by: Brian Dupre

The Midnight Club is the latest horror thriller series from creators Mike Flanagan and Leah Fong. Flanagan is the showrunner and hasn’t missed yet in his run of Netflix original series. The Flanaverse, as it has come to be known, includes The Haunting of Hill House (2018), The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020), and Midnight Mass (2021). All except Midnight Mass have been adaptations of written works, and The Midnight Club (TMC) continues in that vein with the works of Christopher Pike.

As we have come to expect, this show reminds us early on that death and the acceptance of it will be a major topic to be reckoned with and explored. Our main protagonist Ilonka played sympathetically and hopeful by Iman Benson, is diagnosed with terminal thyroid cancer just as she is preparing to enter her first year of college at Stanford. After scouring the early internet, she finds and moves into the historic hospice for teens currently known as the Brightcliffe Home. This means leaving the only family she has left, her foster father Matt Biedel. Biedel reminds me of a later season Hopper from Stranger Things. He is a truly caring parent who wants the best for his daughter but comes to understand that sometimes that means letting go. Thankfully Ilonka is able to find a new family through the remainder of our excellent ensemble cast, the other residents of Brightcliffe, where our story truly begins.

Locations always play a pivotal role in the Flanaverse, and TMC is no exception. The Brightcliffe Home becomes one of our main characters and learning or figuring out the history and secrets that it holds while admiring the beauty is part of the fun here. Inspired by the Nickelodeon series “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”, TMC is a pseudo-anthology series that allows our characters to “make ghosts”, or tell campfire stories to each other to help deal with the bleak situation in which they have found themselves. These stories are not only pulled from the other works of Pike but give us illuminating glimpses into the personalities of each storyteller, whether metaphorically or with insight into how they view themselves and the world. In the words of Dr. Stanton, owner of Brightcliffe, “The sounds of stories are the sounds of life.” This is the ultimate success of the show in my opinion, illustrating that at the end of the day we all must face the fact that we are going to die, and the stories that we tell and are told about us are a major part of what remains once we pass.

I can’t say this is my favorite output from Flanagan, but I found myself tearing up in most episodes and genuinely lost it during a couple of particularly potent emotional moments. There is a sense of cynicism that the show has at times and eventually overcomes. The major reveals don’t come as much of a surprise save for a moment in the final seconds of the season that felt a bit undercooked, but plans for future seasons could expand upon this element. This show feels like a welcoming early horror entry point for audiences who may be new to the genre. It’s not the scariest out there, but still contains a wide variety of ideas and tropes to dig your teeth into. It is about teenagers, but their struggles are universal: death, addiction, relationships, sexuality, religion or lack of it, the potential for an afterlife, depression, and self-harm. The Midnight Club is dancing a fine line between anthology storytelling and cohesive narrative and manages to largely nail the landing.