Flanagan can be considered fellow countrymen - natives of New England, the main cradle of mysticism in the States. First of all, kinship is read in the source of horror: a person himself is more terrible than all otherworldly creatures, demons, angels and saints. The collision of polarities at one point is Flanagan's method of building a portrait gallery of the islanders. The devout laywoman Bev, who is stronger than grace, ready to believe in the wrath of God, or a Muslim sheriff - the most suspicious character in the society traumatized by 9/11 takes the place of the American hero with a star on his jacket (another casting success, Rahul If). This ambivalence of the human, elevated to the absolute, poses far more questions on the screen than it answers, leaving room for multiple interpretations.
You can interpret the "Mass" from different poles: look for an insult to the feelings of believers in it (although it is faith that is assigned the infallible role of the strongest of matters) or to be afraid of rustles under the window, tickling your imagination - as you know, only those who do not have fantasy. Therefore, it would be unfair to suggest any reading in this text. You can only try to convince you to go to St. Patrick's Church and hear this confession yourself. Midnight Mass can annoy the casual viewer with its outrageous regularity and lingering chants, tire with the number of words and stinginess of action: this project will stand apart both in the Netflix library and Flanagan's filmography, and in the genre domain. Behind religious dogma (it is likely that the series will want to watch with the Bible in an embrace in order to count all the references), behind the flashes of horror and the glow of a bloody dawn on Easter, there is a tender and touching story about accepting death and feelings of guilt. These are metaphysical embraces that, once closed, will never open. As Erin Greene (Flanagan's longtime associate, piercing Kate Siegel) said in one of the most heartfelt monologues: "Life is just a dream," and "Midnight Mass" will become a terrible nightmare or a sweet daydream in this temple.
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