First Impressions: The Midnight Club – Flanagan-Lite still delights (Updated)

The latest entry into what is unofficially called The Flanagan-verse – a body of work by showrunner Mike Flanagan – The Midnight Club is definitely the most teen-friendly thus far. This isn’t to say it’s toothless or declawed; it’s certainly still very creepy, in the signature slow-burn Flanagan style.

In the same vein as Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy, The Midnight Club is another nod to the era of 90’s adolescent horror, this time revisiting the books of author Christopher Pike instead of R. L. Stine. Mainly based on the 1994 novel of the same name, The Midnight Club also brings in Pike’s other works in short story format.

Set in the mid 1990s, at Brightcliffe Manor, 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. The new girl to the club is brilliant young Ilonka (Iman Benson), diagnosed with terminal thyroid cancer only months before heading off to an Ivy League University. She’s drawn to the imposing Brightcliffe for multiple reasons, one of them being the possibility that among its many secrets is a possible cure for her illness.

As a series, the ten-episode The Midnight Club has a somewhat unusual structure. There’s the overarching narrative, which follows Brightcliffe’s patients as they deal with the physical and emotional toll that comes with dying, as well as the unnerving happenings around the manor house. Then there’s the show’s embedded anthology side, where Pike’s other stories are introduced as the tales the club tell each other every night.

It’s debatable if this format works well. It certainly feels inconsistently successful. While the story-within-a-story approach is novel, sometimes you just want to carry on with unravelling the main mystery. Instead, you must sit through another detached tale, some of which are more engrossing and memorable than others, before getting back to the heart of the series. The overarching mystery of The Midnight Club falls somewhere between intriguing and captivating, depending on how invested you are in it, but you’ll most likely find it more on the gripping side. It’s certainly well used in generating cliffhanger endings for each episode.

Returning to matters of heart, as is typical for Flanagan’s work, The Midnight Club is very character-centric. The series spends a lot of time delving into this anxiety-plagued collective of young people and fleshing them out, aided by credible performances from the young actors (special shout-out to TikTok star turned actress Ruth Codd). If you’re “joining the Club” based on Flanagan’s name alone, a lot of his signature touches are present. There’s a strong appreciation of literature, thoughtful LGBT+ representation, and multiple returning cast members – many of whom will be recognizable from last year’s Midnight Mass. Also present is Mass’s heady, but not as verbose this time, discussions around mortality and the process of dying.

Much like Yellowjackets, which also takes place in the 90s (at least partially), The Midnight Club comes with a banging retro soundtrack, featuring the likes of Collective Soul, Blind Melon and Soundgarden. That being said, the yesteryear setting for the series doesn’t feel in anyway gimmicky. There’s no reliance on nostalgia for an emotional reaction. The period only really shows through in the fashion choices and on-screen technology, like landlines, and feels more like a tribute to the series source material than anything else.

Now, The Midnight Club is very teen-centered, and given the amount of teen content Netflix produces, you may be wondering how enjoyable the series is for audiences outside that demographic. The good news is that while the show may feature and talk to younger viewers – making it arguably more accessible for this younger group than Flanagan’s previous works for the streamer (The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass) – The Midnight Club operates at a mature level all around. You’ll likely find something to appreciate whether you’re 16 or 56.

Just be wary of binging The Midnight Club, though, despite the temptation posed by the cliffhanger endings. Watching multiple episodes back-to-back makes the series’ rigid formula very evident and somewhat monotonous, especially as television entertainment has evolved beyond that repeating format.

Four episodes into The Midnight Club, though, we’re looking forward to every new gathering of the Club.

The Midnight Club Season 1 is out in its entirety on Netflix today, 7 October 2022.

14 October update:

Now that we have run through the full first season of The Midnight Club, we can confidently say that the thoughts we initially had have carried through. As expected for a series that takes place in a hospice for terminally ill teens, it’s heartbreaking. Towards the end of the season, there was barely an episode that we could get through without crying.

However, the last episode may undo a lot of goodwill built up over the preceding nine, depending on how you feel. In a somewhat blatant attempt to aim for a second season, many plot threads remain unresolved, or are barely even mentioned. At the same time, other mysteries receive weaker conclusions than expected, and, in a couple of cases, twists come out of nowhere with little foreshadowing to amplify their believability.

Despite this, it’s still worth diving into the series in its entirety. It’s Flanagan-lite, but barely, and the emotional heft of the material alongside the dynamic and incredible cast carries the show through to the end of its first season.