Mike Flanagan is on a roll with his Netflix horror series, with a new terrifying mystery-thriller show The Midnight Club as his next project. Out of his Netflix TV shows, Flanagan is most notable for his haunted house stories - particularly 2018’s The Haunting of Hill House (adapted from Shirley Jackson's novel) and The Haunting of Bly Manor the following year. Flanagan also holds critical acclaim for his original and adapted horror movies both for and outside of Netflix, including Oculus, Hush, Gerald’s Game, and Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep.
Following the massive successes of Hill House and Bly Manor, Flanagan’s next Netflix show was Midnight Mass (2021), an enthralling tale about the intersections of horror and religion, using a real, terrifying vampire creature to amplify the show’s themes. Midnight Mass follows a small, religious island community that sees miraculous changes and sinister occurrences after a young priest arrives in town, creating fatal consequences and tests of faith for every character. While Flanagan’s next Netflix show still features “midnight” in the title, it’s no Midnight Mass sequel; The Midnight Club will take viewers down a different type of horror avenue.
First announced by Netflix back in May 2020, Mike Flanagan signed on to adapt Christopher Pike’s young adult horror novel The Midnight Club as a television series. The story follows a close-knit group of seven terminally ill teens living in the Rotterdam Home hospice center that meets every midnight to tell each other scary stories. One night, the teens decide to make a pact in which the first member of the club to die from their respective disease must communicate with the other six from beyond the grave. When one of the titular club members finally succumbs to their illness, supernatural occurrences quickly take over. While Mike Flanagan’s horror show is primarily based on Pike’s The Midnight Club, the showrunner will integrate elements from several other novels by the author.
While communicating with spirits beyond the grave isn’t a new concept to Flanagan, primarily focusing on teenagers is. Flanagan has previously focused on young children and teens amongst an ensemble of prominently featured adults, so placing young actors at the forefront of The Midnight Club will be a new direction for the showrunner. Known for keeping a repertoire of actors who reoccur in his projects, The Midnight Club will feature several beloved Flanagan collaborators, all of whom were featured in his most recent show. Midnight Mass’s actors Igby Rigney (Warren) and Annarah Cymone (Leeza) play two of the titular teens, while Zach Gilford (Riley), Samantha Sloyan (Bev), and Matt Biedel (Sturge) play recurring characters in the upcoming series. Other actors joining The Midnight Club cast include Iman Benson, Adia, Ruth Codd, William Chris Sumpter, Sauriyan Sapkota, and A Nightmare On Elm Street’s Heather Langenkamp.
The upcoming series is confirmed to have 10 episodes in season 1, likely in hour-long timeframes similar to Flanagan’s other Netflix shows. The Midnight Club officially concluded filming on September 10, 2021, so it likely won’t be released on Netflix until at least Spring 2022. The 2022 show will also feature music by The Newton Brothers, who provided songs for Midnight Mass and every other Flanagan project since Oculus. Mike Flanagan revealed on Twitter that he has been dreaming about adapting The Midnight Club since he was a teenager, so the series has been a long time coming for the horror master.