User reviews

The Midnight Club is not really horror. It has horror elements but it's mostly teen drama. If you're expecting a series along the lines of Mike Flanagan's previous Netflix horror series', you may be disappointed. But if you go into it knowing that it's based on young-adult rather than classic literature, perhaps you can appreciate it for what it is. The Midnight Club is based on material by highly successful YA author Christopher Pike, not on classic ghost stories by writers like Shirley Jackson or Henry James.

Since I knew going in what the source material is, I was expecting a teen drama with some horror elements, and that's exactly what this is. It started pretty strong, lots of mystery, and the characters drew me in. Most of the cast are very good, and the series is beautifully shot. There's no mistaking that this is 100% Mike Flanagan. And like everything Flanagan does, it's heavy with emotion (at times too heavy).

Unfortunately, it does get slow about halfway through the season, it's a bit hard to follow at times, and it just doesn't have the same magic that Hill House, Bly or Midnight Mass do. I still found it moving and entertaining, but I didn't love it. There are too many unanswered questions and disconnected ideas. Rather than moving slowly and leaving all those unanswered questions for a probable season 2, I would have preferred Flanagan had stuck to his formula of one-season stories that move quickly and wrap up nicely in the end.

I have great respect for Mike Flanagan and his vision and ability to tell a story with both horror and heart. Though by no means terrible, The Midnight Club is not his best. I still have high hopes for The Fall of the House of Usher. Flanagan has proven what he can do with classic horror. I can't wait to see what he does with the works of Poe.

**Unlike some others, this review was written after watching the whole season.

If you aren't familiar with Christopher Pike books, this won't be a hit for you. It's unfortunate that they tried to make it a teen horror, as Pike's books aren't scary. I'm not upset with the changes to The Midnight Club book, as there is no way they could have made a series from that. Again nothing scary. It was a book about dying teens who told each other stories at midnight. There was no over arching mystery involved. So the parts about the symbol and the patient who was cured are all new for this series.

What I do like about this is that there have been no good film adaptations of Pike's books. At least here were get snippets in the short stories the characters tell.

If you are looking for something more along the lines of Hill House or Midnight Mass, this isn't it. This is more like a more mature version of Are You Afraid of the Dark. For me, that's not a bad thing.

Starting with the positives. The main actors, although young, are very good. The dialogue remains mainly intelligent. And as the story takes place in the 90s, there are good moments of nostalgia, especially with the use of music among other easter eggs. Like all of Flanaghan's shows, the horror is in the subtext rather than the focus of the story itself.

A group of terminally ill young people, who are guests in a place where they can be themselves while they wait to die, gather at night to tell horror stories. And while the idea is good, the execution loses some coherence as the season progresses.

Midnight Club tries to do many things at once, it's a drama about terminal teenagers dealing with death in a seemingly haunted place and it's also an anthology series with stories ranging from horror to science fiction. And until the last 3 episodes, it's easy for the viewer to get lost in this amalgamation of themes. Unlike Midnight Mass, this series lacks a clear narrative thread. And the experience can be "challenging" at times.

Overall, I would say I liked the series, but I didn't love it. And I have no doubt that many other people will love this series because it has much to enjoy. But personally, I found some episodes a difficult task to overcome. The positive aspects outweigh the negatives. But this isn't my favorite Flanaghan series by far.

I give it 7 stars out of 10.

I loved those three (Hill house, Bly manor and Midnight mass) and have watched each at least 2 - 3 times. This one was boring IMO. I am in episode 6 and already getting annoyed by Ilonka. As others have said, prob will fast forward and skip to the end. Some scary scenes are good, but it is not as gripping as the other previous creations from the writers. It was good to see actors in cameos from their previous work though.

I really hope it gets better from episode 6 and something actually happens!!

PS. Why does IMDB want a 600 word review now? Everyone doesn't need to write an essay, some movies/ series just deserve a few lines!

Started off really intriguing and wanted to watch more but as I got past episode 5 I found it rather dull & boring and quite predictable.

Some of the stories were boring too and spent the last few eps on my phone.

