Eight terminally ill young men and women find companionship at a place where nothing is what it seems and gather at night to exchange horror stories.
Millennial horror with some pleasant surprises! So… It is presented as if Ilonka gets the short straw in life and she happens to find… Hold on… that’s not right. A seventeen-year-old getting the news that they are going to die soon should not be treated as a “short straw”. It’s heartbreaking, demoralising, earth-shattering… actually, it’s something that cannot be described in words. And, here, it’s been described a lot and utterly watered down. Then, to an even greater extent, apply that to every kid involved.
As if that’s not enough… one of my favourite worst practices in films nowadays, which I have spoken about numerous times, can also be found here: forced diversity. And whoever thinks that Hollywood gives everyone an opportunity in this way and that I shouldn’t be a stuck-up b!@£#, I would say that I only accept that theory if everyone couldn’t as well be an underwear or a fragrance model. Where is the opportunity for obese young’uns or unattractive youngsters? All of them are good-looking young men and women, and that’s amazing, but it destroys the illusion of whatever realism a series like this offers, distracts from the story, undermines human intelligence, and only becomes a crowd-pleaser. On this occasion, more credit will have to go to Ruth Codd (Anya), whose character allows her to be more expressive than the others.
Other than that, here’s what you sign up for Editing that cuts to close-up reactions so you constantly know exactly how everyone feels. Dialogues that are 100% scripted where everyone knows exactly what to say, how to say it, when to say it, and who to say it to. Jokes that are not funny. Childish misunderstandings and childish reactions to them, emphasised by the editing mentioned above. Then, as also discussed above, clichéd characters portrayed by model-like actors/actresses who challenge nothing, really.
As for the stories themselves, they are original. They are great bedtime stories, and while not horror, they are eerily entertaining. Their narrative will hype you up, but the visuals will somewhat let you down. I believe it would be great if one could listen to these stories in an audio form (podcast?). This way, our own images would have been created, and we would have potentially enjoyed them more.
It seems like I don’t have a lot of positives to say, so I’m going to stop here. Part of the reason is that Mike Flanagan has raised the bar very high with his previous miniseries and films, and this one cannot possibly reach it. It has nothing to do with the actors and actresses. They shine in front of the camera, and I’m glad they all look gorgeous. It is Flanagan who seems that he didn’t take their terminal state seriously; therefore, their characters are as superficial as they are. As I have mentioned in a previous review on Dahmer (2022), Netflix is responsible for superficial and mindless entertainment as well as films and series that can shock you to your core. Unfortunately, The Midnight Club belongs to the former category.
I am not sure how much control Flanagan had over this project, so if you’d like to watch a few of his best works, I definitely recommend The Haunting of Hill House (2018), The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020), and The Midnight Mass (2021). Hopefully, The Fall of the House of Usher (2023) will be as amazing!
Despite my negative review, I would like to conclude with something I got from the series’ overall vibe. Life is priceless and the ones who are fortunate enough to live it should not take it for granted. Because the less fortunate ones put up a real fight for it.
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Solidarity for all the innocent lives who suffer the atrocities of war!
Stay safe!
