What Keeps Mike Flanagan Up at Night?
In October of 2023, Mike Flanagan’s newest Netflix limited series The Fall of the House of Usher was released. As an enthusiastic fan of Mike Flanagan, I was eager to consume this series and see where among Flanagan’s works it would fit in terms of the stories he chooses to tell. There is a lot to be said about Usher, about the depraved death scenes, the tragedy of broken familial bonds, the consequences of one’s actions that haunt you like ghosts years later. But the theme that runs deep in every episode of Usher is immortality and what people are capable of to feel for one second that they will live forever. Roderick and the entirety of the Usher Family had everything one could ask out of life, of this physical world. But part of human nature is to always desire more, to feel unsatisfied with the present. The Ushers could not sit still long enough to get their bearings. All of their riches, their power made them feel like there was always more to conquer, some gap in their conscious that was always growing. But no amount of money hides anyone from death, and any attempt is only met with cruel indifference from the inevitable force that comes for everyone. But the Ushers are only the newest characters in Mike Flanagan’s adaptations and stories that go beyond ethical lines to cheat death, to become shells of human beings that act on instinct and preservation in ways that only serve themselves. Or is the desire to avoid death the only true human trait we all share?
There was a thought that came to my head as I was watching the finale of Midnight Mass and saw all the chaos unfold on the people of Crockett Island. I thought, “Every one of these characters are afraid of dying.” This thought put my mind at ease instantly. Because the dread that escalated episode after episode of Midnight Mass as the cult of Monsignor Pruitt, Bev Keane, and their “angel” spread across the island consumed me. The reality about groups of people that are misled and manipulated into committing heinous crimes by figures only looking to serve their own agenda or ego is a haunting part of our world. But after seeing how far the townspeople went to carry out what they thought, or was made to believe, was the word of God, I couldn’t help but to admit their inhumanity. Apart from the sheer violence and torment committed, what was truly horrifying was how easily they fell, how quick they were to go along with the obscenities that Bev and Pruitt ordered them to commit. This is where this thought fits. Because when you frame all that evil with the idea that everyone fears death and will do whatever it takes to cheat it, there is nothing more human than that desire.
Death is its own character in Midnight Mass, as it is in many of Mike Flanagan’s projects. The tight knit Christian community of Crockett Island is a dying community. Marred with a declining fishing industry and collapsed real estate market, those that are still left on Crockett Island deal with death and misery in their personal lives. The aging leader of their Christian way of life is on his last feet while the appointment of a Muslim man as their sheriff, to many residents, is the ultimate sign of their downfall. The town doctor cannot save her elderly mother from dementia. The mayor and his wife are going broke in treatments for their disabled daughter after she was handicapped in a shooting accident involving the town drunk. All of this makes for a bleak existence for anyone living on Crockett Island. Things become more dreary when Riley returns (Gilford), the ex-venture capitalist who thought he put his hometown behind him until he had nowhere to go after being released from prison for a DUI in which he killed a young girl. The looming presence of death is always there, waiting to take them. For the people of Crockett Island, they feel it in the dark corners of their church, in every storm that threatens to swoop in and wipe them from existence. We all fear death, but for them, death feels just a little bit closer.
Everyone in this town is afraid. All the time. That is why when something comes along and hints at the promise of immortality, they lose all notion of humanity and moral. In this case, it comes in the form of a new young priest for their church. It takes a couple of episodes for everyone to find out that this new father is their old Monsignor Pruitt, who has been made young and healthy due to the blood of a creature he encountered in Israel. The creature, their “angel”, has all the classic signs of a vampire. It attacks living things and sucks their blood, draining the life out. It burns up when it is exposed to sunlight, as is everyone who accepts its blood. But after the Monsignor is saved from his old age, he does not see a monster. Even after he brings the “angel” back to Crockett Island and it begins to kill pets and residents alike, Pruitt still sees an angel. Pruitt contorted this monster until it fit into his beliefs, into something that was easier to swallow. Because the creature gave Pruitt a gift, whether intentionally or not. It allowed Pruitt a reason to not fear death anymore. The fear of death is so consuming that Pruitt does everything he can to not feel it again. Resident after resident, as the promise of everlasting life becomes stronger, start to lose themselves.
Our brains cannot handle thinking about death all the time. We simply would not be able to function. What would be the point of going to work or doing household chores if we are all going to die anyway? Everyday life has a way of getting our minds off those thoughts. Who can think about one’s death when we have others that depend on us? Or when the sunlight is perfectly warm to take a walk? In the end, we embrace what we can to avoid thinking about death, naively or not. We tell stories. We listen to music. We play television in the background to avoid sitting in silence. Others do drugs or drink alcohol so that the thoughts will go away for however short that time is. The actions of these characters make sense to me. The irony is that once I realized that all the evil they committed were all in service to not having to fear death, the more human they became to me. And why wouldn’t they give into the “angel”? It seemingly proved everything they’ve come to believe as Christians true. A winged creature, whom in Israel, saved their beloved Monsignor from death by giving him its blood, and is now healing everyone else in the town by sharing its blood? Whose blood helped raise the mayor’s daughter from her wheelchair, or reversed the aging of the town doctor’s mother? The townspeople were so grateful to have their prayers answered that they were terrified of losing what they were given. They were afraid of a life where they had to fear death again. They were afraid of being human again, just human.
