This article contains spoilers for The Midnight Club season 1.The Midnight Club features a sinister living shadow, an entity that stalks the teenagers living at Brightcliffe Manor. Loosely inspired by Christopher Pike's novel of the same name (but with added scares thrown in from some of his other books) The Midnight Club is a meditation on death. It follows a group of teenagers who have each received a terminal diagnosis, and have chosen to live out their last days at a hospice with their fellows.
Created by accomplished Netflix horrork director Mike Flanagan, The Midnight Club confronts every one of its protagonists with the horror of their own mortality. It achieves this through a range of intriguing narrative techniques, most notably through meetings of the Midnight Club - gatherings conducted at midnight, where the teenagers tell one another scary horror stories that explore life, death, and a desperation to create a future. And yet, for all that they try to restrict their fantasies to their stories, the teenagers at Brightcliffe Manor cannot hide from the fact something seems to be stalking them in the "real" world. Those who are soon to die have mentioned seeing a dark shadow stalking them. Flanagan avoids explanations in The Midnight Club, allowing viewers to figure things out for themselves.
The so-called "living shadow" is best viewed as an anthropomorphism of death itself, likely inspired by a verse from Psalm 23; "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet will I fear no evil." As familiar and poetic as this may sound, it actually hints at an ancient Jewish view of sickness and death. Sickness was seen as an intrusion of death into the land of the living, and those who faced illness were indeed believed to be confronting death's shadow. The more severe the illness, the darker the shadow, until finally those who died were overwhelmed by it. In the same way, in The Midnight Club the shadow comes for the next to die, stalking them, pursuing them.
The Living Shadow Will Claim (Almost) Everyone In The Midnight Club
The young cast of The Midnight Club play a group of characters who are already living deep within the shadow of the valley of death, and who (with one exception) will soon die. Some choose to flee from their impending deaths, running from the reality of their own mortality but gradually losing the strength to keep running. Others, however, learn to accept death's presence and even openly confess it to their loved ones. But the shadow will be there for them all, and will eventually consume every one of them.
Dr. Stanton, the founder of Brightcliffe Manor, claims she established the hospice to help the teenagers come to a place of peace with death. In truth, though, this is something few will find during their time there; the best they'll manage is a sort of weary resignation, worn down by death's constant presence. This gives Flanagan's The Midnight Club a truly chilling feel, as it swiftly becomes clear these teenagers must face something most adults try to avoid. The shadow of death is ever-present, not just at Brightcliffe Manor, but all across the world - a truth The Midnight Club whispers in sinister fashion.
The Midnight Club is streaming now on Netflix.