Forget ‘Carrie,’ Mike Flanagan’s Best Horror Miniseries Is a Masterpiece From Start to Finish

Only Mike Flanagan would have the cojones to take on Carrie, the Stephen King horror classic whose definitive adaptation was back in 1976, and make it feel wholly original. It’s also the first miniseries he’s made under his new multi-year deal with Prime Video, after a successful run with Netflix that produced five miniseries and one film, 2017’s Gerald’s Game, his first adaptation of a Stephen King novel. Flanagan is a true auteur of the horror genre, but if you’ve only seen Carrie, you’re missing out on Flanagan’s best.

A Wolf In Pastor’s Clothing Brings Horror to Crockett Island in ‘Midnight Mass’

Midnight Mass, as explained in Collider’s review, is a tricky one to explain, but here goes, sans spoilers as much as possible (a much better experience going in without them). Four years after being imprisoned for a drunk driving accident that took the life of a young woman, Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) returns home to Crockett Island, a small, isolated town accessible only by boat. On the same ferry is Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater), who has been sent by the diocese in place of the town’s beloved Monsignor Pruitt, who has taken ill after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

The two receive highly disparate receptions from the townspeople. Riley is welcomed warmly by his parents, his brother, and his high school sweetheart, Erin (Kate Siegel), but few others, who regard him suspiciously and with judgment, particularly due to his denouncing of faith, which doesn’t sit well with the deeply religious community. Father Paul, on the other hand, quickly endears himself to the townspeople with his fiery sermons and calls to action for the glory of God. That includes Bev Keane (Samantha Sloyan), the Bible-quoting, pious zealot who commands the town and its people.

Only Father Paul is hiding something from his parishioners. He’s a wolf in pastor’s clothing who brings about miracles, like healing the once-paralyzed Leeza (Annarah Cymone) and reversing the dementia-riddled aging of Mildred Gunning (Alex Essoe), after mixing the communion wine with something. The miracles work the town into a religious fervor, with Bev stoking the fire, and when the truth is revealed, the townspeople make an irreversible choice that releases hell upon the island.

‘Midnight Mass’ Is Full of Deep Questions and Remarkable Performances

• Image via Eike Schroter, Netflix; Everett Collection

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Eike Schroter, Netflix; Everett Collection

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

There’s horror on literally every level you can think of in Midnight Mass. There’s enough gore to satisfy those whose tastes are for the visibly visceral, particularly in the climactic Easter Mass scene, a must-see. There’s the psychological horror of things unknowingly being inflicted upon you. The horror of fanaticism taken to Jim Jones-like extremes, and the horror of utter heartbreak (watching the Muslim sheriff’s pain at seeing his son fall prey to the mass hysteria is one of the most heart-wrenching scenes you’ll ever see).

Yet it bucks the tropes of the genre in unexpected ways. The protagonist isn’t who you think it is. The antagonist’s intentions are pure and merciful, albeit skewed, changing our view of them from being fully malicious to a sympathetic character, while the true antagonist is as evil, but ultimately as cowardly, as they come. Midnight Mass is also devoid of the genre’s stock characters, your promiscuous teen or comic relief. Every character is allowed time to breathe, to come across as fully developed, as flawed and as real as any person. Midnight Mass also goes far, far deeper than most horror fare. It explores themes of addiction, religion, and redemption. It explores the dangers of blind faith and fanaticism without falling into the trap of being anti-Christian, instead utilizing what it means to be a true Christian through self-sacrifice and staying true to who you are and what you believe. Deeply philosophical explorations of death and life. And it does all this and more without missing a beat, with even the most wordy of philosophical conversations proving as engaging as the more conventional horror aspects.

Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath
your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what
it would leave behind.

Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you
to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever
won that particular argument.

• Freddy is horror’s cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot
  guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
• You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your
  own head is where this does its damage.
• These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose
  because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
• You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.

Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the
person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.

• Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you
  describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
• You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You
  know that feeling from real life too.
• The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you
  have met those adults.
• By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.

Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost
certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.

• Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be
  somebody who was at the party.
• You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the
  same way you watch films.
• The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are
  the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
• Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.

Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people
asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.

• The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary
  room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
• Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than
  personal, which is rarer than it sounds.
• This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are
  the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
• Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one
  standing in the hallway.

And it works thanks to a cast that is lights-out remarkable. Linklater is captivating, demanding attention in the moments where he’s delivering impassioned homilies and in the quieter moments where he subtly seduces the townspeople with his charm. Sloyan, so excellent as Carrie’s mother Margaret in Flanagan’s most recent series, is excellent here as well, in full command of Bev’s twisted use of scripture to suit her own narrative, fanning the flames but too cowardly to face the consequences. Rahul Kohli is perfect as Sheriff Hassan, a man who buries his anger over past injustices under the veil of a level-headed lawman and voice of reason. Everyone contributes here, crafting a world with characters so real, in an environment that feels real, that the tragedy that befalls them hits harder than it probably should. And it’s that deeply tragic element that makes Midnight Mass Flanagan’s best horror series — to date, that is.