Midnight Mass
Mike Flanagan is quickly becoming a household name. The director of quality horror films, such as Hush and Gerald's Game, and the creator of the incredibly scary The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor, he is well-respected in the horror genre as someone who can fit both heavy emotions and legitimately pants-wetting terror into his work.
Midnight Mass is the latest of his "limited series" shows and, in some ways, is his most ambitious work yet. The show is a meditation on intense topics such as the after life, blind faith, redemption, and forgiveness. However, it suffers from one of Flanagan's signature quirks: LONG-ASS SPEECHES. In every episode of this show, multiple characters talk AT LENGTH about what happens after we die, the nature of God, etc etc. It really handicaps an otherwise very solid TV series.
Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) is the prodigal son of Crockett Island, a small fishing town somewhere in the Northeast (although, puzzlingly, no one has a Mainer or similar accent). Riley spent four years in prison for killing a woman after driving drunk. His loving mother invites him back into his childhood bedroom so that he can get his feet under him. But his gruff father has a harder time forgiving him.
Meanwhile, the community eagerly awaits the return of Monsignor Pruitt--an elderly priest who has led their local church for decades--from a trip to Israel. Crockett Island is very Catholic, with the exception of Sheriff Hassan, a practicing Muslim, Sarah Gunning, the local doctor and a closeted lesbian, Joe Collie, the town drunk, and Riley, who looked for God in prison and never found him. These four people find themselves not treated cruelly (except for maybe Joe, who is a scapegoat), but constantly pressured to conform and come to church.
Well, Pruitt doesn't return. A younger priest, Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater, in an electric role), comes to town and explains that Monsignor Pruitt is recovering on the mainland since he fell ill during the trip. Under Father Hill's care, the town begins to see literal miracles happening: poor eyesight is regained, bad backs no longer hurt, and most miraculously of all, a young woman confined to a wheelchair after a terrible accident gets up and walks. All the faithful of Crockett Island are rapturous and become more and more zealous, with their faith rising to a fever pitch on Easter.
Meanwhile, Riley and the nonbelievers feel that something unexplainable, yet terrible and wrong, is happening. But how can they convince the believers to listen to them when the evidence of "miracles" is all around them?
Midnight Mass is about the horrors of blind faith. It is critical--though not damning--of Christianity. I have the sense that Flanagan is a man of faith (religion and faith show up in many of his other works) and this is his passion project in criticizing other people of faith who take it too far. But the film still comes down on the side of "it is better to believe in something rather than nothing". At least that's the sense I was left with. Others may disagree.
If you're wanting to be scared shitless, check out The Haunting of Hill House, which sets the gold standard for haunted house stories, in my opinion. But if you want a little horror mixed in with long conversations about what might happen after we die, whether AA (with its "higher power" talk) is really the best option for those in recovery, and how a parent can forgive a child who disappointed them, etc...Midnight Mass with probably be your bag. I thought it was good, but I think Flanagan needs an editor to help him refine and cut down his florid writing before he can achieve true greatness.
Grade: B
***
Seance
Directed by Simon Barrett, a longtime collaborator of Adam Wingard, Seance is a mediocre, paint-by-numbers horror film set in a modern day boarding school.
After a late-night prank leads to the death of student Kerrie, a spot opens up at the Edelvine Academy for Girls. Camille Meadows (Suki Waterhouse) is accepted into the school and immediately makes an enemy of a clique of popular girls. However, spooky happenings lead Camille and the popular girls to work together to try to contact the "Edelvine Ghost".
One by one, the girls either go missing or are found dead under peculiar circumstances. Is there a vengeful ghost--or ghosts--haunting the school? Or something else?
Honestly, there are so many lazy and dumb things about this movie. First of all, they don't even conduct a seance--the girls use a makeshift planchette using a phone case and a lipstick tube to talk to the ghost. So the title isn't even accurate! The film is also rife with boarding school cliches including:
- Actresses who look way older than the characters they're playing
- All the students are incredibly gorgeous
- A budding lesbian relationship
- A headmistress who is not only severe and strict, but has an English accent despite this school being located in the United States.
- No one ever goes to class and when they do, the classes are ballet and theatre tech (i.e not boring classes like math). Also, all the main characters are all in the same classes
Grade: C
***
Ouija: Origin of Evil
This movie, directed by the famous Mike Flanagan (see Midnight Mass, above), is know for being a rare sequel (in this case, a prequel) to a movie that turns out to be better than the original film. While 2014's Ouija is currently sitting at a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes, Ouija: Origin of Evil is sitting at a plump 82%.