I'm glad I watched it but it's not something I'd watch again. Not anywhere as near as good as Midnight Mass but still looking forward to Mikes new show The Fall of the House of Usher.

Shame really as it started off better than it ended but it was great to see Heather L from Nightmare on Elm Street but made me feel a little old!

I'd recommend watching it if you want something to casually view and not get engrossed in.

Not a bad series, some creepy "ghost" moments, but don't buy its boast of "most jump scares in a single episode" (that being the first episode, where I actually found myself saying, "oh, enough already"... my first legitimate jump wasn't until episode 3 or 4, and even that was mild.) Some of the stories the characters tell at their club meetings are good enough. And while their personal stories and issues lend themselves to some touching moments, the series is held back by its highly implausible premise and plot holes (terminally ill kids spending their last months living in a dorm where parents only show up once-a-whatever on Family Day, a grand total of two adults in the entire hospice, neither of whom apparently supervising or checking in on these medically fragile teens at night. A hospice where a teen is left to die in a deserted ward completely alone. And where on Earth are these kids getting bottles of wine every night?) Who knows, maybe too much eye-rolling made me miss all those jump-scares, but after five episodes, I'm passing on the rest.

I watched all ten episodes of The Midnight Club. What kept me watching? The creative writing. Decent acting. Fantastic atmosphere. Finally, I loved the choice of music.

What I had issues with, I was a Hospice nurse for all ages, and none of my residence looked so...healthy. They were not up all hours of the night, roaming around and climbing stairs. By the time anyone enters Hospice care - it is palliative care. Even my youngest of patients never exhibited the level of energy like the movie. It made it difficult to see them as dying.

The stories within the story were well-written, but took away from the shows main objective. As for the main objective, it can be interpreted in several ways, but I'm unsure what the creators were tying to convey.

I think too many things suffered a high level of ambiguity, and left me feeling like it needed a finish line.

Finally, after decades, we get a good adaptation of the Christopher Pike novels. It stays pretty close to the books, thankfully! Yes there is some "netflix" changes to a few stories but it's fine. People comparing this to AYAOTD or how it "isn't scary" etc. These were teen fiction novels from the early 90s.

I think it's genius they blended The Midnight Club with other Pike novels like Road to Nowhere (my personal favourite Pike book), See You Later, Witch, Wicked Heart, Eternal Enemy, and Gimme a kiss. I hope there's future adaptations as I would love to see an updated version of Chain Letter, Slumber Party, Whisper of Death, etc. I really wished they did this for the Fear Street novels.

For fans of Christophet Pike, here is the adaptations we've waited decades for!

People go into hospice as a last resort, usually when nothing more can be done medically snd/or when they cannit care for themselves, meds are stopped and people die in comfort. This show has a bunch of kids in a hospice but they all look healthy, act healthy, can move around freely and can care for themselves, and they claim to be on meds but we never see any plus a real hospice stops treatments and uses pain releivers, why are they really there, it makes no sense. This is more like a dorm and kids are up at all hours, sneaking around, snooping, and seem to have no ditection. None are exhibiting sickness or weaknrss...in real life they would not be in hospice.

I'm on the fence with this show.

In some ways it's really interesting and different, but in other ways it drags and drags.

The main character for me is extremely unlikeable which makes it very hard to root for her. She is annoyingly stubborn, and sticks her nose into everything, basically taking over once she arrives at Brightcliff.

Some of the acting is amazing, especially Ruth Codd who isn't even an actress. Her performance really blew me away.

The stories the group tells are actually really interesting and well played out. Their stories have a bigger impact on the audience than the main story itself which I found quite boring and tedious. It's a shame because I was looking forward to this show but I just didn't like it enough. And it ended terribly, which means there will most likely be a season 2 that I will not be watching.

I find Mike's shows a hit or miss. The Haunting of Hill House was really good but Bly Manor and this show haven't been as good. Looking forward to House of Usher though.