The more I watch and talk about Midnight Mass, the more convinced I am that the whole series is purely a coping mechanism of Mike Flanagan’s to come to terms with the incomparable finality of death. Like many others, I have been fascinated with Flanagan since the start of his career and his entire point of view on horror. He understands that the character that dies early in the movie is the luckiest one, because they don’t suffer any more like everyone else in the movie (Oculus). He recognizes that life is brutal and vindictive because people can be brutal and vindictive to each other (Hush). He accepts that people are haunted and carry the ghosts with them (The Haunting of Hill House) Finally, he knows that true horror comes from loss and the grief that follows (The Haunting of Bly Manor). So when he wrote Midnight Mass, I picture him sitting in a quiet room with his eyes wide open. He is trying to encapsulate everything everyone has ever thought about death into seven episodes of television on Netflix. But then he thinks, “What if death is not the worst thing that can happened to you?” That is the key to the whole story. There are much, much more worse things in life than death. Some are out of our control. Some are a direct consequence of our actions.
There is a scene in the series finale of Midnight Mass where Erin (Siegel) is dying. As she slowly bleeds out, staring at the starry night sky, she thinks back to an earlier conversation she had with Riley (Gilford) before he died episodes earlier. Riley asks Erin what she thinks happens when we die. Erin goes on to describe not just death, but life and love and the experience of being human. She is thinking about these words as she feels her soul drifting, looking at the stars.
“We are the cosmos dreaming of itself. It’s simply a dream that I think is my life, every time. “
All of this is said as the scene cuts back and forward between Erin and the many characters we have come to both hate and understand finally accept their death. Even though they gave into violence and chaos in a vain attempt to live forever, that acceptance brought them an everlasting peace. They sing “Nearer, My God, to Thee” as they embrace each other. Sheriff Hassan and his son Ali fall to their knees to pray towards the Sun to Allah. Father Pruitt embraces the love of his life and his daughter. As Erin talks about how all of life is always repeating itself so that we never really end, I can’t help but think that Flanagan is talking to us through his characters. More than that, it feels like he is talking to himself. He is a human being like all of us, trying to make sense of life and death in a way that will allow us to sleep at night.
Everyone has different ideas about death, and different opinions on how to accept it and move on. Some people choose religion and like to think about an afterlife in the sky with the loved ones you lost along the way waiting for you with open arms. Others find peace in the idea of an eternal sleep, free from pain and worry. According to Mike Flanagan, we return to the Earth and live forever in other forms and shapes just as we lived before we were born. Personally, I like to think that we live forever in whatever our last thought is as we pass away. Whether that thought is good or bad, or whether our hearts and minds are at peace with how we lived, the final moment repeats over and over again. I hope my final thought is a good one.
As mentioned above, there is a character named Riley in Midnight Mass who returns to Crockett Island after having killed a young girl in a drunken car accident. Every night as he falls asleep, Riley sees the bloodied figure of that young girl. The image of her stares at him as her skin flashes red and blue from the police cars, reflected on the blood and glass stuck to her body. It is not the violence that haunts him, or even the pain of the accident. It is the guilt of having taken a life due to his carelessness, and the idea that he has to live with that guilt forever. But at the end of the fifth episode, as Riley allows himself to be exposed to sunlight, therefore catching fire and dying, Riley sees that girl again. Except this time, she is not blooded or covered in glass. She smiles and extends her hand out to Riley. Does she forgive him? That would certainly be the easiest answer. At the end of his life, Riley is forgiven for his mortal sins and invited to spend eternity in heaven. Sure, why not? But Riley never needed forgiveness. Deep down, I don’t believe he deserves it. But the bloodied figure he would see every night was his heart reminding him of the harm he has caused in his life. But now that he was dying, his heart was not scared anymore. It just wanted a peaceful thought as he passed away.
It is a particularly grim thought that sometimes, true peace is only possible after accepting one’s death. One should not have to wait until accepting something so absolute to finally be free of the anxiety and fear that comes with the uncertainty of death. As human beings, we’re unique in the ability to ponder not only our deaths but our lives as well. We can drive ourselves crazy thinking about how far reaching our actions truly are or the ultimate futility of it all. The townspeople of Crockett were easy victims to manipulate purely because of that fear. The second they were shown the possibility of a life without fearing death, they were always going to do whatever it took to make it a reality. They followed what they did not really understand. They attacked and murdered because a person told them to, the person wo was going to lead them to that never-ending existence they so craved. It is a consistent theme in Flanagan’s stories, people committing awful acts just to avoid death. It is despicable and pathetic, but it is also incredibly human. Mike Flanagan understands that we betray ourselves in the paths we take to live forever, and just because we are alive does not mean we are really living. Which is why another theme that Flanagan explores frequently is the idea that death is not the worst thing that can happen to a person.
Midnight Mass is filled with characters who not only have traumatic things happen to them but live with that trauma every day. The loss and pain that comes with simply living is unbearable at times. But the separation between dealing with the pain that comes with being alive and dealing with the brutal, violent chaos that you commit is substantial. At the end of the finale, when everyone who spent the entirety of the episode killing realizes that they’re still going to die as soon as the sun comes up, you would think that they would spend their precious last seconds desperately trying to run away from death. In fact, that is exactly what Bev Keane, one of the central leaders of all the killing that occurred, does. She digs into the sand, running from the sun, God, and her shame. But the others know what Bev doesn’t. That they are going to die. And in those last moments, they were free. They prayed and sang to God. They held onto their loved ones and thought back to moments where they were happy. They had mastered Death. They were finally at peace.
