Midnight Mass review: A miraculously slow burn from Mike Flanagan

Since his first collaboration with Netflix, The Haunting of Hill House, captivated and terrified audiences in 2018, Mike Flanagan has become nearly synonymous with modern horror television. The director behind films like Oculus, Hush, and Doctor Sleep has once again reunited with Netflix for his latest horror project: Midnight Mass, and true to form, it’s an unforgettable and eerie masterclass in writing slow-burn horror: further cementing Flanagan’s reign as a master of horror TV.

Midnight Mass follows the story of numerous residents of the secluded, deeply religious fishing town of Crockett Island, who are treated to sudden and inexplicable miracles when a charismatic young priest (Hamish Linklater) appears to replace their ailing Monsignor. Though some of Crockett Island’s more devout residents, like curate Bev Keane (Samantha Sloyan) are immediately taken by Father Paul and his miraculous teachings, others, including Muslim sheriff Hassan (Rahul Kohli) and recovering alcoholic Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) aren’t quite as easily won over by the sudden appearance of the town’s new savior. And as Father Paul continues performing miracles, the town begins to suffer from increasingly strange and unsettling phenomena and things begin to take a turn for the sinister.

With a sleepy, paranoia-driven story spread over seven episodes (each nearly an hour and ten minutes long), Midnight Mass is by no means a jumpscare fest or a horror series heavy on the action – it’s a true slow burn in every sense of the word. In some respects this is by necessity – with an ensemble cast of nearly a dozen major characters, Midnight Mass‘ first hour (coincidentally also its weakest) is burdened with the heavy task of setting up the many, many interwoven stories of the residents of Crockett’s Island that will go on to drive the show’s narrative.

Even once we’ve met all the major players, though, Midnight Mass still doesn’t start things off with a bang, and instead opts to slowly and quietly build tension and raise the stakes, only laying out the pieces when absolutely necessary, and opting to spend more time on character work than it does focusing on the frights or the supernatural. This decision works to varying degrees of success – on the one hand, Midnight Mass boasts an ensemble cast filled to the brim with talent, so regardless of which characters we’re spending time with, we can rest assured that they’ll be brought to life with lived-in, compelling performances that more than help sell Crockett Island as an isolated little community ruled by religion.

Some of the more effective players include young Leeza (Annarah Cymone), the mayor’s daughter who was paralyzed in a hunting accident by the town drunk Joe (Robert Longstreet); the aforementioned fanatically religious right-hand-woman to Father Paul, Bev; and Erin Greene, a young pregnant woman treated as a veritable pariah by a majority of the town. Midnight Mass is at its best not when delivering scares, but when examining the intertwining lives of the people of Crockett Island, each of whom are impacted in some way by the arrival of Father Paul, and how his presence shifts the tediously established everyday boundaries between them.

Episode three encapsulates Flanagan’s uncanny ability to craft compelling individual stories that slot neatly into a larger narrative – a tear-jerking conversation between Leeza and Joe makes for one of the series’ best scenes and epitomizes Flanagan’s talent for character work. Sherriff Hassan and his son Ali benefit similarly from his strengths as a writer: The two butt heads over Ali’s growing curiosity about exploring Christianity, which clashes with the Sherriff’s own personal feelings towards the religion and how its followers have treated him in the past, especially in the wake of 9/11.

At the same time though, as effective as these narratives are, Midnight Mass does struggle to prioritize which characters are key players and whose stories should take precedence: though Riley Flynn is the very first character introduced and the first episode dedicates a significant portion of its runtime to his history and family, he becomes somewhat of an afterthought in the long run. Other tertiary players like Riley’s mother Annie and town doctor Sarah suffer from the opposite problem: they’re underserved in the early episodes, only to become more crucial players down the road.

The one character who never falters, though, is Hamish Linklater’s Father Paul, around whom the entire series revolves. Paul is fascinatingly written and brought to life with startling charisma by Linklater, who turns in one of the most impressive performances in recent memory: though pastors and preachers have a tendency to turn insincere and even skeevy when fictionalized, there’s a certain unnamable quality to Father Paul that endears him to us, even when we’re sure that he must be hiding some kind of dark secret.

Furthermore, what’s so fascinating about Flanagan’s characterization of Paul is that even as the town begins experiencing unsettling supernatural phenomena and we know Paul is involved, he’s still unquestionably making a difference for the better in many of his parishioner’s lives. He’s kind, thoughtful, and helps no small number of islanders work through personal issues – everything from depression to alcoholism to grief, Father Paul stands by the people of Crockett Island, and as he does so, further endears himself to both the islanders and the audience.

It’s a strange sensation to be made to care for such an archetypally malicious figure in this way, but that’s the magic of Midnight Mass: just as the parishioners fall under Paul’s spell, so do we. Though the ensemble cast is certainly formidable, it’s Linklater who truly makes Midnight Mass worth watching: from his impassioned sermons to intimate one-on-one conversations, he has the kind of cult leader charisma that makes him believable as a priest who an entire town could quickly fall under the spell of – for better or for worse.

When things finally do take a turn for the violent, though, that’s where Midnight Mass loses some of its magic. The reveal itself about the nature of the evil lurking on Crockett Island is clever and blends seamlessly with the established ideas about religion and the healing power of God, but the way in which the series realizes this – especially in the seventh episode – is ever so slightly predictable and disappointingly mundane. Though still well-paced and compelling, to have such a pedestrian conclusion after six episodes of eerie slow-burn buildup is somewhat of a letdown, especially after the fiery fifth installment.

Still, even in its weakest moments, Midnight Mass is a meticulously crafted exploration of religion, guilt, trauma, mortality, and what it means to truly have faith. From its unsettling score to the sleepy cinematography to the dizzying monologues delivered by Father Paul, everything about the series feels engineered to slowly envelope the audience into its eerie little world.

Bolstered by a tour-de-force performance from Hamish Linklater which is in turn supported by an impressive ensemble cast, Midnight Mass is a deliciously twisted, mesmerizingly introspective slow burn horror series unlike any exploration of religion we’ve seen.

Midnight Mass premieres on Netflix on Friday, September 24.