I had a hunch when I saw the title, but it seems like Mr. Flanagan has taken one of my favorite shows from childhood and given it a beautiful update. Thank you Mike Flanagan. This 90s kid is obsessed. If you were a weird kid like me, you might've watched Are You Afraid of the Dark when you were little. The stories haunted and terrified us and this is no different. The story is wonderful, truly vibrant production quality, and I love the new midnight club, complete with 90s music and themes. How awesome to see. 9/10 as I keep watching, but Mike Flanagan never seems to disappoint. I can't wait to see where this goes.

Mike was seriously becoming my favorite director during Haunting at Hill House. I loved Dr. Sleep and how it finally told the ending to the Shining story. It made me go back and watch every single piece of work he directed and I loved most of them but not all.

Unfortunately, I am not sure if its the producers, Netflix, or some other "entity" out there, but I feel like he is losing his touch or "rinse and repeat". The scare tactics are the same. I don't mind the reusing of actors from time to time as I get it...he has some favorites. The slow melancholy piano music is getting to be the same over and over. I am starting to feel another M. Night Shyamalan coming on with a few great works but it goes down hill from there.

Please, Mike, for the sake of your fans...evolve. You have a gift of story telling that could make you one of the best out there....but your fans need more than "rinse and repeats". Transform the thriller industry. Take a step up and not back, and give us something that we want to watch over and over, tell our friends about, and always come back as one of the classics.

This Midnight Club had some good story telling, some good scares, some good plots, some good emotions, some good acting, some good directing....but you are better than mediocrity. Mike, become what we all think you are capable of.

I loved the setup! It's the right amount of grim (and not too over the top horror set ups that we generally see). I also loved the concept of midnight club - stories within the story.

I was hooked to the series for the first 2-3 episodes. Post that it just becomes confusing.

Here are my problems:

• The midnight club stories don't relate to the overall plot. Yeah, they have tried to include symbolism in it via connecting with the lives of main characters but it doesn't come off that well.

• The horror post 4-5 episodes just diminishes and the stories around love and friendship takes over (which is fine but this is supposed to be a good horror series so please!)

• Some characters are very irritating including the main one. You stop liking her as the episodes progress.

• The ending is blah!

"To those before, to those after. To us now and to those beyond. Seen or unseen, here but not here." The axiom that opens every story told my the Midnight Club is never explained, much like many of the elements introduced in Mike Flannigan's newest offering.

What Flanigan does best is write great dialogue, and tell great stories, all packaged up in the horror genre. And, principally, that is what he has done here. Supported largely by Flannigan's incredible cast of regulars, the stories told in The Midnight Club are beautiful and endearing.

I think when approaching this series, there are a few things to keep in mind: 1. Mike Flannigan adapted a novel written for young adults. So, the scares are a bit less scary, and the psychological thrills are a bit less thrilling than what we are all used to.

2. To make up for #1, Flannigan shows us the "ghost stories" that the kids tell at midnight. But those stories fall flat. More on that later.

3. The Midnight Club was written and produced as season one of a series, not a limited series or a mini-series. A first for Flannigan, and he feels his way around how much to reveal to the audience in the end, and how many questions to leave unanswered for a season 2.

In the end, I don't think Flannigan got it right. The "ghost stories" that the kids tell are a distraction from the central story...and I found the central story to be much more interesting to watch. But, I don't think he got it entirely wrong either, because I did find the central story, the music, and the cast of characters to be absolutely captivating to watch. The show had some phenomenally poetic moments, but overall it just left me feeling there were too many missed opportunities for something a bit more cohesive and fulfilling. Better luck next time, Mr. Flanigan.

Anya is actually the most annoying character I've came across. She's just obnoxious and too overly angry. God I wanted to slap her multiple times, and this is me only half way through episode two.

I don't mind the other characters, the main girl is actually good. But man, if this obnoxious girl doesn't book her ideas and acting skills up, I'm out!

I think the storyline is pretty good so far. The scenery and woods are nice. I'm padding my review because you need to write 600 characters now....sheeeesh! I just wanted to convey how annoyed I am by the angry chick. Bore off already. Blah blah blah.

Ilonka is an awful, selfish, destructive nightmare.

The rest of the young people are all decent characters, but Ilonka is vile.

