Netflix’s Midnight Mass: A Catholic Horror Fan’s Review

Knowing that I’m Catholic and a fan of horror, a friend recently asked me what I thought of Netflix’s Midnight Mass. I’d seen a few ads for it but thought, Great, another attempt from Hollywood to attack the Catholic Church, so I hadn’t watched it even though it came out in 2021.

I let the idea hang in the air for several months before, in a rare occurrence, I found that I had some free time one weekend. I watched the first episode and was immediately sucked in and wanted to watch more.

I’ve been a fan of horror since I was a kid and I could sneak glimpses of movies I definitely wasn’t supposed to be watching. Horror always fascinated me because, at its best, it wrestles with evil honestly. Good horror understands that darkness is real. Demons, death, temptation, corruption, despair—these aren’t just metaphors to Christians. They’re realities. Horror becomes shallow when it reduces evil to psychology alone.

I also converted to Catholicism only about six years ago after a lifetime of studying the Church from the Protestant side. I came into Catholicism skeptical, analytical, and honestly expecting to prove most of it wrong. Instead, I found a theological and historical depth I hadn’t encountered elsewhere. So when a show heavily centers itself around Catholic imagery, theology, sacraments, and liturgy, I’m paying attention both as a horror fan and as someone who genuinely loves the Catholic Church.

The first two episodes were fantastic. Not “fantastic for Hollywood.” Legitimately fantastic. The theology sounded surprisingly informed. The show captured the atmosphere of a small isolated parish incredibly well—the awkward post-Mass conversations, the cultural Catholicism, the rhythms of parish life, the mixture of sincere faith and small-town politics. Even the representation of the Mass itself was relatively accurate compared to the usual Hollywood caricature where Catholicism is either reduced to spooky Latin chanting or cartoonish corruption.

The characters also felt real. Not perfect. Not propaganda pieces. Real.

The priest—Hamish Linklater’s Father Paul—and the story’s main protagonist… or antagonist… or tragic fool… honestly, there’s also the vampire, so it gets complicated. That ambiguity is part of what makes the character compelling. He’s sincere. Compassionate. Broken. Prideful. Deluded. You can see how he convinces himself he’s doing God’s will even while descending deeper into horror.

And then there’s Bev Keane. Possibly one of the most infuriating characters I’ve seen in years. Samantha Sloyan plays her so well that you genuinely want something terrible to happen to her by the finale. Do I need to confess the sin of wrath over a fictional character? Probably not. Maybe. I’ll ask my priest later.

Bev is fascinating because every one has met some version of her—not the murderous vampire cult version, hopefully—but the self-righteous church tyrant who weaponizes religion to control people while masking bitterness as holiness. She’s not faithful in the Christian sense. She’s addicted to moral superiority.

By episode three, however, I realized my hopes of anyone learning anything accurate about Catholicism from the show were pretty much dashed. That’s where the series shifts.

(Spoilers below)

The major premise is basically this: a naïve and aging priest encounters a horrifying vampire-like creature while traveling in the Holy Land and mistakes it for an angel. The creature gives the priest its blood to drink. The priest becomes young again and interprets this as a miracle from God. He then secretly feeds the creature’s blood to his parishioners through Communion, believing he is bringing divine healing and eternal life to his congregation.

Naturally, this leads to absolute vampiric chaos and bloodshed. And honestly? As a horror premise, I loved it. It’s bizarre, creepy, and original. The imagery works because Catholicism already deals in blood, sacrifice, resurrection, eternal life, and the supernatural. Horror parasitically feeding off sacramental theology is almost inevitable.

My chief concern wasn’t that the show used Catholic imagery for horror. Good horror has always done that. The concern was the naïveté of the priest and parishioners. The show often portrays Christians as people so desperate for miracles and authority that they’ll blindly accept obvious evil because it’s wrapped in religious language. The underlying message sometimes feels less like, people can corrupt religion, and more like, religious people are uniquely gullible. Really? You think God works like that, dummy? But again… fiction.

And to the show’s credit, it isn’t simply anti-Catholic. If anything, it’s more interested in fanaticism, manipulation, and human weakness than attacking doctrine itself. Some of the most moving moments in the series are deeply theological conversations about death, suffering, addiction, forgiveness, and whether redemption is possible after terrible failure.

The show also understands something many modern writers don’t: belief changes people. Religion is not presented as mere aesthetic wallpaper. These characters genuinely believe in heaven, hell, sin, miracles, scripture, and damnation. That alone makes the story more compelling than most shallow “religion bad” Hollywood writing.

Ironically, some Protestant viewers will probably miss how distinctly Catholic the horror actually is. The sacraments matter in this world. Incarnation matters. Blood matters. Communion matters. The entire story collapses without Catholic metaphysics underneath it. That’s why the show works. It understands Catholicism enough to distort it intelligently instead of lazily.

Overall, I ended up liking Midnight Mass as horror while simultaneously rolling my eyes as a Catholic. It’s one of the few modern horror series willing to engage seriously with theology instead of treating religion as either a joke or set decoration.

It’s creepy, thoughtful, frustrating, beautifully acted, and occasionally infuriating.

If you’re a fan of horror—watch it. If you’re a Christian and enjoy the guilty pleasure of good horror—watch it. If you’re the high-falutin’, holier-than-thou type who sees a little too much of yourself in Bev, you’re probably better off skipping it… and maybe saying a prayer for me while you’re at it.