Mike Flanagan’s The Midnight Club feels like Are You Afraid of the Dark but with strong ties to mortality and death.
The Midnight Club Review
Mike Flanagan has become quite the master of horror. And not just regular horror. Psychological, mess with your head, kind of horror. His series like Haunting of Hill House, Haunting of Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass are exceptional and twisted. The Midnight Club doesn’t work quite as well, but it is still eerie and completely worth checking out.
Don’t expect things to wrap up in a neat little bow though, as this one ends with what feels like a massive cliffhanger that will have viewers crossing their fingers for a season two, lest they live with these questions forever.
We should mention that this series is based off of a book, however this critic has not read it… yet. So we are unsure if the ending was more definitive in that version of the story.
Speaking of stories, The Midnight Club is essentially Are You Afraid Of The Dark. When Ilonka gets terminally sick, she researches any and every possibility to live, which is when she discovers Brightcliffe. It is a hospice for teenagers, however there was one girl who was healed there. Determined to discover how she did it, and replicate the results for herself, she starts to poke around the manor almost instantly.
Starting almost the moment she arrives, she has visions of an older couple, but mostly an old lady, as well as sees the manor in its former state. She instantly connects with some of the other kids there, while also butting heads with some of them. They all get together, every night at midnight, to tell scary stories. They also have a pact with each other that when one of them inevitably passes away, they will do everything and anything they can in order to prove there is life on the other side.
Shasta Is Underused
Partway through the season, Ilonka meets a woman named Shasta, who lives near, but not on, the Brightcliffe property. She is strange from the start and audiences will instantly not trust her, however Ilonka does. She introduces her to rituals, which Ilonka also learns from Julia Jayne’s journal — the girl who lived.
While Samantha Sloyan plays this role perfectly, viewers will be left wanting more from this character. The focus is on the children, as it should be, however the Shasta storyline is intriguing as well. It eventually has its time to shine toward the end of the season, however most people will be left wanting just a bit more.
Stories Within A Story
Because of The Midnight Club, there are stories within stories told in every episode. Some of these work much better than others, which almost feels intentional at times. These stories are often wrapped up in one episode, however Kevin and Ilonka’s stories span over a few episodes. These are both great stories but in all honesty, not even the best ones. Intriguing certainly, but not the best.
The other characters all get their own stories which are very clearly based on their true lives to some degree. At the very least they have small ties to something they went through, or a lesson that they themselves need to learn. They range from psychological thriller, to flat out horror, but each of them brings something important to the overall story of The Midnight Club.
When there isn’t a story being told, the rest of the show gives us the search for healing — for the most part anyways. These kids are facing death, much earlier than they ever expected to, and that adds in the element of mortality. Of course, they all deal with this in their own way, and not just through the stories they are telling at their nightly meetings.
We get to learn a lot about them when in the “real world” too. There are a few family days that occur, allowing us to see how they interact with those that aren’t sick. For such a large ensemble cast, it feels like we get to know them all on a deeper level, making it easy to connect to and root for them. This is difficult because they are terminal, and viewers know that at any moment it could be the end for one of them.
Each of the components, the Are You Afraid Of The Dark-esque tales, and in reality plot line, are interesting enough to keep audiences hitting that next episode button. However neither of them fully works. There are a few small plot holes and whole ton of questions left after the final episode of The Midnight Club.
Currently there are no announced plans for a season two, which will be infuriating for most viewers who have become invested in these kids and their stories. There is far too much left open to make The Midnight Club season one work as a standalone. Sure, some plot points get wrapped up, but it isn’t just the final shot of the finale that poses questions. In an effort to remain spoiler free we don’t dive into the details, but there are other pressing questions about things that occurred earlier in the season that are never answered — and we want answers.
Overall Thoughts On The Midnight Club
The Midnight Club is ten episodes and an easy binge. It starts off a little slow but eventually becomes one of those shows you just cannot stop watching because you have an incessant need to know what happens. There are a few plot holes, but nothing major enough to take away from the story as a whole.
One of the best parts is the literally scary stories told by the Midnight Club, as that is how we get to know the characters. Their hopes, dreams, fears, and their past. This is a brilliant way to make us feel for them, which will cause some truly touching and emotional moments throughout the series.
The story happening outside of the stories is good on its own, but it feels slow at times and rushed at others. It perfectly broken up by the meetings of the club however, giving this series the pacing that it needs towards the end.
Not Mike Flanagan’s best, but still some impressive work. The actors who play the children of Brightcliffe do a wonderful job of pulling in viewers and making them feel things — making them face their own mortality. The moral of the story here is to use the time you have left, no matter how much it is, to allow yourself to be happy. Truly happy.
It’s like Are You Afraid of the Dark that also forces viewers to face their own mortality. This series is emotional, dealing with a lot of death and sickness, but also chilling and downright scary at times. Mike Flanagan has done it again.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
NEXT: Midnight Mass Review: Unafraid to Tackle Religious Faith & Doubt
About The Midnight Club
At a hospice for terminally ill young adults, eight patients come together every night at midnight to tell each other stories — and make a pact that the next of them to die will give the group a sign from the beyond. Based on the 1994 novel of the same name as well as other works by Christopher Pike.
