The book of daniel (tv series)
Any fiction driven by the supernatural, whether or not it’s a horror story, requires a suspension of disbelief. That, of course, is where faith comes in, as well as the covenants passed down through hundreds of generations. There are more than a few points at which Midnight Mass feels like the work of a slightly bored altar boy killing time by realizing that if you adapted the text literally, the Bible would be completely R-rated and very difficult to take seriously. This is not exactly a deep reading of the Bible. There are resurrections, wrestling angels, people being swallowed by fish - and that’s before you get to whatever the heck is happening in the Book of Revelations. There’s a main protagonist who talks through burning bushes and turns women into salt pillars. Miracles are about to occur that will affect residents including the paralyzed daughter (Annarah Cymone) of the mayor (Michael Trucco), the town drunk (Robert Longstreet), the local doctor (Annabeth Gish) and the Muslim sheriff (Rahul Kohli), who is concerned when those miracles spawn a wave of devotion, then zealotry and then, if you wait patiently enough, stranger and sometimes scarier stuff.Īs any Bible reader can tell you, amidst the “begets” and endless codes of conduct, the Good Book has more than its share of fantastical elements.
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Erin (Kate Siegel) is taking over from her late mother as the island’s teacher, seeking a fresh start that coincides with her pregnancy.Īdditional change has arrived in the form of Father Paul (Hamish Linklater), a charismatic priest replacing the island’s longtime monsignor. Riley (Zach Gilford) is newly paroled after serving time for a crime that haunts his dreams, and has reunited with his parents (Henry Thomas and Kristin Lehman), who felt his departure from Crockett was already a betrayal. That hasn’t stopped a pair of prodigal children from returning. Crockett was never exactly thriving, but since a coastal oil spill, work has dried up and residents have been departing.
#The book of daniel (tv series) series#
The series is set on Crockett Island, population 127. The seven-episode series is packed with details that Netflix would prefer not be spoiled, so allow me to tiptoe.
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Whatever your reactions to the show happen to be, and some people are going to absolutely hate it, those reactions will come from a very personal and primal place, just like the place Flanagan has mined to make it. I found it consistently committed and admirably bonkers, even when it tested my patience. That surely won’t keep some viewers from calling it bizarrely sacrilegious (it is, usually by intent) and others from lamenting how frequently it ignores the need for genre thrills in favor of long monologues about creed and ritual (it does, probably by intent). This is clearly the work of someone who has taken a deep inventory of his spiritual upbringing.
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Midnight Mass (which crosses Needful Things with another King story that I won’t name so as not to spoil anything) isn’t braced with a single clear allegorical support beam. It’s about grief and addiction, but more than anything it’s an exploration of organized religion. A genre fan might at first be disappointed - “But wait, I was promised telekinetic murderous hamster-people, and you’re giving me a 45-minute AA meeting” - only to have the snot scared out of them when the telekinetic murderous hamster-person devours our hero’s sponsor.Ĭast: Hamish Linklater, Zach Gilford, Kate Siegel, Rahul Abburi, Crystal Balint, Matt Biedel, Alex Essoe, Annabeth Gish, Rahul Kohli, Kristin Lehman, Robert Longstreet, Igby Rigney, Annarah Cymone, Samantha Sloyan, Henry Thomas and Michael Truccoįlanagan’s latest Netflix limited series - his third in four years, after respective hauntings at Hill House and Bly Manor - may be the furthest he’s pushed the subtext to date and it may, in turn, be his least purely scary offering. Like King, Flanagan has a gift for sometimes pushing that subtext far past the surface. Most good horror comes from a play of allegory, where the thing that scares us might look like a killer clown or a ghost or a magic-wielding traveler with a funny hat, but it’s really addiction or grief or anything repressed. Even when he isn’t adapting Stephen King, writer-director Mike Flanagan has carved out a successful niche around stories that feel like they could have been adapted from Stephen King.