MIDNIGHT MASS Season 1 (September 2021)

MIDNIGHT MASS Season 1

(September 2021)

“But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.”

--Genesis 39:21

Crockett Island (pop. 127) is the home Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) finds himself returning to after years of incarceration, just in time to bear witness to mysteries and miracles.

That, in a nutshell, is Mike Flanagan’s latest Netflix offering, Midnight Mass, which is, among other things, a tale of faith and addiction, of community and mortality, of belief (and the selective interpretation of scripture) as a weapon and a means of manipulation and justification.

“The people on this island… We used to be hundreds. Now, we’re just dozens.

“This isn’t a community anymore, honey. It’s a ghost.”

One of the strengths of Midnight Mass is its depiction of a group of disparate individuals united only in their faith (though there are, naturally, a number of outliers in that respect) and the turmoil of daily existence in an economically devastated community struggling to stay alive.

And that particular strength is down to some excellent writing from Flanagan and company, coupled with some powerful performances from the cast, which includes some past collaborators like wife Kate Siegel, Henry Thomas, Starry Eyes’ Alex Essoe, The X-Files’ Annabeth Gish, and BSG’s Michael Trucco*.

And while Gilford is probably best known for Friday Night Lights, he’s been ‘round these parts before, thanks to Larry Fessenden’s The Last Winter (part of the ¡Qué horror! 2008 rundown).

Oh! And Groove’s Hamish Linklater (seen more recently on TV’s Legion) is here too, in a pivotal role.

I could go on and on…

“What is otherwise horrible is good because of where it’s headed.”

Yes, there are some scares here, and sure, there is some gore, but ultimately, Midnight Mass is a heart-wrenching tale told through the lens of one of supernatural horror’s most enduring of fixtures, a story of yearning and loss and the struggle to find meaning and a sense of understanding and peace in an imperfect and often brutal world.

And believe me, it’s a final assessment that comes as a complete (albeit very welcome) surprise.

More so than a “horror” story, it’s an achingly beautiful piece of work, this.

Partake of its bounty… and be not afraid…

“I mean, what’s a little crazy between friends, right?”

* Gish appeared in Before I Wake and The Haunting of Hill House, while Trucco was in Hush, in which he acted alongside Siegel and Midnight Mass’ Bev Keane, Samantha Sloyan.

And Essoe was in Doctor Sleep, as well as The Haunting of Bly Manor (more on that below).

Yup, Flanagan does enjoy working with the same stable of performers, doesn’t he?

Parting Shot:

For a number of reasons, I haven’t had the opportunity to take in Flanagan’s The Haunting of Bly Manor (despite the fact that I thought very highly of The Haunting of Hill House).

But who knows?

Maybe I’ll finally step through Bly Manor’s door soon…

Halloween’s just around the corner, after all…

(Midnight Mass OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

13 Slots for the Best Horror I've Seen in the Past Year
[8 of 13]
The TV Terror Slot

Another twofer!

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

(October 2018)

“How can a house, just a collection of bricks, wood, and glass, have that much power over people?"

Just as he did on ¡Qué horror! 2017 title Ouija: Origin of Evil, Mike Flanagan masterfully navigates the seas of traditional horror cinema in his self-described “remix” of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.

This time out, unlike the original novel’s researchers and investigators, we see the Crain family move into Hill House, with the express aim of flipping it (or, fixing and flipping it, to be more precise).

The house, of course, uninterested in being renovated and then sold on to some other family foolish enough to open its door and walk down its shadowy halls, has other ideas…

“This house… it’s a strange house.

“I’ve worked here a long time, and all I can tell you is that it’s just as stupid and hungry as anything else.

“We don’t stay after dark, Horace and I. And my child is not allowed to step foot in this place. Not once.”

“For me, the most important thing is if you remove the supernatural entirely, the story and the character need to be just as compelling. The supernatural stuff is the easy stuff. But all of that stuff is really boring to me if it’s not grounded in some kind of really relatable honest human experience.”

-- Mike Flanagan

“This house… it’s full of precious, precious things… and they don’t all belong to you…”

Skillfully utilizing the narrative elegance of non-linear storytelling, Flanagan and company track the family’s ordeals and progressive unraveling, both in Hill House, and decades after, in a tale which is by turns chilling and heart-wrenching.

If this were a different kind of story, the Crain siblings would have taken all the lessons learned from their harrowing stay at Hill House, and ended up becoming a group of ghost-busting paranormal investigators.

But in the story this “remix” chooses to tell--a story more grounded in real life and the vagaries of family--what we end up with are a bunch of scarred, f*cked up individuals, all dealing as best they can with the trauma of their childhoods.

