Relive your Catholic trauma with Midnight Mass

Midnight Mass is excellent, depending on your level of Catholic trauma. The first watch was hard—the soundtrack is mostly Catholic hymns, the ones you somehow remember by heart despite having last sung them 20 years ago. You remember Bible lessons and how the church and its people use them to mold your behavior and decisions.

In other words, I hated watching this series on the first run. It took me forever to watch it to begin with, and then more time between first and second watch. There’s so much the Catholic Church doctrine has done to me by way of my family, so the way Riley is treated—the way the townspeople are treated who don’t go to church—is very familiar. The way the townspeople feel both poorer and richer than everyone, “holier than thou.” The way Bev interprets the bible directly, the way she treats people, and yet seems to be the closest to God. If you’ve ever been non-compliant, you know.

Woven throughout is the story of outcasts—mostly alcoholics in this case, who’ve maimed or killed someone. Riley, who killed a girl; a girl that still haunts him every night. Joe Collie, who had some sort of “hunting accident” and paralyzed Leeza, is now the town pariah. We start there as the story unfolds into a commentary on death and religion.

I love how smart this film is—how it doesn’t tell you, it shows you. Father Paul/Monsignor Pruitt is presented with evil and sees God in it. Bev Keane will do whatever it takes to get what she wants (and what she wants is money for the church), no matter the cost to others; and she’s the first to lead the charge stone those townspeople who don’t follow the Church. Mostly hurled at the new sheriff, who happens to be Muslim. You see the treatment, but it’s also in the way it’s filmed, particularly at the end. The shining vampire eyes; how gleeful Bev is to drink and burn down the town. Compliance or death. (Well, it’s death either way, really.) I guess vamps are the best vehicle for Jesus’ resurrection. Indeed, they rise.