Midnight Mass (Netflix)

Tools    





So, Mike Flanagan is back with yet another horror series on Netflix. I've only watched half of the episodes by now, but it's definitely Flanagan.

The first couple of episodes are overlong character introductions, and overall the pacing feels a bit off. I still have three more episodes to go, but I'm quite sure the whole would be better if compressed to five or six instead of seven. It's exactly the same issue that haunted The Haunting of Hill House (it ended up being quite good, and I hope this does the same).

This time Flanagan's obvious Stephen King worship is flying high in the night sky. The characters are straight from King's books, and the story seems to have some resemblance as well. Maybe because of that the only surprise this far has been the fact that the story appears to be quite different from what I expected based on the short description (like the one on IMDb).

Anyone else watching this?
__________________



Looks like everyone else is sleeping on this. Anyway, I finished it today.

It wasn't as good as The Haunting of Hill House, but it followed the same quality pattern; the first two episodes are quite weak, then it gets better, but is ultimately held down by a weak finale. I was waiting for explanations for a few things, but they never came. Seven episodes were too much (five, maybe even four, would have been much better), and the writing could have used an extra draft or two.

WARNING: "Some Spoilers and Bashings" spoilers below

The first thing I need to say is that the Muslim sheriff was pointless. Almost every scene with him was cringe-worthy. His only function was to tell the viewer that "racism bad, Muslim good".

Then there's the general issue of some people getting younger while others don't. There should be consistency on that stuff. At least it saved us from having more poorly-made aging SFX.

Speaking of consistency, I don't understand how the "angel's" wings didn't heal faster in the end. The priest recovered from a headshot in a moderately short time, and earlier the wounds in his hands healed almost instantly. It would seem logical that the angel would heal faster, especially as it had fed on multiple humans that night.

And then there's the biggest story issue of all, why is this all happening. I kept waiting for a reason why the "angel" wanted to transform all these people, but there was no explanation. In the end, it was just a device to bash fundamental Christianity. Often the message seemed more important than the delivery.



Midnight Mass could have been better, and it should have been better, but it combined both Flanagan and woke issues to a rather mediocre result.




I plan on watching this next month. Getting a Flanagan fix in October is a tradition I'm happy to continue.
Did you see The Haunting of Bly Manor? If so, how does it compare?



Did you see The Haunting of Bly Manor? If so, how does it compare?
I gave up after two or three episodes. Not only were they even duller than any other start he's done, but they also looked terrible (probably thanks to Flanagan being only the writer there). I didn't mention that one on purpose. I also hated the child actors on that one and didn't want to hear another "perfectly splendid".