No one can be surprised that Midnight mass (2021), the third and unmissable horror miniseries that the American Mike Flanagan has directed for Netflix, drink from the works written by his compatriot Stephen King. Before The curse of Hill House (2018), did Gerald’s game (2017) for the platform, and after and prior to The curse of Bly Manor (2020), he got with Sleep doctor (2019) for Warner Bros., both film adaptations of the novelist’s homonymous books. That is to say, there is no doubt that he is interested in his stories.
So, due to this circumstance, we easily understand that his new proposal pushes us to think of two stories about an unspeakable evil that hangs over a small population, seduces it and ruins it like Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater) to Crockett even if it was not your intention:
Tommyknockers (1987), transferred to another miniseries by John Power in 1993, and The store (1991), made into a feature film directed by Fraser Clarke Heston the same year; and more specifically, in Salem’s Lot mystery (1975), which Tobe Hooper transformed into one more miniseries in 1979 and Mikael Salomon, in 2004, for the atrocious vampire plague, and in The storm of the century (1999), fictionalized script for the television shoot in identical format by Craig R. Baxley, by the island environment.
The Maine novelist’s characters in ‘Midnight Mass’
On the other hand, in Revival (2014), that Mike Flanagan himself was going to translate into moving images, another preacher with a lip can miraculously cure all kinds of ailments and, behind it, hides horror. Also, the character of Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) in Midnight mass is a recovering alcoholic like Jack Torrance in The glow (1977), the pages of which serve as the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film. Like his son, Danny, in Sleep doctor (2013), who also attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
Finally, we cannot forget to point out that the religious fanaticism of Beverly Keane (Samantha Sloyan) has been exploited with great success by Stephen King in Carrie (1974), adapted by Brian de Palma in the 1976 film, by David Carson in another in 2002 and by Kimberly Peirce in the 2013 film, and during the nightmare of The fog (1980), then a Frank Darabont feature from 2007 and a canceled series by Christian Clumsy from 2017. The protagonist’s mother in one, Margaret White, and the infamous Mrs. Carmody in the other are first cousins of this character devised by Mike Flanagan for Midnight mass.
Bonus: nods to film adaptations of Stephen King’s work
The most obvious Easter eggs in the six chapters of the Netflix miniseries, which we can highlight among the best of the year, about the films that are based on Stephen King’s novels are related to The glow and Salem’s Lot mystery. At Father Paul Hill’s residence, there are an old photograph of his supposed predecessor in the parish of St. Patrick, Monsignor Pruitt, when he was young. But we know that they are the same person and that being vampirized has rejuvenated him.
Such a photograph, of course, reminds us of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) at the Overlook Hotel’s New Year’s Eve party in 1921 at the end of the Stanley Kubrick film. And the specific scene of Midnight mass in which Leeza scarborough (Annarah Cymone), cured of her paralysis with the blood of the Israeli vampire, call warren flynn (Igby Rigney) in the middle of the night from outside the window of his room on the top floor of his house can not help but bring to mind the vampirized Ralphie Glick (Ronnie Scribner) floating in front of his brother Danny (Brad Savage) in the Tobe Hooper miniseries: his most remembered moment by the viewers.