Starring Elizabeth Reaser as Alice Zander, a young widow raising two daughters, Lina and Doris, in 1967, Ouija: Origin of Evil has an interesting premise: what if scam artists suddenly discovered their scams were real? Because Alice no longer has a husband, she has to find a way to make ends meet. She performs seances to give grieving loved ones peace of mind that their family members are comfortable in the afterlife. Alice recruits her daughters to help her with the "showmanship"--shaking tables, candles that seem to blow themselves out, and ghostly apparitions.
But when Alice buys a ouija board to spice up her little shows, all hell literally breaks loose. It seems that youngest daughter Doris is able to communicate with the dead using the board. She is able to talk directly to her dead father. Alice sees this as a miracle where older sister Lina is skeptical...especially when the normally sweet Doris begins to act cruel and distant.
Though the final third swings for the fences a little TOO hard, Ouija: Origin of Evil has an interesting plot, some genuinely good scares, and decent acting. This is not Flanagan's best work, but given that the man is a genuine talent, his direction takes what could have been a shitty sequel to a shitty movie and elevates it to a decent flick.
Grade: B
***
The Guilty (2021)
Do you like to see pretty men cry? Then this is the movie for you! A nearly word-for-word remake of the 2018 Danish film of the same name (which I reviewed in my "Movies I watched in September" entry), The Guilty stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Joe Baylor, a cop in the LAPD who is benched while awaiting trial for killing a 19 year old man. He is assigned to answer emergency calls, and when a woman named Emily (Riley Keogh) calls one night, Joe becomes increasingly invested in her situation. Emily is in a car with a man she is afraid of. She pretends she is talking to her child while Joe asks her "yes" and "no" questions to determine where the car is headed so that he can send help.
The film hinges on an absolutely devastating twist that, of course, had less impact given that I've seen the original. Still, seeing an actor I love go through a roller coaster of emotions was enjoyable, even though I knew where the film was headed. Because the Danish and American versions of this film are nearly identical, and also because I don't want to give away too much of the plot, there's not a whole lot I can say about this film. If you like thrillers that focus mostly on one actor and take place in one location (think Colin Farrell in Phone Booth, Tom Hardy in Locke, and Ryan Reynolds in Buried), you'll probably enjoy The Guilty. I suppose I slightly enjoyed the American remake a bit more than the Danish original because it stars one of my favorite actors (who can hit it out of the park with a sobbing/whimpering scene, for sure). But since the two films are so, so similar, I'm going to give them the same grade.
Grade: B
***
Dolls
Dolls is a horror film from 1987 about, well, dolls. I saw parts of it as a child and it scared the fuck out of me, so I recently rewatched it for funsies to see if it still holds up. The answer: um, actually yes. It's still pretty fucking creepy. However, the humor in the movie is horrendously dated (not in an offensive way, just in a cheesy way) and the acting is atrocious. So, if you're looking for a scary movie to make fun of, but that might still creep you out--Dolls might fill that need.
The film takes place in rural England. An American family--Dad David, Stepmom Rosemary, and daughter Judy--is on vacation in the English countryside when their car breaks down during a thunderstorm. They spy an big, old house nearby and seek shelter with an elderly couple, Gabriel and Hilary, who live there. Gabriel is a doll maker, and so the entire house is filled with the creepy little poppets. But young Judy isn't afraid of the dolls--including a "Punch" doll that Gabriel gives her to hang on to.
Three other strangers arrive: nice guy Ralph (basically a poor man's John Candy), and two English tarts, Enid and Isabel, who are obnoxious and loud. The movie really makes clear who the good guys and bad guys are from the get-go.
Throughout the night, the dolls come alive and...well, they don't murder the bad guys per se. It's a little different than that. You'll have to see the movie to get what I'm talking about. But they definitely commit acts of violence on everyone except Judy and Ralph. Even though the movie is super corny overall, the dolls are actually pretty scary. A child watching this would likely have nightmares for weeks. And adult might just shudder at the uncanny valley-ness of it all.
So do I recommend Dolls? Meh. It's not great. But if you like cheesy 80s horror, or wish there were even more movies in the "Chucky" series, it might provide a night of entertainment.
Grade: C+
***
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