The Midnight Club, the latest series by acclaimed horror creative Mike Flanagan, offers viewers an emotional yet fascinating look at what it’s like to face one’s own mortality and what that means for a person’s beliefs. Yet, does this mean that this is a show worthy of your time? Let’s explore so that you can make that decision for yourself.
The Midnight Club, a series based on author Christopher Pike’s novel by the same name, is about a group of eight young adults who are all terminally ill and living at a hospice. Every night, the residents meet at midnight to look for signs of what awaits them after death, along with telling each other sinister yet deeply personal stories.
First of all, when I say that this series is emotional, I mean it. While there are feel-good scenes in The Midnight Club, this is by no means a happy show. The whole series is incredibly tragic, as it is about eight young adults with so much life and promise who know they are going to die soon rather than later. I want to make it clear that you must be in the right headspace if you are going to check this series out.
In all honesty, my immediate reaction to The Midnight Club wasn’t as positive as I will be for most of the review. I’m very glad that I took my time to digest the material over these past few days, as it really allowed me to analyze my feelings on the series and actually allowed them to grow. I feel much better today about what I have witnessed here than I did a few days ago.
The biggest disappointment for me with The Midnight Club has to do with its story. There is a plethora of character arcs and mysteries that either remain unsolved by the end or get wholly unsatisfying endings. However, once the dust settled on my disappointment, I realized that these elements were not the purpose of the show. The purpose, at least the one that I’m taking away, is that life is full of unsolved mysteries, which unfortunately for these hospice residents, is all too real. The secrets that they are searching for may not give them the answers they’re looking for, if any answer at all, which the whole series’ story reflects. Still, I am hoping that there is a second season for The Midnight Club, as I would like to get a more satisfying conclusion.
If you’ve seen Mike Flanagan’s other works, you know that they tend to have these long but excellent monologues. This really is not the case with The Midnight Club; well, at least not in the traditional sense. Instead, each episode has a character telling a story that seemingly has nothing to do with the overall plot. However, this is only true if you look at the surface of these stories, as they actually will reveal plenty of character motivations and backstory if you read between the lines of these fictional stories. Side note: Christopher Pike fans will surely be delighted by some of these stories, as they are mini-adaptations of his other works.
I will say, though, while I did like the concept of this, the stories can sometimes be a bit distracting and vary in terms of personal enjoyment, making them feel like unnecessary distractions. Sometimes you are so engrossed in the main plot that you don’t want to take a detour into some character’s tale. These tales are actually a bit akin to how The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor told their stories by having most of their episodes focus on a specific character. Here though, instead of flashbacks, they are telling the character’s story in this roundabout way with these midnight stories.
I want to spend some time now going over the cast members who really stuck out to me, as the characters and their tales are critical elements of The Midnight Club. If you were a fan of Midnight Mass, you will recognize a majority of the actors here, as a good majority of the actors from that series have some kind of role in this one.
One actor who is new to the “Flanaverse” is the show’s lead, Iman Benson, who portrays Ilonka. I wanted to like Ilonka; I mean, she’s the lead character for Pete’s sake. Yet, I unfortunately found her to be grating at times, something that is really no fault of Benson’s, it’s just that her character’s naivety got to be too much at specific points. It does serve a purpose for the story, so it gets a bit of a pass, but her character exemplifies the horror trope of a character who does things that are so clearly going to turn out to be the wrong decision.
As for the characters that I did like, the immediate standout amongst the cast is Ruth Codd as Anya. Here is a character that I absolutely hated during the first few episodes, but thanks to Codd’s performance in large part, she quickly grew on me and ended up having what I believe is the most compelling journey of the series. No spoilers, but just know that this is a character whose journey deserves to be paid extra close attention to.
Some other standouts are Chris Sumpter and Annarah Cymone, who portray Spence and Sandra, respectively. I was a massive fan of Cymone in Midnight Mass, and though she plays a similar character here, she thankfully has Sumpter as her foil, making her character still feel fresh and exciting. Also, Sumpter is given a storyline involving his illness that I am so happy to see shown in this type of light; it’s given much more nuance than I usually see. Along with these cast members, I also want to give a special shoutout to Adia, who portrays Cheri. She is absolutely fantastic as a mysterious yet still kind patient at the hospice, someone who I wish we learned more about.
As for the adult characters, it was terrific to see Heather Langenkamp, who plays Dr. Georgina Stanton, finally doing another horror project. She is horror royalty due to her playing Nancy, the final girl of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street; I just wish we could’ve seen even more from her character. I was excited to see Samantha Sloyan along for this ride as well, who gave my personal favorite performance as Beverly in Midnight Mass, and she does not disappoint here.
At the end of the day, The Midnight Club is not something you can quickly watch, expecting to get a ton of excitement right away. It is necessary for viewers to recognize whether or not they want to watch a series that doesn’t hold their hand and decide whether or not they are interested in deciphering the stories that these young adults have to tell them. If this sounds like it’s up your alley, I can promise you that you will have an experience quite unlike any other. The Midnight Club is currently streaming on Netflix, with all 10 episodes released today, Friday, Oct. 7.
