The Midnight Club, Mike Flanagan’s latest collaboration with Netflix after hit series like The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass, has finally been released. Despite experimenting with various new elements (a teen-focused story and young cast, a series rather than a miniseries), The Midnight Club is just as good as Flanagan’s other horror shows. Inspired by the Christopher Pike novels that the filmmaker has stated marked him when he was a kid, this is a ghostly mystery story that will make you cry.
Brightcliffe Hospice is a place for teenagers with terminal diseases to live the rest of their lives how they want to. Receiving medical and psychological support from the staff and the owner of the place, Dr. Stanton, the young group will not be able to imagine what happened inside this house years ago. The patients are part of a club that has existed for a very long time in Brightcliffe. The Midnight Club is a club to tell stories, mostly scary ones. The characters like to create ghosts every night — until they start to experience things that are too scary even for their stories.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
Listening to frightening stories in the middle of the night in an old library seems like a good fit for October, and if you’re new to The Midnight Club and want to participate, here is a character guide with descriptions for the new Mike Flanagan series.
Llonka (Iman Benson)
Netflix
Llonka, played by Iman Benson, is a clever girl that did everything right to get into her dream college, Stanford. On the night she finally decides to step out of her comfort zone, she is faced with one of the worst news someone so young could have: she has cancer. After fighting for a while, Llonka finds out she is, in fact, terminal. Llonka is the one that introduces the viewer to Brightcliffe Hospice and the secrets that lurk inside the old house. She leads an investigation into the past while trying to keep its ghosts a bay.
Kevin (Igby Rigney)
Kevin, played by Igby Rigney, is a sweet guy who quickly becomes one of Llonka’s closest friends and partners in crime. Kevin is communicative and tries to keep everyone somewhat happy – which is very hard as starkly distinguished personalities confront one another. He keeps pretending everything is fine for the sake of others, especially his family and girlfriend.
Anya (Ruth Codd)
Anya, played by Ruth Codd, is one of the funniest (if you enjoy dark humor) patients in the hospice. She has lost a leg due to her disease and is considered by most as the toughest person they know. There is a very tender heart that has seen a lot of tragedy masked behind the hard exterior. Anya keeps seeing unexplainable and terrifying things when she is alone at night, but she has too many secrets about her past to tell even her closest friends about her fears.
Amesh (Sauriyan Sapkota)
Amesh, played by Sauriyan Sapkota, was the latest newcomer until Llonak arrived. He is obsessed with video games and has an important list of things he wants to do before he dies, most of which require the help of his friends, who are more than willing to do them. Amesh has been kept away from his parents due to immigration reasons. Because of that, the feeling of needing/creating a family with his friends is something key to him.
Sandra (Annarah Cymone)
There are different ways of dealing with death and having a terminal disease. Sandra, played by Annarah Cymone, does it through religion. She has a deep faith in heaven, hell, and even angels. Sandra may appear a bit out of touch to others and what the Catholic Church can mean to different people. However, there is inherent goodness in Sandra that makes her open to learning how to cope with others, even if she is a bit resistant at first to see her faith from a new perspective.
Spencer (William Chris Sumpter)
Spencer, played by William Chris Sumpter, has a difficult past with his family due to religious reasons. He is one of the most outgoing characters in the group and quickly tries to make Llonka feel at home. His battle with a disease has a few more layers than the others, and that will bring some necessary discussions to the narrative.
Cheri (Adia)
Cheri, played by Adia, is a mystery, even for the characters. She claims many things, from her parents working in the entertainment industry to her wild childhood travel stories. However, most of them are completely made up, to the extent that the other teens don’t know for certain what’s her diagnosis or the reason she is there. Nevertheless, Cheri is a kind soul who pays attention to others and tries to make everyone happy as much as she can.
Natsuki (Aya Furukawa)
Natsuki, played by Aya Furukawa, is a character that feels deeply, and because she didn’t have people that understood what she was going through, she suffered depression a great deal of her life in silence. She is creative and one of the characters that enjoys telling stories the most during The Midnight Club. She is courageous and will go after what she wants, even if it’s a simple matter like a kiss.
Dr. Georgina Stanton (Heather Langenkamp)
Dr. Georgina Stanton, played by horror legend Heather Langenkamp, is in charge of all teen patients. Alongside the trained nurse Mark (Zach Gilford, who played one of the protagonists in another Flanagan series, the brilliant Midnight Mass), the doctor is the one that takes care of the group therapy, taking meds, and so on. She knows a lot more about the history of the house and what happens inside than she lets on.
