Midnight Mass, the new Netflix limited series to arrive from the mind of Mike Flanagan, is exciting precisely because it has nothing to do with Flanagan's other horror show, The Haunting of Bly Manor. The two may share the same creator, cast members, and streaming platform while dealing in the realm of moody supernatural horror, but this doesn't mean that the two are directly connected to each other. It just means that Mike Flanagan is one of the most prolific horror filmmakers of the current time.
So far, Midnight Mass has gained more attention for its impeccably smooth production schedule more than its actual plot, which is still being kept under wraps. The series was shot entirely during the COVID-19 pandemic, but filming in Vancouver went through without a hitch. The plot seems to encourage social distancing, as the focus is on an island community that experiences strange, unexplainable occurrences when a mysterious priest arrives.
There's currently not enough information about the closely-guarded plot details of Midnight Mass to suggest that it may be connected to Flanagan's Bly Manor series, but the shared cast members and creative brain may lead some to speculate about this possibility. The show stars Rahul Kohli from Bly Manor, Henry Thomas from both Haunting shows (Hill House being the other one), and Kate Siegel from a chunk of Flanagan's filmography. Indiewire questioned if this meant that the show might be a sequel, but Flanagan definitively shot this down in a Tweet.
The urge to hypothesize about a larger "world of Haunting" or "Flanagan-verse" is because audiences are now used to the idea of crossover stories, and speculators are always on the hunt for any juicy details about a larger, multi-property story. The fact that Midnight Mass is a totally original idea should be cause for hype, especially considering that Flanagan has proved himself to be masterfully adept at horror storytelling. The filmmaker has proven he can tackle long-form writing with the Haunting series, but his past works have also proven that he has a unique gift for blending supernatural frights and emotional resonance in a diverse range of boundaries.
Flanagan has successfully captured the ethos of Stephen King in his adaptations of Doctor Sleep and Gerald's Game, the latter of which was once thought to be one of King's more unfilmable works. Oujia: Origin of Evil was remarkable for its vast improvement over its predecessor and for accomplishing the miraculous task of being a satisfying movie prequel. More than anything, though, Flanagan has proven that it's his distinct vision that percolates throughout his works, whether they be sequels, adaptations, or totally original stories like Oculus and the Stephen King-approved Hush.
It's a bolder statement at this point to create brand-new ideas without any other connection to a previous property, too. Oftentimes, an extended universe can feel forced, especially because connecting the dots can take precedent over character development, an element that is thankfully one of Flanagan's strong suits. At this point, there are more failures with this type of storytelling than there are successes, anyway. For example, the DCEU is quite fractured, while the Marvel Netflix shows collapsed under their own weight. All that being said, Midnight Mass is the name of a book that appears in both Hush and Gerald's Game, but whether this is merely a fun Easter egg or an actual universe-connector is still unknown.
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