- [Narrator] Don't let anyone fool you.
Horror isn't all about scaring the pants off of you.
Okay, it's definitely the most fun part but at its best,
horror fiction uses that scary stuff
as a vehicle for exploring the human condition.
Going all the way back to his 2011 debut "Absentia,"
supernatural beings have haunted the work
of director Mike Flanagan.
From the grounds of hill house to the halls of the Overlook.
Flanagan's ghosts may be excellent scare fuel,
but they also stand in for the emotional hurdles
that his characters have to overcome.
(shocking sound effect)
Now, with "Midnight Mass" out on Netflix,
let's take a closer look
at Mike Flanagan's use of supernatural symbolism
because the scariest monsters, are the ones of our making.
Be warned, there's spoilers ahead.
(ominous pounding music)
- A ghost can be a lot of things.
A memory, a daydream, a secret, grief, anger, guilt.
Most times, a ghost is a wish.
- [Narrator] As Steven Crain would tell you,
a ghost isn't always as simple as a spirit
in a spectral bed sheet.
Through the eyes of the protagonist,
ghosts can be walking or floating manifestations
of their greatest fears and failings.
After all, what haunts us more than the pain of the past?
And to what lengths will we go
to save ourselves from future pain?
We'll come back to that question later.
There's no clearer example of ghosts as a symbol
in Flanagan's work, than "The Haunting Of Hill House,"
and "The Haunting Of Bly Manor."
But let's forget about the ghosts in those houses
for just a second, and think broadly
about the characters in those shows.
At its core, Hill House is really about
a group of adult siblings reckoning with childhood traumas.
And while many of the characters drawn to Bly Manor
are plagued by something in their past,
Dani's guilt over her fiance's death
is a centerpiece of that series.
Both of those setups are fertile ground for drama,
and that's actually key for making ghosts scary.
See, oftentimes in horror,
the more you care about a character
and what they're going through,
the scarier the situation they're suffering through becomes.
We know how sensitive little Luke Crain is,
and so we know how ill equipped he is to deal with that.
(shocking sound effect)
And we feel for Lucas and adults struggling with addiction,
because we know that it's a coping mechanism
for the awful past he's running from at Hill House.
That past manifests as the ghosts of Hill House,
stalking the Crains as they try to move on.
Bly Manor's au pair, Dani,
is also haunted by a tragic past.
Dani blames herself for the death of her fiance,
whose ghost appears to her on the grounds of Bly.
The last thing she remembers seeing before he died,
were the headlights of the oncoming truck
reflected in his glasses.
This visual detail is used to connect the ghosts appearance
directly to Dani's trauma.
And though it may have been an accident,
the guilt Dani feels over Edmund's death
carries forward into her relationship
with Bly's groundskeeper, Jamie, who was an important factor
in Dani's decision to return to Bly permanently.
Leaving Jamie heartbroken.
So ghosts are excellent vehicles
by which the past can come back to haunt us,
but with an eye toward the hereafter
and a story about the dangers of extremism,
"Midnight Mass" needed monsters with a little more bite.
The show takes place on Crockett Island,
a community in desperate need of hope.
So when the mysterious Father Paul arrives
and paralyzed teens start standing out of their wheelchairs,
the town pours all of their faith into their new priest,
but they don't know is that faith will never be enough
for the angel who's bidding Father Paul is doing.
Mike Flanagan brings the duos dangerous influence to life
using the iconography of vampire fiction.
Of course, it all starts on Father Paul's pilgrimage
when he first encounters the angel.
The decrepit old priest gets a new lease on life
thanks to his baptism,
and believes that he must bring
this positive influence back to his community.
He ships it back home to Crockett Island.
He invites it in.
As we all know, not something you wanna do with a vampire.
Noble though Father Paul's intentions may be,
they exclude the people of Crockett
who don't want this to be their higher power.
And the minority who refused attending midnight mass
have reason to be worried.
As time goes on, the church goers
become increasingly paranoid of those
who aren't willing to pay the high price
for one of Father Paul's miracles.
Father Paul's angel, with its bottomless inhuman hunger,
comes to stand in for the creeping influence
of extremism on the town.
After all, it's along religious lines
that people start to split.
Riley from his family, Ali from Sheriff Hassan.
The people of Crockett Island start to forget their bonds
once Father Paul arrives with his blood thirsty master.
That thirst is a theme that carries through
in one of the more well-known vampire rules
Flanagan employs.
Often, a vampire's victim must drink their blood
if they are to become a vampire themselves.
Flanagan employs that aspect of vampirism
in a powerfully symbolic way.
The blood sacrament Father Paul gives to his congregation.
The most fervent of Father Paul's followers,
none more so than Bev Keane, come to regard communion
as the only thing that matters.
A litmus test for true believers seeking eternal life.
Crockett Island's eventual obsession with blood
starts well before anyone becomes a true vampire,
and that's what Flanagan is getting at.
People don't need a bite on the neck from a vampire
to be a monster.
Immortality sounds great on paper,
but be careful what you wish for.
(shocking ominous sound effect)
The supernatural is always more impactful
when it's rooted in something natural.
Mike Flanagan's horror keeps this at the forefront
with the characters deepest fears and insecurities
manifesting as the ghosts, vampires,
or other creatures of the night that they have to face down.
Let us know if some new meaning jumps out at you
the next time you watch one of Mike Flanagan's movies
or TV shows on Netflix.
(ominous foreboding music)