Netflix’s new limited horror series “Midnight Mass” is a lot — a lot of story, a lot of characters, a lot of Bible, a lot of blood. This overstuffed morality fable, unfolding on a run-down island where everyone knows everyone else, comes bearing a seal of approval from Stephen King, and it’s not hard to see why. With its assortment of damaged heroes and villains, its isolated setting, and its backbone of supernatural mystery, it could easily have emerged from the horror master’s notebook. (Indeed, the series creator and director, Mike Flanagan, previously wrote and directed the King adaptation “Dr. Sleep”).
It’s a pretty slow burn. Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) returns home to Crockett Island after serving four years in prison for killing a girl in a drunken driving accident. A former altar boy, he has lost his faith. But he’s still intrigued when a charismatic young priest (Hamish Linklater, stealing the show) comes to town, claiming to be a temporary replacement for the community’s longstanding monsignor.
Flanagan, who imported several cast members from his previous hit Netflix series “The Haunting of Hill House” and “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” has an affinity for long camera takes and slow plot exposition. Everyone in the cast, it seems, gets a long monologue about the nature of good and evil. One thing is certain: This new priest is weird and exciting, passionate and raw. He soon inspires the small island version of a Great Awakening, with even those atheistic by nature tuning in and showing up to the small church.
Then miracles commence. A teenage girl (Annarah Cymone) who needs a wheelchair to get around begins to walk again. But bad omens abound as well. One fine morning the residents awaken to find a long, neat line of dead cats on the beach. This is plague stuff, but it’s mixed in with the divine.
“Midnight Mass” is so laden with potential spoilers that it’s hard to discuss it in anything but abstract terms. With a seven-hour run time it has plenty of room to roam — too much, in fact — but at about the one-third mark the screenplay starts chipping away at the mysteries with some concrete, recognizable horror elements. Much of the series, however, involves theorizing and character development with a touch of horror, as opposed to horror with a touch of theory and character. Which is another way of saying “Midnight Mass” requires patience. It’s easy to imagine this seven-hour story getting cut to five.
The show’s greatest strength isn’t narrative but character, and performance. It’s hard to extract the best of the best from such a deep cast. Samantha Sloyan embodies pious pettiness as Bev Keane, who has some strange ideas about salvation. Rahul Kohli provides pathos as the island’s Muslim sheriff, badly out of place amid a surge of Christian rectitude. But the real keeper is Linklater, muttering and praying and shuddering his way to Father Paul’s tormented soul.
By the time “Midnight Mass” approaches the finish line, it has made something of a mess. But it has also asked us to consider weighty spiritual matters, such as the way that good and evil occupy different halves of the same equation, one existing only thanks to the presence of the other. It’s hard to knock “Midnight Mass” for taking too much time to think, especially when you consider the alternative.
L“Midnight Mass”: Limited horror series. Starring Hamish Linklater, Zach Gilford, Samantha Sloyan, Rahul Kohli, Annabeth Gish, Henry Thomas and Kristin Lehman. Directed by Mike Flanagan. (TV-MA. Seven episodes at approximately 60 minutes each). Available to stream starting Friday, Sept. 24, on Netflix.