The Midnight Club is not the scariest show Netflix fans will go through this Halloween season. It is the latest series following Midnight Mass from the same creative team. It’s sort of like two shows in one that feels like a combination of Are You Afraid of the Dark and Locke and Key.
The basic premise of The Midnight Club follows Ilonka as she enters a hospice house for teenagers. She investigates spooky happenings around the manor but the kids also tell ghost stories at night. It creates an opportunity to dish out more scares on two levels and these are just some of the most unsettling things in the show. There will be spoilers.
7 Getting Cancer
One of the scariest things that can happen to a person in life is getting diagnosed with cancer. It might not fit the traditional mold for a horror show or film but it is disarming regardless. Ilonka had her whole life ahead of her after graduating second in high school.
Coughing up blood at a party after meeting a college boy could not have been at the top of her to-do list. The scene is a good reminder that literal monsters aren’t the only things to be scared of.
6 The Two Danas
“The Two Danas” is both the title of one of Anya’s stories as well as the episode name. The story is about a ballerina who wishes she could go have fun with other teens her age. She makes a bargain with the devil and gets a clone so that they can both experience life together.
One of the most awkward scenes has Dana watching a movie with her parents while her clone has relations for the first time. There are some funny moments like that in the story but the horrors of drugs and cutting oneself should make anyone hesitant about the idea of clones.
5 A Hammer To The Head
Most stories wrap up in one episode of The Midnight Club. However, the one that Kevin tells takes three episodes to finish and it is a doozy of a horror story. The basic premise follows a young teen who has been possessed by his mother’s thoughts to kill people.
When he strikes down his seemingly normal hammer on his first victim, which the audience sees, it is a painful moment that can be felt. The idea of being bludgeoned to death is not a pleasant one and the strike comes out of nowhere. There are plenty more creepy things in that tale too like his mom crawling on the ceiling. She’s up at there as one of the worst on film.
4 Anya’s Future
In a show that is filled with tragic moments, episode seven takes the cake. Episode six ends with the teens trying to imbue Anya with healing energy before things cut to black. Most of episode seven then is a fakeout flash forward sequence to make the audience believe Anya survived and no one else did.
It’s a cruel trick that eventually Anya snaps out of. At that moment she also dies. There’s nothing scarier than realizing one is in a Matrix-like scenario which then leads to death.
3 Car Suicide
Suicide can also be a touchy subject in horror movies which can lead to some creative storytelling. For example, there’s an episode of The Midnight Club wherein Natsuki spins a tale about a young girl on the run.
She drives into the night to get away and picks up some strange hitchhikers along the way. She learns that she is caught in a loop but is not sure what is going on. Turns out the hitchhikers were her subconscious in different forms. One told her to keep fighting for life while the other said to give in. This girl tried to kill herself through car exhaust in her garage which is partially what Natsuki did to herself.
2 The Old Woman And Man
One of the biggest questions left hanging at the end of season one is if the manor is haunted. Anya sees black shadows which she thinks is death coming for her. Previous patients have also reported these black shadows. Kevin sees an old man ghost while Ilonka sees an old woman.
Ilonka sees the old man eventually too. Both of these old “ghosts” have some terrifying jump scares built into the show. Are they truly ghosts or are they the side effects of pills? Whatever the case may be they are creepy.
1 Anya’s Shadow
The shadow figure deserves its own entry because there are some unsettling images in The Midnight Club. The first big reveal is when things start to look bleaker for Anya’s health. She sees a black figure form in the bathroom and starts to look at her with burning red eyes.
In that ritual scene in episode six, she sees an ooze of black form into a skull and comes after her. Perhaps the creepiest shadow form is in the following episode which starts as a baby crying before becoming a more familiar ooze. It’s something straight out of Death Stranding concerning the BBs and their version of black ooze. Perhaps the shadow images in The Midnight Club were inspired by events in that game.