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©2002-2024
Kevin Michael Vance
Writer - Portland, Oregon
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Title: MIDNIGHT MASS
Director: Mike Flanagan
Year: 2021
Reviewed: August 17, 2022
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Rice Cake-Lowest Rating |
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I have liked some of Mike Flanagan's work. Oculus is one of the most underrated horror movies of the past decade. Hush was okay, but I truly loved his take on a Stephen King story entitled Gerald's Game.
But then he moved to netflix, and, for lack of a better phrase, everything went to crap.
His take on Shirley Jackson's superlative book "The Haunting of Hill House" was a pathetic attempt by a writer who seems to have lost his stride; rife with monologues from each character that go on for five or ten minutes and a laughable "Beetlejuice" ending, the only thing tying it to the book in any sense is the title.
Now we have "Midnight Mass", which, unfortunately, is a perfect example of what NOT to do as a writer. You are taught from a very early age, when you- the writer- are telling a story that it is better to SHOW, rather than TELL. Mike Flanagan believes he can tell an entire season and get away with it. He's like the netflix version of Ari Aster (yet another unenviable hack).
There are some nice moments in a few episodes in "Midnight Mass", but they are so few and far between, and the story is so contrite, that known of that matters. I stopped watching it before it ended it was that boring and that pretentious. And yet again... the monologues! It's like a hippie jam band where everyone on stage gets a solo, even the trombonist. Here its, every character gets a monologue lasting five or ten minutes. Mind-numbingly boring and so tedious as to be painful the viewer is forced to watch each character blather on and on... and on; ad nauseam. And none of it, not one single line of dialogue, furthers the characters or the story. By the time the Sheriff of the isolated island town (cliche) went off on his monologue I was done!
Midnight Mass is some of the worst examples of bad writing. And the god damn thing is up for an Emmy!
How do shows this bad get- first of all- produced, and- secondly- garner an excepting audience?
Midnight Mass gets my dreaded RICE CAKE review.
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