And this, quite possibly, is the best aspect of this particular take on the original material: that the dots that connect the children they once were with the adults they eventually become, are so clearly delineated.

The characterizations--the result of a potent combination of the character arcs as mapped out in the narrative, and excellent performances by the cast--are just as solid as the creepy scares.

“You’ve been knocking on that door for years and years and years…

“We could hear you knocking louder all the time, and finally, here you are…”

“If we were going to be doing this as a long format, it had to be about the way every family is a haunted house, and everyone is wrestling with their ghosts from their own childhood and beyond--that echo through decades.”

-- Mike Flanagan

“I was right here. I didn’t go anywhere.

“I was right here… I was right here the whole time.

“None of you could see me.

“Nobody could see me.”

Directing the entire season of 10 episodes, Flanagan brings both an exquisite cinematic eye to the proceedings*, and a fundamental understanding of the full range of his cast’s capabilities.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that amongst an already formidable collection of actors and actresses**, the paired casting of Timothy Hutton and Henry Thomas are the cherry-so-red-it’s-very-nearly-black on top of this ghostly, sinister sundae, a sickly, sweetly rotten treat sprinkled liberally with mold and familial dysfunction.

“There’s nothing wrong with going at night. It’s just a carcass in the woods.

“It’s just a carcass in the woods.

“It’s just a carcass… in the woods.”

* Aided by long-time collaborator, cinematographer Michael Fimognari.

** Shout outs to Annabeth Gish and Dr. Lawrence Jacoby himself, Russ Tamblyn, who may just be overlooked with all the other high-caliber thespianics going on around them.

Parting Shot: Though I have seen Jan de Bont’s The Haunting, I’ve never read the original Shirley Jackson novel (I really should finally get around to it), nor seen the 1963 Robert Wise film adaptation (which Flanagan seems respectfully in awe of).
As it turns out, Tamblyn also appeared in Wise's version, as the "Luke" character. In Flanagan's "remix," Tamblyn plays Dr. Montague, repurposing the name of the lead investigator in Jackson's original novel. (In Wise's adaptation, that character becomes Dr. Markway.)
Remix, indeed.

“Our family is like an unfinished meal to that house…"

And, on a bittersweet note, what, at the moment, seems to be the final ¡Qué horror! appearance of Channel Zero (which nonetheless makes ¡Qué horror! history by breaking Hannibal's record as the only multi-season TV show to have all its seasons make a place for themselves in the ¡Qué horror! main rundowns; Channel Zero did it four times... and wasn't a single serialized narrative).

Congratulations, Channel Zero.
And sniff. R.I.P.

CHANNEL ZERO:
THE DREAM DOOR

(October 2018)

“Roses are... lazy. And dishonest.”

“‘Dishonest’?”

“Mmm! Pretty flower! And then a minute later, you’re bleeding!”

Well, hell-loooooo, Pretzel Jack!

Turning to Cronenberg*** for some conceptual inspiration, Channel Zero does an awesome quasi-slasher impression with the E.L. Katz-helmed The Dream Door, where an imaginary childhood friend and protector becomes something far more sinister in adulthood.

Channel Zero delivers a fourth winning season by giving us yet another “flavor” of horror (to borrow Channel Zero creator Nick Antosca’s term).

Just as Butcher’s Block was different from No-End House, which was, in turn, different from Candle Cove, so is The Dream Door different from any of the previous seasons.

Gorier and slightly more savage than its predecessors, it’s a tale that delves into the potentially brutal pain of complete honesty in a relationship, a story about love and secrets and distrust, and the intersection where all three collide… with a super-creepy contortionist clown…

“You know, it’s funny. In Jungian psychology, doors are kind of a thing.

“This whole deal with your basement, is… it’s fascinating.

*** As well as Lynch, particularly for a brief, yet unsettlingly poignant bit past the halfway mark.

(The Haunting of Hill House OS’ & Channel Zero: The Dream Door OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #3

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

(October 2018)

“How can a house, just a collection of bricks, wood, and glass, have that much power over people?"

Just as he did on ¡Qué horror! 2017 title Ouija: Origin of Evil, Mike Flanagan masterfully navigates the seas of traditional horror cinema in his self-described “remix” of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.

This time out, unlike the original novel’s researchers and investigators, we see the Crain family move into Hill House, with the express aim of flipping it (or, fixing and flipping it, to be more precise).

The house, of course, uninterested in being renovated and then sold on to some other family foolish enough to open its door and walk down its shadowy halls, has other ideas…

“This house… it’s a strange house.

“I’ve worked here a long time, and all I can tell you is that it’s just as stupid and hungry as anything else.

