There has been no shortage of horror with religious themes in the past several years. Could there be a rational explanation for all these, er, spoilers, or does Father Paul really have the power of the Almighty at his fingertips?
The next morning, dozens of dead cats wash up on the beach and, soon enough, occurrences that look a lot like miracles start happening within the congregation. Apparitions appear in the rainy darkness. What looks at first like a Rectify-style ex-con narrative transforms into something much stranger and, as promised, spookier by the end of the premiere, when the violent storm that the islanders have been preparing for finally hits. Like many of Crockett’s overwhelmingly white, Catholic residents, she’s also a vocal Islamophobe. Her role as self-appointed morality police isn’t the only thing that puts her at odds with new-ish sheriff Ali Hassan (Rahul Kohli), another outsider. At his side is the officious Bev Keane (a chilling Samantha Sloyan, from Hill House), the prototypical timeless, ageless, practically bloodless church lady, dressed like an overgrown Girl Scout and always judging, scolding, guilting.
An energetic middle-aged priest, Paul explains to the island church’s shrinking congregation that he’s been sent by the diocese to fill in for their octogenarian clergyman, Monsignor Pruitt, who fell ill during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and is apparently recovering on the mainland. A former altar boy, Riley lost his faith in the aftermath of the crash since then, his guilt has manifested in nightly visions of his victim, her head glowing in the places where shattered glass pierced her skin.Īlso freshly arrived is Father Paul Hill (Linklater, remarkably dynamic in a challenging role). One is Riley Flynn (Gilford, bringing the same old-soul stoicism he brought to Friday Night Lights), a young man who grew up on the island and sought his fortune in Chicago, only to become an alcoholic and spend four years in prison for killing a teen girl in a drunk-driving accident. 127-the kind of windswept place where everyone wears flannel and Fair Isle sweaters, and it could be the ’50s if not for the cellphones- Midnight Mass begins with the arrival of two people to the remote fishing community. Set almost entirely on Crockett Island, pop. A binge becomes inevitable but also unexpectedly satisfying.
Yet after a slow first two episodes (pace being another common issue for not just Flanagan, but serialized horror in general), the show’s alchemy of spectacle, suspense and storytelling starts working. These two problems can exacerbate one another, to the extent that in some scenes it’s impossible to hear people speak without visualizing their words typed out in 12-pt. While the lead actors-Zach Gilford, Kate Siegel and especially Hamish Linklater-are great, not all of the secondary performances are convincing. The dialogue is often stagey, and every character, whether they’re a priest or a teen, seems to have the same tendency toward speechifying. Like his previous projects, the seven-episode series, out Sept.
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