Absolutely nuts if you were raised Catholic/Christian, but in general it's fun horror schlock. A big improvement on The Haunting series the same crew did. The characters are actually interesting and not just annoying.
Absolutely nuts if you were raised Catholic/Christian, but in general it's fun horror schlock. A big improvement on The Haunting series the same crew did. The characters are actually interesting and not just annoying.
I dug most of it but I thought it shit the bed a bit in the last two episodes. That said, even people who hated it should still read this piece by the guy who directed and conceived it, which is just a nice bit of writing https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3684646/deeply-personal-horror-midnight-mass-guest-essay-filmmaker-mike-flanagan/
Thanks for the link. A very interesting read. I'm not surprised to see the writer is a lapsed Catholic because he seemed knowledgeable and respectful of the Catholic rights and liturgical structure while going in hot and heavy with the atheist apologetics. I'd say there were more things I'd have liked to have seen before the series end, like being more explicit on who killed Father Paul and why he decided to go full Jonestown, but I thought the ending was mostly successful. Still I'd be interested in knowing why you were disappointed with the last two episodes if you could share.
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it felt to me like flanagan's heart was in the first 5 episodes and the riley finn story, and I thought that even before I learned that he is pretty much explicitly flanagan's avatar within the show. (giving yourself a hunky avatar then killing yourself off in a moment of intense self-sacrifice....truly the lapsed catholic dream). katie siegel gives a beautiful performance but only riley and the priest are well-defined, so when riley is gone and these characters get sidelined, everything falls apart a bit, because the remaining cast is super underdeveloped. the cop subplot adds nothing but cringe and the doctor was yet another thankless annabeth gish role
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I thought Father Paul died from drinking too much vampire blood, like it's the slow path for conversion
They probably shouldn't have used the same effect as the dying dog though, that probably added to the confusion
I thought it was Bev, you see her putting away the poison again and as you said, it's pretty similar to the dog. I think he was being slowly poisoned by her as you notice he is having dizzy spells as he's running out of the blood and it ramps up after she sees the old picture of him. Imo she is convinced it's some kind of miracle and wants to see how far it will go
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i think he only died from too much blood because the creature was feeding on the poisoned cats
Ah I hadn't thought of that, could be that too
Same opinion as you. My big gripe was by the final 2 episodes, a TON of the characters just seemed...inconsequential. Like, any of the main story beats could have been performed by anyone, and things would still have turned out the same.