First Impressions: The Midnight Club

 The spooky season wouldn’t be complete without one of Mike Flanagan’s shows on Netflix. 

Following the success of The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and the critically acclaimed Midnight Mass, we now get yet another horror TV show from the prolific creator and writer Mike Flanagan. 

Titled THE MIDNIGHT CLUB, the series is based on Christopher’s Pike novel and follows the lives of eight terminally ill patients who befriend each other at a hospice and meet up at midnight to tell scary stories. 

Considering Mike Flanagan has delivered really good horror content for horror fans over the years, The Midnight Club isn’t going to disappoint, is it? 

Reports have it that the very first episode of the show has received a world record for having 21 jump scares. Yes, 21. And out of that 17 are supposed to be in one of the stories a patient called Natsuki narrates. 

Now, Mike Flanagan had previously stated that he did not need jump scares to create horror movies and TV shows. He has famously never relied on them to scare his audience, so it was strange to note that the very first episode had 21 jump scares. 

For a first impression, The Midnight Club wasn’t very spooky. The tale Natsuki narrates is more comedy than horror and one of the character openly points out (probably Mike’s own thoughts about jump scares) that there is a difference between startling and scaring. 

We do get to follow Ilonka’s journey as she finds out first that she has cancer and that she has to give up her college dreams. She then learns that she has very little time to live. 

Hope comes in the form of an article she finds online which takes her to Brightcliffe Hospice Care. Another article tells her about a girl called Julia Jayne who too was diagnosed with cancer. She had come to Brightcliffe as well but one night she disappeared. She comes back a week later, fully cured. 

Ilonka believes that whatever is there at Brightcliffe has the potential to heal her as well. But first, she must learn the secrets that Brightcliffe holds. 

One of the secrets is the midnight club meetings where the residents tell each other spooky stories. But that is hardly as spooky to Ilonka as the visions she has been having ever since she researched Brightcliffe. She has been seeing an old lady, a man in a cloak, and someone sitting on a bench by the cliffs. 

Again, none of these visions, that act as jump scares, will actually scare you. While all the actors have done a decent job, none of them stands out. Then again, this is only episode one and Mike Flanagan has always written fully-fleshed out characters. 

But the show feels different from Mike Flanagan’s previous shows. While there is the obvious cliffhanger, there is no urge to actually check out the second episode that very instant. 

There’s something missing or perhaps it was the comical story told by Natsuki that will leave you wondering if the rest of the stories told will be as ridiculous as well. 

Maybe the first story could have been from someone else that had a spookier tale to tell, thereby setting the tone for the show. 

The first episode relied more on humor than horror and overall wasn’t as captivating as Mike Flanagan’s previous shows. 

Then again, it was only the first episode. 

The series premiered on 7th October on Netflix. The show is written by Mike Flanagan and Leah Fong.