The performances of the adult cast members are mostly phoned in, probably because most of them aren't in it very much, and Heather Langenkamp has never been a good actress.

The show is mostly watchable, if corny, and it's definitely the weakest of Flanagan's horror series, but if you put it on as background noise while you're doing other things, it's alright.

Oh, and there's a real gaff in Episode 8 where Amesh references an episode of The X-Files which didn't air until 3 years after this story is set.

Actually most of the cast is fine- several are good. I wouldn't mind following the stories of several of the residents of Brightcliff. That being said, the main character is horrible. Watched the entire season with my daughter- we really tried but in the end we're quite happy it came to an end. Ilonka could not be less of a sympathetic character, and she's a kid with cancer.

The stories lack the scare factor of Midnight Mass, Fall of the House of Usher or Hill House, but it would be an entertaining hour if Ilonka was in any way tolerable.

Several actors are Flanigan regulars, and they're great.

I really enjoyed the show for the most part. It's got some really well acted and complex characters that are easy to love, though some characters get a lot more attention than others. The show spends a lot of time dealing with really complex issues of death, suicide, religion, etc. And I think it does it all fairly well.

There's a sub plot with the cult that feels like it should be the main story line, but it really ends on a bit of a whimper without a great deal of resolution. It feels like it wanted to save a lot of the important story for season 2, but did so at the expense of a satisfying resolution for season 1.

Where the show really shines though are the small horror stories sprinkled throughout. All of them are very unique, really well told, and have fun and clever moments throughout. I highly doubt a group of teenagers would be able to tell so many layered and complex short stories, but I'll look past that little plot hole since it was so fun to watch all of them.

So aside from a poor resolution to the main plot thread, I'd say this was a great watch and well worth the time invested.

The Midnight Club (2022) is a Netflix series about a group of terminal ill kids left in a hospice care unit to live out their final days. They form a "midnight club" that meets in the hospice basement at midnight and tells ghost stories that generally indirectly tie to themselves. They discover this is a long standing tradition that has taken place in this house before and if they dig deep enough, there may be hope for a brighter future than they think they have, but at what cost...

This series was cocreated by Mike Flanagan (Midnight Mass) and Leah Fong (The Haunting of Bly Manor) and stars Iman Benson (#BlackAF), Igby Rigney (Blue Bloods), Ruth Codd (The Fall of the House of Usher, 2023), Annarah Cymone (Midnight Mass) and Samantha Sloyan (Hush).

This series was a bit uneven. The premise had the potential to be more heart wrenching and depressing based on a child that is left by their parents to spend their final days with other sick strangers in the same predicament as them; however, this didn't pull at the heart strings like I expected. However, the stories were interesting, as were the characters, and those two elements made it interesting, especially as the stories of previous children/cults and the history of the building comes forward. The horror elements were pretty good and I like how the stories take place in different eras, with different premises and different levels of realism. The very final episode did let me down a little.

Overall, this is a series that falls short of its potential but is still worth a watch. I would score this a 6.5-7/10 and recommend seeing it once.

I have enjoyed most of Flannagan's work with the Midnight Mass likely being his best offering to date. After watching this show, my opinion hasn't changed. While far from perfect, Flannagan's work genreally posses a fair bit of creativity when it comes to defining ghosts and horrors. His biggest weakness seems to be able to definitely conclude the stories that often borders onto theatrical levels of expositions. Still, in most cases the main story is concluded to a satisfying degree regardless of the expositions. Things have gotten better overtime and I was interested to see if he finally figured out how to make a final conclusion to a tale without the theatrics.

Unfortunately, The Midnnight Club is likely the weakest offering and lest conclusive the shows to date. With an interesting premise dealing with terminally ill patients dealing with death, this show works somewhat like an Anthology with short stories building up to a greater encapsulating mystery. Unfortunately, in this case, the show rarely rises to any sort of occasion and we are instead left with mind-numbingly amateurish short stories for ten episodes with just bookending of a greater horror that never convalescences into anything meaningful. I suppose it makes sense in context that the stories are told by normal teenagers and not established authors and I guess the dissatisfaction emulates the disappointment of a life barely lived.

