Thoughts & Observations on Midnight Mass

I don’t do particularly well with the horror genre and even some suspenseful movies are hard for me to watch—I scare easily, so I usually don’t watch movies or shows that might cause my dreams to morph into nightmares.

Midnight Mass was especially stretching for me because while it is not necessarily a horror show, it crosses into the realm of demons and troubling deaths and it had a few moments that caused me to watch timidly through my fingers.  

Here are some things I noticed upon reflection (spoilers ahead and context needed for some understanding).

Riley sees clearly. 

Riley is kind and gentle. He sees and lives with the reality the way that his choices have caused others to suffer, even to lose their life. He observes and listens well. He seems even-keeled and real. Perhaps he is the most real person, alongside Erin, in Crockpot. Riley might be seen as a skeptic, a cynic, a prodigal, or a realist. He has seen the damage of taking another life, for not considering the destruction of what personal choices can inflict on an innocent life. He, with more control over his impulses than someone who preaches religion and sacrifice for a living, shows that even those infected can choose to love their neighbor, they can choose to act against their impulse to harm. Perhaps Riley, whom we saw as a hero, showed the image and beauty that is in those who believe differently from us—those who are weary of church and spiritual power abusers.

Sidenote: I found Riley and Erin’s relationship to be incredibly sweet. (Also, I want all of Erin’s wardrobe.) 

Bev is blood-drunk on spiritual power.

Bev is so intriguing and interesting to watch. You’ve probably known a Bev if you’ve spent time in the church. She is the morality police. She is the gatekeeper of secrets and power. She upholds unhealthy systems and goes right along when she learns of the evil that goes on behind closed doors. She cannot see it in her own heart, or maybe she doesn’t want to. Bev is threatened by anyone or anything that might see beauty and truth outside of the parish walls. She, although she doctrinally and theologically knows that what Monsignor Pruitt does is evil, is so fixed on the twisted mission that she goes along with the most bizarre and heinous plans. Bev sees the town drunks as the problem—Joe and Riley—but she has no problem with Pruitt being drunk on the blood of his parishioners, for him having no control over his urges and destructive ways, for him being a murderer.

Pruitt wishes for another way forward, a chance to cheat death.

Monsignor Pruitt lives in regret—the choices he has made, the daughter he has not been able to father, and the demon he has chosen to trust, knowing it surely cannot be from God. Pruitt’s agony is both physical and mental, it is a full-body gut-punching feeling where all signs point to his journey with the demon not ending well. He has chosen, in delusion and hope, to trust the thing that has brought him more life at the cost of another’s blood. And in this delusion, he is able to give biblical connections and proof for the harmful choices he makes in order to protect himself and his secret. In the end, Pruitt admits that they have messed up, they took this thing too far, and he sees the destruction and devastation he has caused running rampant all around him.

Noah and Crockpot

And in the end, all of these people succumb to the same death—perhaps a death like the one Riley so beautifully described to Erin. Crockpot and the demon are destroyed and as the two youngest on the island watch from a boat on the water, I was reminded of ancient Bible stories. Leeza and Warren float away like Noah and his wife with a story almost too unbelievable to be told. They are given a second chance to start again and to remember the ways in which power and evil changed their lives and town forever.