Ya, but I think that’s kind of why I liked this. This wasn’t what I expected it to be, and it was very well done.
Yeah, it wasn’t scary in the least. That was disappointing to me.
Overall I enjoyed it but I found Bly Manor and Hill House quite a bit better, especially Hill House. The early episodes really dragged and too many things didn’t make sense. The story never grabbed me and I didn’t care about any of the characters.
Still, hope to see more horror from Flanagan in the future.
I enjoyed Hill House but still haven’t watched Bly Manor. I’ll be doing so this October for sure!
I don’t mean to shit on Midnight Mass too much or discourage others who want to give it a try. I am enjoying it in spite of my whiny criticisms.
But speaking of whiny criticisms, I want to re-cast the following roles:
-Both of Riley’s parents
-Wade the mayor
-Mildred Gunning (the doctor’s mom) who is terribly unconvincing as an elderly woman. I realize there’s a plot-based reason behind the casting of this role but it’s another element that seems stage-y or amateurish to me. Maybe hair and make-up could have done better work here too.
Meanwhile, the best actors/characters are going bye-bye.
Whiny ranting over… for now!
When I was a teenager, I had Dr. Gunning aka Annabeth Gish on my bedroom ceiling in this poster. Back when I would hang up just about any poster I brought home from the video store where I worked.
My daughter and I finished watching this yesterday. Overall we liked it well enough to make it through all seven episodes. Flanagan had to have seven episodes.
We agreed that it could’ve done with a bit of editing and we would’ve enjoyed it more had it been maybe five or six episodes with significantly less dialogue.
One thing we wondered is why did vampire need Pruitt after it got to the island? It could’ve enslaved everybody on its own, it didn’t really need him. We assume that it did not make it to the mainland but that was not resolved.
Heh. My personal rule of Netflix shows. No matter how short they are, someone will complain they should have been shorter.
I finished this up last night. I think the number of chapters/episodes was perfect. I just had some issues with the pacing of the storytelling is all.
I thought it was a satisfying conclusion. There were a few more admirably gutsy plot twists in the final chapter. And the very last line of dialogue was a fantastic note to end on before the credits rolled.
I’m not one to go looking for plot holes but the whole idea that there was no shelter from the sun remaining anywhere on the island was a bit of a stretch to think it would doom them all. Beverly had the right idea, just a little too late. But, whatever. You go along with it for the big, dramatic ending.
Also, let’s hope the angel/demon didn’t fly off to buy some duct tape.
The film/tv purist in me totally objects on principle to the Netflix playback speed controls and I would never use them… but all those lengthy monologues really tested my faith!
But I give it a mild thumbs up. It was a fun way to get into the Halloween season.
I enjoyed Midnight Massacre
How did everyone without a religious background / upbringing take to it? I only ask because the show is choked full of religious talk.
Also I might be daft, or totally missed something, but what kills Father Paul resulting in him turning to a vampire? It seems like he just starts coughing up blood, recovers, but then relapses later and suddenly drops dead, but we know the blood doesn’t kill you by itself. Did he OD on it or something?
your second guess is my hypothesis. That the vampire blood heals you for a while, but eventuallyyour body will give out and die. However, his death is filmed similarly to that of the dog; which lends some question to Bev?
I not only don’t have a religious background, I am an avowed atheist. I thought Flanagan’s grappling with religion in this was (for the most part) really interesting. The array of different perspectives and approaches, Riley’s lapsed faith, Erin’s clinging to something that makes her problems make sense, Father Paul’s well-meaning but ultimately misguided approach to…everything he brings, Bev’s selective self-justifying. I don’t ultimately find in it a persuasive argument for having faith (no surprise, as I’ve reflected on these things before), but I don’t think that’s one of its goals. I seem to recall from that article on Bloody Disgusting that Flanagan himself is no longer a man of faith. It’s just a thing he’s struggled with, and it informs this show in a way I find compelling.
Re Father Paul’s death - I don’t think it’s necessarily true that the blood doesn’t kill you by itself. I do think it’s why he’s having problems starting with the day of the “miracle” in church. It looked like the islanders were having tiny sips with their communion, and Father Paul was, at least when he got into town, drinking it more and more heavily. And the doctor says that it replaces more and more of your blood. I think at some point it would kill you. However, when Father Paul actually dies, he dies in a way that’s very consistent with the rat poison. I too suspected Bev initially. But…why would she poison him? It’s not until everyone’s converted and he decides that it was a mistake that she turns on him. And she doesn’t know at that point what’s going on with him or his story. No, I think he deliberately drinks it, as he has the faithful drink it at that final mass, and it’s just bad timing that Bev and the mayor etc are present for his death. And we’re meant to believe Bev poisoned the dog - she has a grudge against it, after all, and we see her with the rat poison, and she’s such a liar and hypocrite and bad person all around that we assume that’s conclusive and she’s deflecting suspicion when she tells the sheriff that other people have access. But I think the Father poisoned the dog, too. He’s willing to do terrible things to save his people, and my suspicion is that it, and the cats, were killed because they could have given away the vampire. One common vampire lore thing is animals reacting poorly to them.
