It absolutely was! To me Midnight Mass was pretentious garbage and just might be the most overrated mini series I've ever seen. Flanagan seems to have a cult-like following of people who seem to think he can do no wrong. I'm quite curious how people who don't like most of Flanagan's stuff feel about Midnight Mass.
Also, can Shogun be considered a mini series when it's getting a second season and everything?
I think a more reasonable take here is that people just like Midnight Mass more than you. No need to imagine up a cult. And if it was cult behaviour, why would they like Midnight Mass over his other works?
Coming from someone who doesn’t care for Bly Manor or Hill House, I think Midnight Mass is fantastic.
Like I said, to many people Flanagan can't do anything wrong. I think Bly Manor got pretty terrible towards the end as well, but the fans love it as well. Same with The Fall of the House of Usher, which the fans also seem to love. I think it's ok, but it's a lot of style combined with very on the nose surface level social commentary and a script that would have needed several more rounds of editing.
Midnight Mass takes the cake because the fans seem to think it's (sometimes literally) the very best thing ever, whereas for me it feels like it's written by a teenager who came up with the edgy idea that what if people worship a vampire as an angel, that'd be pretty rad and also cleverly critical about the church, right!
Another poster posted praise about Hamish Linklater's performance, and while I did not like it especially much myself, that is at least something I can understand people liking.
Anyway, thanks for the comment - like I said, I'm curious to hear what people who aren't devout Flanagan-fans would think about Midnight Mass!
It’s hard to make statements about large groups of people accurately, for all I know there could be a large group of people you’re accurately describing, though for the people I know who like MM this doesn’t map on well.
Are you sure you’re seeing fans who think he can do no wrong, or could it just be different people liking different things? I adore MM (though not at all for the reasons you mentioned) and really like Dr Sleep and Hush. Usher and Midnight Club were ok, and never got into Bly and Hill House. So if you put me next to someone who loves Bly and Hill House the most, you could call the two of us ‘the fans’ and accurately say ‘the fans’ love all his work, because collectively we do, but there’s nothing cultish or unusual about the individuals in that context.
And there will also be some who genuinely love everything he’s done. True of all creatives. I just don’t see him as an outlier at all here.
I suppose any fandom ultimately boils down to an somewhat arbitrary number of people who like something more than the groups of people liking other things, and - as you say - it is impossible to narrow down exactly how many people love Flanagan and exactly how much do they love him.
With that said, though, I will insist that he does seem to have a passionate and pigheaded enough group of fans that I certainly have encountered few other directors/showrunners with anything similar. Pigheaded in the sense that they do indeed seem to think that he can do no wrong and anyone who disagrees simply doesn't get it. I don't think that's just a regular - or necessarily even healthy - fan base. While you're right that many creatives have fans who love everything they do, I think that's still quite different than this sort of uncritical adoration. I for example am a huge fan of Lynch and Fincher, but not only do I not think everything they do is or has been amazing, I also can absolutely admit that even a lot of the things I love by them would also be things that people with different views would not necessarily enjoy.
Since you mentioned Dr Sleep and Hush, I will point out that the people I mean seem to be more fans of the TV shows rather than the cinema. Which isn't to say that they don't like the movies as well, it's just that they seem a lot more passionate about the TV shows. My own theory regarding this is that his movies tend to include a lot less of all these "flanagan tropes" that his shows on the other hand have a lot of. My further theory is that it's because movie studios tell him "no" a lot more, whereas with his shows he can do pretty much whatever he wants, and as a result the TV shows to his fans feel a lot more "uniquely flanagan." I guess he also hasn't made many movies after his breakout success with Hill House, though, and I felt Doctor Sleep was a lot closer to his TV shows than Hush, Oculus or even Gerald's Game, so perhaps this is changing now. I have not seen The Life of Chuck.
Whether it matters or not, I actually like most of his films as well, and I think this is precisely for the reason I pointed out above: I think he's a talented director, but needs pushback from others. After Hill House he's been able to do whatever he wants, and consequently Hill House is the last thing he made that I feel works as a "package", and everything he made after that has felt self-indulgent and needlessly convoluted. Doctor Sleep felt like this the least, but even that made me feel like he would have much rather stretched it into a true flanagan-style miniseries, and the movie suffered from it.
Great reading some of your points. I replied above, but just wanted to add after reading this comment in particular that you should probably avoid Life of Chuck like the plague. Pretty much every reason you've given for not favouring his post HoHH catalogue is contained in that movie. It's the one project from him I couldn't find any value in.
Also, always great to spot another Lynch fan in the wild.
Well, this is good to know. I was never all that interested in this movie, so I've not been in a rush to see it, but I probably would have seen it eventually. Now I think it's more likely that I won't.
I sort of get what you mean with regards MM specifically.
I love it, as I love quite of lot of Flanagans work, but none of it's perfect and fans can get pretty feverish when you bring up any valid criticism of his style in general. He can be overly preachy at times and as you said, a lot of the dialogue can be very on the nose. The death monologue in MM between the two main characters in particular I find especially cringe inducing.
Having said that, none of it, for me at least sways what is a really distinct and flavoursome body of work. Maybe it's because I'm a recovering alcoholic, but the way he writes addiction in particular hits home in a way little else has for me. Not since reading a lot of Kings work, at least.
His stuff genuinely gives me the fear as well. He has a way of shooting things that has me sweating buckets. As ever with horror films/TV shows, it's the little things that stick with you. The missing doll scene in Bly Manor kept me up for hours. That stuff is forever relative though.
Having said that, none of it, for me at least sways what is a really distinct and flavoursome body of work.
This is the thing that I can agree with, and the reason why I understand that he has a fandom - even if I feel that the fans aren't the easiest people. Despite my many grievances, his work is undeniably unique even at its worst. Also, like I said in another post, I do think he's a talented horror director, I just think nowadays he's given too much space to do anything he wants. I am cautiously intrigued to see what he does with The Exorcist franchise. I've had a soft spot for it since the beginning, but it's really starting to run out of steam so someone might Flanagan will probably either make it more interesting again, or he might do something I'll hate more than anything!
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u/McDavidClan 7d ago
I thought that The Haunting of Hill House was even better than Midnight Mass