“We don’t stay after dark, Horace and I. And my child is not allowed to step foot in this place. Not once.”

“For me, the most important thing is if you remove the supernatural entirely, the story and the character need to be just as compelling. The supernatural stuff is the easy stuff. But all of that stuff is really boring to me if it’s not grounded in some kind of really relatable honest human experience.”

-- Mike Flanagan

“This house… it’s full of precious, precious things… and they don’t all belong to you…”

Skillfully utilizing the narrative elegance of non-linear storytelling, Flanagan and company track the family’s ordeals and progressive unraveling, both in Hill House, and decades after, in a tale which is by turns chilling and heart-wrenching.

If this were a different kind of story, the Crain siblings would have taken all the lessons learned from their harrowing stay at Hill House, and ended up becoming a group of ghost-busting paranormal investigators.

But in the story this “remix” chooses to tell--a story more grounded in real life and the vagaries of family--what we end up with are a bunch of scarred, f*cked up individuals, all dealing as best they can with the trauma of their childhoods.

And this, quite possibly, is the best aspect of this particular take on the original material: that the dots that connect the children they once were with the adults they eventually become, are so clearly delineated.

The characterizations--the result of a potent combination of the character arcs as mapped out in the narrative, and excellent performances by the cast--are just as solid as the creepy scares.

“You’ve been knocking on that door for years and years and years…

“We could hear you knocking louder all the time, and finally, here you are…”

“If we were going to be doing this as a long format, it had to be about the way every family is a haunted house, and everyone is wrestling with their ghosts from their own childhood and beyond--that echo through decades.”

-- Mike Flanagan

“I was right here. I didn’t go anywhere.

“I was right here… I was right here the whole time.

“None of you could see me.

“Nobody could see me.”

Directing the entire season of 10 episodes, Flanagan brings both an exquisite cinematic eye to the proceedings*, and a fundamental understanding of the full range of his cast’s capabilities.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that amongst an already formidable collection of actors and actresses**, the paired casting of Timothy Hutton and Henry Thomas are the cherry-so-red-it’s-very-nearly-black on top of this ghostly, sinister sundae, a sickly, sweetly rotten treat sprinkled liberally with mold and familial dysfunction.

“There’s nothing wrong with going at night. It’s just a carcass in the woods.

“It’s just a carcass in the woods.

“It’s just a carcass… in the woods.”

(The Haunting of Hill House OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

* Aided by long-time collaborator, cinematographer Michael Fimognari.

** Shout outs to Annabeth Gish and Dr. Lawrence Jacoby himself, Russ Tamblyn, who may just be overlooked with all the other high-caliber thespianics going on around them.

Parting Shot: Though I have seen Jan de Bont’s The Haunting, I’ve never read the original Shirley Jackson novel (I really should finally get around to it), nor seen the 1963 Robert Wise film adaptation (which Flanagan seems respectfully in awe of).
As it turns out, Tamblyn also appeared in Wise's version, as the "Luke" character. In Flanagan's "remix," Tamblyn plays Dr. Montague, repurposing the name of the lead investigator in Jackson's original novel. (In Wise's adaptation, that character becomes Dr. Markway.)
Remix, indeed.

“Our family is like an unfinished meal to that house…"

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year

[11 of 13]

OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL

(October 2016)

There's something to be said for well-crafted traditional horror cinema and Mike Flanagan’s Ouija: Origin of Evil, is certainly that.

A prequel to Stiles White’s Ouija--the 2014 film based on the Hasbro game (which I never got to watch)--Origin of Evil follows the Zander women, mother Alice (Elizabeth Reaser), her high school daughter Lina (Annalise Basso, who also featured in Flanagan’s Oculus), and 9-year-old Doris (Lulu Wilson), as they try and get by in Los Angeles, 1967, after the loss of their husband and father.

Alice’s business name is “Madame Zander,” and she and her daughters perform a community service by giving their clients closure through faux séances, or at least, that’s what Alice tells herself and her children.

Things go awry of course (because let’s face it, they have to, given that this is a horror movie) when Alice purchases a (gasp!) Ouija board.

The premise sounds dopey as hell, but Flanagan and co-writer Jeff Howard (who also tag teamed on the screenplays for Flanagan’s Oculus and Before I Wake) wring it for all the creeptasticness they can muster.

Parting Shot:

Oh, and look! Doug Jones and Elliott, errr, I mean Henry Thomas, are in it too!

(Ouija: Origin of Evil OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2017

Candidate #3

OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL

(October 2016)

There's something to be said for well-crafted traditional horror cinema and Mike Flanagan’s Ouija: Origin of Evil, is certainly that.

