Midnight Mass was the 2nd most streamed show after Squid Game, did you watch it?
Midnight Mass, the limited horror series by Mike Flanagan (Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor) is no longer listed in the top ten on Netflix, but it still did great numbers. Nielsen is reporting that it was the second most streamed show across all platforms during the last week of September. I watched it and I’d like to talk about it, but first here’s a quick overview from ComicBook.com about how well it did.
According to new numbers from Nielsen, measuring from September 27th to October 3rd, Midnight Mass was actually a massive hit for Netflix. The religious horror series was streamed more than 1.1 billion minutes over the course of that week. That was good enough for second amongst all streaming programs. Squid Game was the only series to best it, with a whopping 3.2 billion minutes streamed.
As Comicbook noted, everyone was focusing on Squid Game so Midnight Mass kind of got lost in the shuffle. It was wildly popular though, and for good reason. It was a solid horror series and I liked it overall.
I’ve seen Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass and part of The Haunting of Bly Manor. Flanagan creates disturbing and enjoyable horror that doesn’t feel manipulative. Midnight Mass was unique in the way it used religion as horror. I’m a lapsed Catholic and found the way that he weaved Catholicism and Biblical lore into a gothic vampire story genius. It was also a treatise on how religion can be weaponized and used to judge, control and manipulate. The Atlantic’s Matthew Cressler wrote a thought-provoking article about how Catholicism was portrayed in MM. Religious figures typically serve as saviors in horror movies, but MM turned that trope on its head.
Midnight Mass suffered from the same issues as Flanagan’s other series. It was overly long and needed editing. Some of the dialogue was interminable and made me eye roll. It could have been cut by the length of one or two episodes and would have packed more of a punch.
In an essay for Bloody Disgusting, Flanagan explained how MM came about. It was a deeply personal story inspired by his Catholic upbringing and his battle with alcoholism. Maybe that’s why it resonated with me so much, and why I expected more from it despite being thoroughly entertained.
Also I didn’t realize that Flanagan was married to Kate Siegel!
Photos credit: Avalon.red and Eike Schroter for Netflix