Well put. This is very much how I feel as well.
Regarding the spoiler, it’s absolutely in Bev’s character to poison Father Paul if she thinks dying is what the her id the Holy Spirit wants. But you make interesting points, for sure.
Sure, I have no problem believing she’d do that. I just can’t think of anything that would indicate she actually did or a motive for her to do so (at that point). Also, IIRC, isn’t she freaking out because he’s dying? Not that she’s not sometimes performative but I didn’t get the sense that that was the case there or that she knew he would return.
I go back and forth on it.
I think it’s correct that when enough of the vampire blood builds up in your system, you’ll die and turn. At the same time, the show has a scene of Bev returning a container of the poison to the closet after the Father Paul death scene, implying that she’s once again poisoned something. That plus his death being exactly like the dog’s makes me think she killed him to “help” him progress towards divinity.
I dunno about that…
How would Bev have known that dying was going to make him full vampire? Did something happen previously that suggested that was the case?
That’s my problem with the idea. If she had the right knowledge, I’d buy it. Or if she had some other motive. But I don’t see support for that conclusion. It is, however, also very in character for Bev to cover up the poison the Father used to commit suicide.
I feel like even the priest didn’t know that dying was gonna make him super vamp.
It’s one of the details that’s not really clear or explicit. But he was in mental communication with the vampire and he was “knowing” things like that the one girl (whose name I’ve forgotten) could walk, I think probably as a result of that mental bond. So whether he explicitly knew it or not, I think it’s very plausible he felt moved to take that step. He definitely did not seem aware of the full implications, though.
We just finished this last night. I gotta say, I really, really liked it. I went to (Catholic) mass for 18 years, so I got way more of the references than my wife did, and of course I recognized many (all?) of the hymns. I thought the soundtrack was phenomenal! (The most unrealistic part of the whole show, IMO, was that when they were singing the hymns in church it actually sounded good.)
I haven’t been to mass–or otherwise really engaged with Catholicism–in about 18 years, so it was quite a trip when the priest started reciting the eucharist to still be able to say it with him (not that I did, would have totally freaked my wife out). And I called out the fact that he wore gold vestments in Ordinary Time before Beverly did. ;) (Though in my church we didn’t use fancy words like “chasuble”, heh.)
Given how much I like it, I guess Flanagan and I must have had similar (enough) experiences with the church and atheism. (Though, fortunately, I don’t really have personal experience with addiction.) It was really interesting how this show got into the split my wife and I have, where (though both atheists) she really has no sympathy for religions and the religious, whereas I do. Flanagan clearly (IMHO) has tons of sympathy for good religious people (as in, “religious people who are also good”).
I really didn’t mind the monologues. In retrospect, the “what happens when you die” ones didn’t need a revisiting at the end but I didn’t mind it at the time. That said, I can see how others would dislike them.
Question for people who are into horror: we’ve never really watched horror. I saw the exorcist and the shining when I was younger, but never saw the appeal in being scared. However, before this we watched Brand New Cherry Flavor and we’ve really liked both of them. I didn’t feel like this one had that much, well, horror in it. Is that correct? I mean there were a few jumpy bits–maybe on average one an episode?–and probably a similar number of creepy bits (e.g. eyes in the dark, waiting for something out the window, etc). It felt just about right to me. Is this standard for horror? Should I just be watching more of it?
Thanks for the link, really appreciating this.
I actually noticed that there were no kids on the island (younger than the teens, I mean). I figured that horror + kids is tough to do well, but maybe it’s just COVID.
I would say Flanagan errs on the side of smart, creepiness in his series and movies as opposed to the more horrific. You should try Bly Manor first (Flanagan’s previous Netflix series). I thought it was only slightly creepy and the underlying stories of the characters and their relationships were more the focus. Some people complained about that, but I think the show did exactly what was intended and did so well.
A film I really loved that was s slow burn that turned some horror fans off was “It Comes at Night”. It was marketed as more horror, but in reality it was more dread and devastating in its depiction of desperation and paranoia.
Also, The Invitation.
I watch a lot of horror, but the creepy ones that really sell their societal messages in a relatively intelligent way are always my favorite.
I haven’t watched Bly Manor yet, but I adore The Haunting of Hill House and I’m not a “horror fan”, per se.