A prequel to Stiles White’s Ouija--the 2014 film based on the Hasbro game (which I never got to watch)--Origin of Evil follows the Zander women, mother Alice (Elizabeth Reaser), her high school daughter Lina (Annalise Basso, who also featured in Flanagan’s Oculus), and 9-year-old Doris (Lulu Wilson), as they try and get by in Los Angeles, 1967, after the loss of their husband and father.

Alice’s business name is “Madame Zander,” and she and her daughters perform a community service by giving their clients closure through faux séances, or at least, that’s what Alice tells herself and her children.

Things go awry of course (because let’s face it, they have to, given that this is a horror movie) when Alice purchases a (gasp!) Ouija board.

The premise sounds dopey as hell, but Flanagan and co-writer Jeff Howard (who also tag teamed on the screenplays for Flanagan’s Oculus and Before I Wake) wring it for all the creeptasticness they can muster.

Parting Shot:

Oh, and look! Doug Jones and Elliott, errr, I mean Henry Thomas, are in it too!

(Ouija: Origin of Evil OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (59)

59.1 CRUISING TRIBECA 2008 (2)
The line-ups for the Discovery and Midnight sections of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival have been announced, and the films that have piqued my interest are:

Discovery
La Habitación de Fermat (Fermat's Room), directed and written by: Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopeña. (Spain)
The walls are closing in—literally—on four brainiac mathematicians with shadowy pasts in this muchotense debut. A sexy virtuoso, a hardheaded hottie, a doleful drunk, and a middle-aged merrymaker have all been brought together by the mysterious Fermat to solve their most profound equation yet: Why is someone trying to kill them?

Sita Sings the Blues, directed and written by Nina Paley. (USA)
Using a variety of colorful animation techniques, writer-director Nina Paley wittily interweaves the story of Sita, the leading lady of the ancient Sanskrit epic Ramayana, with the story of a modern American woman struggling to keep her marriage afloat.

The Wild Man of the Navidad, directed and written by Duane Graves and Justin Meeks. (USA)
Based on real-life journals, this intelligent retelling of an old urban legend, shot in a ’70s-style B movie aesthetic, focuses on a Texas community terrified by a mysterious creature inhabiting the nearby woods.

Midnight
The Cottage, directed and written by Paul Andrew Williams. (UK)
A kidnapping plot goes horribly awry when two brothers and their potty-mouthed hostage stumble into the wrong farmhouse in this gory horror-comedy.

Dying Breed, directed by Jody Dwyer, written by Michael Boughen, Rod Morris, and Dwyer. (Australia)
Inspired by the legends of a 19th-century cannibal and an extinct tiger, this brutal horror-thriller centers on four friends who find out that something—or someone—murderous lurks in the rain-slogged Australian bush.

From Within, directed by Phedon Papamichael, written by Brad Keene. (USA)
Evil comes from within in this smart, supernatural thriller, set in a small extremist evangelical town that is mysteriously afflicted with serial suicides.
Up-and-coming cast includes Elizabeth Rice, Thomas Dekker (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Laura Allen (Dirt), and Rumer Willis.

Killer Movie, directed and written by Jeff Fisher. (USA)
A reality TV director copes with a spoiled celebutante and a show gone haywire when a masked killer starts bumping off the crew in this slasher-movie satire from a director who did time working on The Simple Life.

You can find the complete lists of the Discovery and Midnight sections of the 2008 TFF here.

59.2 REMAKE REMIX RECYCLE (1)
Those of you who frequent the Iguana probably know that I love me my Hideo Nakata. One of his films that I haven’t yet had the opportunity to see though, is Joyû-rei (Don’t Look Up; a.k.a. Ghost Actress).
Apparently, though Nakata was approached to helm an English-language remake of Joyû-rei, the man now taking the director’s chair is Fruit Chan. I guess things didn’t work out with Nakata, which is, on the one hand, sad.
On the other hand though, I love me my Fruit Chan too, so I’m looking forward to this one; Chan directed my favourite segment of Saam gaang yi (Three… Extremes), “Dumplings,” an extended cut of which was also released as the feature film, Gaau ji. (Try and catch both, if you’re able.)
In the English-language Don’t Look Up cast, one Henry Thomas, who once upon a time, bicycled across the face of the moon with E.T.
Shooting begins April 14 in Los Angeles.

(The Cottage UK quad courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; The Cottage image courtesy of telegraph.co.uk; Joyû-rei OS courtesy of lapuertaoscura.com; Three… Extremes OS courtesy of impawards.com; Dumplings DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.co.uk.)