Midnight Mass & Atheist Representation

Many words have been written about Midnight Mass and some of the best writing has come from the show’s author, Mike Flanagan. In an unexpected essay, Flanagan bears his (for lack of a better word) soul for everyone to see. He describes how personal the journey from failed attempted novel to seven-part miniseries has been. To evaluate Midnight Mass, one must begin with the heartfelt words of its creator.

The origins of Crocket Island began as pages in a novel in 2009. It was a story dear to his heart. It was all there: his Catholic upbringing, an alter boy under an older fire and brimstone priest as well as a young progressive priest, his studies that lead to atheism, and a struggle with alcoholism that provided him a theoretical nightmare. What if I were to kill someone? He poured all of this into Midnight Mass over the years. The unfinished novel of Midnight Mass was used as a prop in Hush and again in Gerald's Game. It was the success of Haunting of Hill House that allowed Flanagan to realize his long-percolating dream. He was given the green light, but had to crank out Haunting of Bly Manor first. We can all tell which show he enjoyed more.

In recent retrospectives of Flanagan’s work, some argue that his humanistic horror is a cover-up for horror as optimism. As if to say elements of optimism in horror, make the work less horrific. Sure, I’ll admit, I’ve always enjoyed the more nihilistic horror. These horror films leave you with dread long after the story ends. The most prominent of these is Frank Darabont’s The Mist (2007), even to a lesser degree you have The Strangers (2008). A nihilist horror film usually ends with all it’s character’s meeting a bloody end. These films are few and far between. Okay, mainstream horror will wrap up the mystery or kill the villain, and leave a stinger at the end to show, maybe the evil is not dead. This is typical horror-fare. I’m excited by those films, just as much as the ones where everyone’s dead at the end. That’s mainly because, I am a fan of Horror, period. But to see Flanagan’s work as optimistic seems out-of-character for a director who has no qualms over killing everyone.

Callie’s end in Absentia (2011) isn’t a happy one as the film deals with sacrifices and pacts with creatures. Siblings and their doppelgangers sink into a mirror-induced insanity and neither of them come out unaffected in Oculus (2013). In Hush (2016), Flanagan’s one-day wife and phenomenal actor Kate Siegel, Maddie is put through a series of traumas that she barely survives. That smile on Maddie’s face at the end is one of optimism, but she’s a horror author and understands that the traumatic events will only improve her career. To most viewers, that’s pretty messed up. A grief-stricken couple take in a foster child with miraculous gifts and take advantage of his abilities to sooth their bereavement in Before I Wake (2016). The film moves from nightmare toward some semblance of a dream as the horrors occur earlier, and we stay with the characters to see how they will deal with them. A main character is locked in a mental hospital for the killing of other characters in Ouija: Origin Of Evil (2016). This leads us to Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptations Gerald’s Game (2017) and Doctor Sleep (2019), both leaving us with King’s hope-but-at-what-cost endings. And who, that has seen Haunting Of Hill House, can say the show ended in hope? Each character spent their lives wrecked by the actions of their father, images of their dead mother, and eventually the suicide of their sister. To say that Flanagan’s filmography lends itself strictly to optimism, seems erroneous.

From Haunting Of Hill House onward, Flanagan has found his perfect niche within horror. This includes the emotionalizing of his characters and lots of monologues. It is an old standing tradition in Horror, that the more you care about a character, the more their demise will get under your skin. Flanagan uses the power of speech and memory to create unbreakable connections between his viewers and his characters. If anything happens to them, we mourn their loss. His focus in these many monologues is usually that of a memory. A time in the character’s life when the darkness overshadowed the light. We grow immersed within the world of the character’s speech; so much so, that Flanagan can easily pull the rug from under them, and we feel them fall. Where Haunting provided catharsis, Midnight Mass offers none.

Midnight Mass utilizes Flanagan’s religious upbringing to create a story that eventually finds a balance between fanaticism and atheism - agnosticism. Former zealots float in a canoe and watch their old world turn to ash. Never again will they be swayed by the flowery language of the bible. For the survivors, an agnostic life awaits them. It is a biting criticism of Christianity. An old priest who is given a miracle, seeks to use it for selfish means. A zealot without a conscience, who kills pets, twists bible verses to fit her agenda. A woman who envisions a heaven after death, comes to realize a scientific death when it is her time. An atheist commits the towns only moral act through suicide. As our anxieties heighten from episode to episode, we begin to fully realize the show satirizes religion itself.

We are drawn to horror as a way to live through our real-life anxieties. It is John Carpenter’s roller coaster theory. We buy the ticket and take the ride. We feel the dread of death, feel our catharsis, and come out the other side – alive. Horror usually acts as parable. It creates a safe space to work through our fears. Religion as one of these fears is expressed time and time again. From Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), Carrie (1976), God Told Me To (1976), Prince of Darkness (1987), The Sacrament (2013), to The Conjuring (2013) religion plays a significant role to the horrors that develop.

In Midnight Mass I was connected to the idea that only after Father Paul (Hamish Linklater) performs tangible miracles, does he amass a crowd of parishioners. This act is blasphemy, as the belief in a god rests in faith. To be faithful means to believe without proof in the existence of a god. Flanagan preys upon this idea. Father Paul even comments upon it. The townspeople show up for communion for the first time in ages. They do so seeking a miracle for themselves. Each of them is committing a sin of selfishness. This is merely a sidenote but exemplifies how the show is a reaction against uncritical zeal of religious teachings.

Bev Keene, played to perfection by Samantha Sloyan, becomes the clear villain of the show. She attaches herself to the miracles and upon understanding how these miracles are happening, welcomes an apocalypse with open arms. She presumes the Earth requires Revelations, while also believing she should be the one that chooses who is granted eternal life. But even Bev is shaken when she sees what revelations would actually look like. Through Bev and Father Paul we get two sides of organized religion. Bev is an example of extremism within religion, while Father Paul – for the most part – represents the fluidity that can be present in regard to belief. The two sides begin separate, come together, and break apart again throughout the show as it critiques religious zeal. In the end, the progressive attitude feels like the better approach, but even then, it was a duplicitous cover for selfish desires.

Where Midnight Mass excels, is it’s ability to convey atheism as a positive non-theistic stance. Through the satire of organized religion, the sin of tangible belief, and hidden motivations of churches, Riley Flynn’s atheism becomes the only decent stance. Sacrifices are made for the greater good, but none of them are perpetrated by Christians in the show. Even when the townspeople come together to sing the praises of God, these sequences juxtapose the evil occurring in the town. Or when the town sings during their version of revelations, it is to a silent universe that will not save them. The show’s final images re-enforce the emptiness of their beliefs. That is not to say that we, as an audience, should share this idea. But the parable that plays out is that we should be wary of any belief system that cannot be questioned.

I found absolute perfection in all seven episodes. From the moment Riley Flynn makes his way to Crocket Island, I felt the Stephen King vibes - 'Salem's Lot, Storm Of The Century, Needful Things, and Tommyknockers to name just a few. The world building enriches each member of the community. Even if we do make fun of the overuse of monologues, we could all wish to write a single one that good. The acting is top notch, the story is brilliant, we feel each character's heavy depth, and the pondering of existential dread is threaded into the very fabric of Flanagan's world. The writing in Midnight Mass makes you feel, as a writer, what's the point? How will anything ever match it? But that is the beauty of slashing open a vein and writing from the heart. Stories where you unleash yourself and vomit all your vulnerability on the page, will always be your best work. Thank you, Mike Flanagan, for again proving you're an absolute master of the craft.