Subverting expectations can be tricky and the replacement has to even more interesting or about the same. Failing that you are bound to alienate your staple fans and possible newcomers. This is a gross misstep in an otherwise a pretty positive track for Flannagan. I suppose the warning signs were there when Netflix suddenly put more focus on the advertising and the first story is a riff on jump scares. I suppose Anya claiming herself to be a tougher audience was just bravado and nothing more.

I will wait and see what the reviews are for the house of the Usher as I am not interested in wasting my time on halfbaked originals.

The font used for the posters the time period, all of it screams RL Stine, and Goosebumps. I'm watching it now but haven't finished it off, it's enjoyable, but not something I will rewatch by myself like midnight mass and hill house, but that doesn't mean it's bad, just it's definitely youth adult fiction, I'll watch it with my kids and enjoy it thoroughly. People need to stop rating and assuming everything is bad because it's not what they wanted, but I feel like rating this low is like watching Moana and complaining that it wasn't a more grown up film.

Stranger things definitely universally appealed to all audiences, but also had a secondary adult central cast, this is very specific to teens. And honestly past two seasons of that show have been mediocre fan service.

Growing up, huge fan of 'Are you afraid of the dark' and caught up with all of mike flnagan's netflix series like the haunting and midnight mass. Some amazing casts from the other series showed up. Heavy use on depressing darker tone which was understandable. Amazing storyline and gets better as it progressed. Touch on terminal illness, family/friend bonding, suicide, mental illness, lgbtq and etc. Few jump scare as always, not particularly scary but very emotional & compelling storyline that can relate to many. Great casts btw, some from other series, some new. Amazing sound scores. Some great dialogues, sometimes lame but its alright. Crappy graphics/cgi at some point. Many beautiful sceneries and great make up on the casts. The ending ruined it but still highly recommended.

I decided to watch this despite the subpar reviews because Mike Flanagan did such a great job on The Haunting of Hill House and Bly Manor. This was a disappointment for sure. It follows a young group of people who all have terminal diseases and one girls drive to find a cure in what might be a special house. I can say with all honesty the show was pretty pointless. It had such potential, but fell drastically short in every element. You had some jump scares which weren't really scary. There was a mystery to everything which turned out to pretty much be nothing. There were no points to any of the scares, ghosts, and absolutely no point to all the stories the midnight club told. In fact, it got to the point where I fast forwarded all of the dumb stories. And then the show just ended. There was no point to anything! If you are a fan of Flanagan's work, this will disappoint the crap out of you. Skip it and just wait for the Fall of the House of Usher to be released. You will see a few actors that Flanagan likes to use in his shows, but I think it was only a couple.

I'm always excited to watch Mike Flanagan's work. I loved Hill House and I loved Bly Manor even more! Before I wake was excellent, Hush was good and Midnight Mass was also ok. This one however completely missed the mark.

It has an interesting concept but it doesn't work, mostly because there's not enough focus on the main plot line. The stories that are told at the club are all over the place. They do nothing to develop the plot, they're not particularly scary or even that interesting. Some of the characters are really annoying (for me it was Anya). There's too much teen drama which didn't make me feel emotional but mostly just bored. The story drags on and on and by the end there are too many unanswered questions.

I don't know if they were planning on having a second season but even if they did, the cliffhanger at the end wasn't particularly good. There was nothing surprising about it. It took way too much time to get there and as disappointed as I was with the lack of answers, I was actually relieved it was over (not exactly what you'd expect to feel when you're watching a good horror show).

All in all it felt like I was watching a teen drama not a horror series. As someone who usually like Flanagan's work I was disappointed. Therefore, unfortunately, I can't recommend this show. It's not that it's all bad, it has some interesting moments and the acting is mostly ok but it's just not worth the ride. If you're looking for outdated teen drama give this one a go, if you're looking for some fun horror show, this isn't it.

Hopefully in his next projects Flanagan can recreate the fan scary ambience and interesting storylines of his previous projects (like Hill House and Bly Manor). Fingers crossed.