The Midnight (Breakfast) Club

If horror is your thing, one of the masters of the craft is back with something new says CONSTANTINOS PSILLIDES

If there’s one thing to say about director/writer Mike Flanagan it is that he loves pushing boundaries. He refuses to fit in and always throws curveballs at both his audience and the film industry in general. When he adapted a Stephen King book – a rite of passage for every horror director – he opted for the one everyone said was impossible to translate to film. When he met success and began establishing himself as a brilliant auteur who could successfully adapt scary books, he then went with something that is rarely heard of in the horror industry: an original idea.

And when he was asked to produce a series for Halloween, a holiday that despite its dark origins is now mostly directed at kids, he went for the grimmest setting possible: a hospice for teenagers who have terminal diseases.

The Midnight Club is Flanagan’s latest foray in the horror genre and while arguably not his best, it’s still a series worth watching.

Flanagan’s newest series is set in 1994, back in a time when nobody knew the words ‘social media influencer’ and ‘late-stage capitalism’ and is an adaptation of a series of books by author Christopher Pike.

The Midnight Club tells the story of Ilonka, a teenage girl who is terminally ill and decides to check herself in to the Brightcliffe Hospice, following visions of a girl who claims to have been cured there. While at the hospice, Ilonka bonds with seven other teenage residents in a similar predicament. Faced with imminent death and refusing to just sit down and cry, the residents at Brightcliffe get together every night at midnight and exchange scary stories.

In true Flanagan style, the plot alternates two main focal points: the teenagers trying to uncover the secrets of the hospice and the stories the Midnight Club members tell each other. Perhaps being overly ambitious, Flanagan condenses whole books by Pike into a single episode, each book serving as the basis for each story. Where do stories stop and reality begin? The line is blurred and the only way to find out is to watch the series on Netflix yourself!

Once you are done with Midnight Club here are some other Mike Flanagan gems to binge on:

Haunting of Hill House

The director’s first mainstream hit series, The Haunting of Hill House firmly established him as a master of his craft and an audience favourite. Loosely based on Shirley Jackson’s work of the same name, The Haunting of Hill House tells the harrowing story of the Crain family.

The series focuses mostly on Steven Crain, one of five Crain children, a somewhat successful writer, never managing to match the success of his debut novel, in which he told the story of his family and how they escaped a haunted house when he was just a kid. While estranged due to their traumatic past, the Crain family comes back together as the menacing Hill House opens its doors once more.

In signature Flanagan style, the series alternates between two timelines, slowly and carefully revealing the past to further the plot in the future. Flanagan was praised for managing to deliver a goth-thriller that is full of tension but doesn’t resort to gore or graphic, over-the-top violence.

Gerald’s Game

If adapting horror books for films is what you are good at, it is unavoidable that at some point you are going to cross paths with Stephen King. His books have provided the basis for countless adaptations, with varying results (looking at you Dreamcatcher, you owe me two hours of my life).

The film tells the story of Jessie, a woman in a dying marriage who decides to spend a weekend away with her husband Gerald to rekindle their relationship. Wanting to do what’s best, Jessie agrees to a home assault fantasy while handcuffed to the bed. When Gerald has a heart attack and dies, Jessie is left all alone, handcuffed to a bed, in a remote cabin by the lake, with no one coming to her rescue.

Midnight Mass

Perhaps Flanagan’s masterpiece, Midnight Mass tells the story of Riley Flynn, who decides to return to his hometown, a poor fishing village on a remote island. A former venture capitalist who thought he had escaped his past, Flynn returns to rebuild his life. But the island welcomes a second guest: Father Paul Hill, an enigmatic priest sent to replace Father Pruitt, the island’s ageing monsignor. The small community is then cut off from the rest world due to weather and when strange things start happening, there is no place for anyone to hide.