In director Mike Flannagan’s critically acclaimed miniseries, Midnight Mass, monstrosity is not defined solely by appearance or violence, but rather by unnatural transformation. At first, the supernatural alterations of the residents of Crockett island are seen as miraculous, only to reveal that its miracles and monsters are produced by the same force. By transforming ordinary, even mundane, human bodies into something physically impossible, the “angel” exposes the islanders’ desire to escape the fundamental conditions of human existence, such as aging, suffering, imperfection, and death. The resulting monsters, who were once islanders, are not simply creatures created by supernatural blood, they are physical manifestations of humanity’s rejection of its own mortality.
The “angel” that is the source of creating the monsters on the island from its blood is the most obvious monster of the series. While the viewers never truly know what it is, their theories ranging from it being a vampire to a fallen angel despite being dubbed as a true angel of the lord by the islanders, we know one simple fact: it is unnatural. It is a monster. The whole point of the “angel” seems as though we aren’t supposed to know anything about it. The “angel” is brought to the island carrying no theological explanation. Monsignour Pruitt encounters something ancient, something inexplicable in the desert during his pilgrimage, and he interprets it through the religious framework he already interprets everything with. After the “angel” decides to essentially resurrect Monsignour Pruitt, Monsignour Pruitt translates the “angel” and its actions into something biblical. Something that can bring salvation just as easily as damnation. Vampirism becomes resurrection, almost as easily as deformity becomes divinity, or how predation becomes something necessary to save you. The “angel” does not need to lift a finger to convince the island that it is holy, because they convince themselves. The island is obsessed with sin, yet they worship something whose apparent divinity is inseparable from corruption. We have no idea what the creature Monsignour Pruitt deems as an angel really is, nor what its motivations are. All we know is what the islanders of Crockett island decide for it.
Despite the hagiography of the “angel” being the major cause of the island’s tumbling ruin, one could argue the miracles are the most defining fallacy. The audience initially understands the “blessings” as good. A teenage girl who is paralyzed from the waist down, Leeza, suddenly walks again, Mildred’s aging reverses, Monsignour Pruitt’s youth is restored and becomes clear minded. The alteration of their biology seems almost desirable before the consequences are revealed. Those who drink the blood at communion are not healed in an ordinary sense. They are rewritten. While the churchgoers, and eventually all of the islanders, look human, they have abilities that go against the natural order of being human. The audience is looking at the monster before they ever know they are looking at the monster. While the churchgoers may not fit our traditional definition of what a monster is, they are something that are fundamentally different from what they were before communion. They are created monsters. At first, they have no clue what they’re actually drinking until Monsignour Pruitt reveals the “angel” to them. Yet, even after the “angel” is revealed as the miraculous life blood they blindly follow each other to death, with the hopes to be resurrected as something that may look human, but is not biologically. They choose a transformation that makes them artificial. While the blood does produce something physically inhuman, identities do not change. Someone does not have to be evil to be physically monstrous. Leeza proves this, but some people do become physically monstrous and morally monstrous, that’s much more complicated.
We as the audience have to ask ourselves while watching, why are these people so willing to become monsters? Everyone interprets evidence according to what they already believe, or what they’re willing to believe. Pruitt views this, the “angel’s arrival, as an opportunity for immortality. While another character like Bev may view the arrival and blessings as god’s plan. The creature’s blood gives them evidence that seems to confirm what they already desperately desire. Once they decide the “angel” is divine, everything else is depicted through that assumption. Through the new found divinity, the islander’s run from illness, aging, grief, guilt, and even death. The “angel” offers an escape from all these things but the price is humanity. The island is under false presumption they are choosing humanity or death, while they are actually choosing humanity or immortality, because death is a part of being human. They sacrifice not only their bodies for this, but also their morality, individuality, empathy and eventually the ability to imagine a future beyond themselves. The central question becomes “is immortality without humanity actually a form of life?”
Going more into the characters and how they view the “salvation” that the “angel” brings, it widely differs. Monsignour Pruitt, the one who brings the “angel” to the island from his pilgrimage, views death as an injustice to human life. He is a man who seems to have nothing but the island and his faith, but his body is failing. His mind is failing to formulate the words he once preached with. Therefore death becomes a problem, and eternal life is salvation. While Pruitt isn’t comically evil or bringing the “angel” to the island out of malicious intent, he is selfish. His motivation is profoundly human because he views his actions as for the greater good, not just for him but as well as those around him. Erin Greene is the philosophical counterpart to Monsignour Pruitt, her character experiences not only the death of her mother, but also her unborn child. She loses something precious, but she doesn’t conclude that death should be reversed like Monsignour Pruitt. Instead, she comes to understand that the fact life ends is part of what makes it so incredibly meaningful. Riley Flynn, our protagonist, returns to the island after years of being in prison due to a drunk driving accident. He has done something horrible. But, he doesn’t pretend otherwise. His guilt ultimately makes him more conscious of human responsibility. He believes he is capable of terrible things, therefore he must take responsibility because he is human. He doesn’t become perfect after losing his mortality, he becomes more honest about his imperfections than he ever was. The rest of the island “simply” views death as frightening, the “angel” sits in the middle of all of this offering a false solution.
One of, if not the most, important characters of the story is Leeza Scarborough. As mentioned earlier, she is a teenage girl on Crockett Island who is paralyzed from a hunting accident. When Monsignour Pruitt comes back to the island under the name Father Paul Hill she attends church frequently, being one of the only people to do so at the start of the series. Because of the wine for communion actually being tainted with the “angel” blood, she eventually undergoes a significant change. Leeza can suddenly walk again after attending church for a few weeks. This is one of the “miracles” that draw others into the church. While Leeza benefits from the miracle, it’s extremely jarring how she is physically transformed by something that also becomes the island’s demise. Leeza represents something much larger than just “The girl who can suddenly walk again due to divine intervention.” Her ending is an almost perfect counterargument to the islanders’ theology. She survives all of the island transforming into vaguely vampiric creatures, and once they all burn, including the “angel”, she suddenly loses all feeling in her legs as the sun comes up. She loses the “miracle.” And yet she is alive and human, and most importantly she accepts it. The islanders’ believe human limitations are defects and they should be removed. Leeza’s ending shows that being limited does not make you less limited, and struggling does not make your life less worth living. Her final condition is almost a complete rejection of the monstrosity of the island. She returns to natural order. The “miracle” disappears. Her body becomes ordinary again, and she doesn’t need to be extraordinary to have value.
Ultimately, Midnight Mass portrays monstrosity as something that is not only physically created, but also morally complicated. The “angel” is a monster because it exists outside of natural order, and creates more unnatural creatures. The islanders become monsters through a transformation that promises salvation at the cost of their humanity. However, their physical transformation does not automatically make them evil, just as their original humanity does not make them automatically moral. Leeza’s recovery and eventual return to paralysis demonstrates that a person’s worth does not depend on how able they are, while Riley’s acceptance of his own guilt suggests that human imperfection is not something that must be erased. The islanders pursuit of immortality reveals how the desire to escape human limitations can become destructive when it is treated as more important than human life itself. The tragedy of Crockett Island is not simply that its inhabitants become monsters, but that they mistake becoming something unnatural for becoming something better. Midnight Mass ultimately suggests that while being a monster may be created by something unnatural, its existence forces us to question whether humanity’s greatest monstrosity lies in what we become, or in what we are willing to sacrifice to become something else.
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