There’s nothing like a creepy Victorian mansion at midnight during a thunderstorm to signal that something spooky is about to go down. This is how the first teaser for The Midnight Club, Netflix’s upcoming young adult horror series, begins.
The Midnight Club is adapted from the classic ’90s novel of the same name by Christopher Pike. Set at a hospice called Rotterdam Home, it centers on a group of terminally ill young people with a particularly macabre pastime. Instead of, like, doing a puzzle, they all gather at midnight every night to swap terrifying stories. The so-called Midnight Club makes a pact that whoever among them is first to die must try his or her hardest to contact the others from the grave.
The trailer begins with the shrill beep of a digital wristwatch striking 12, meaning it’s time for the teenage residents of Rotterdam Home to begin reciting vague spoken-word poetry, apparently. Over a soundtrack of fittingly eerie music, they take turns looking directly into the camera and speaking in verse. “To those before. To those after. To us now. And those beyond,” they say. “Seen. Or unseen. Here, but not here.” It’s frankly giving high school theater showcase meets commercial for an antidepressant, but our curiosity is piqued.
The cast members deliver their lines with a brash fearlessness as they walk through the house’s seemingly countless rooms. Some smirk knowingly and others seem bored. Eventually, they come together around a large wooden table and raise their glasses in a toast. “Seen or unseen. Here, but not here,” they repeat in unison. But they’re not alone. A flash of lightning reveals a haunting Grim-Reaper-like figure standing at the head of the table. The whole thing is very The Baby-Sitters Club if it were written by Edgar Allan Poe. Sidenote: For a house inhabited by dying children, the decor is incredibly depressing. None of the furniture looks comfortable.
Co-created by Mike Flanagan and Leah Fong, The Midnight Club has a promising horror foundation. Flanagan was the creator of the Midnight Mass limited series and Netflix’s spine-chilling shows, The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor. Fong worked on Bly Manor, as well.
The Midnight Club members are played by Adia, Igby Rigney, Ruth Codd, Aya Furukawa, William Chris Sumpter, Annarah Shephard, and Sauriyan Sapkota. Horror genre queen Heather Langenkamp, who starred in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, plays the doctor operating Rotterdam Home.
The Midnight Club debuts on Netflix on October 7, just in time for Halloween this year.
