‘The Midnight Club’ Trailer: Terminally Ill Teens Haunt Mike Flanagan’s New Horror Series

When the clock strikes midnight, the scary stories come to life.

Netflix’s “The Midnight Club,” adapted from Christopher Pike’s novel series of the same name, is created by “The Haunting of Hill House” and “Midnight Mass” showrunner Mike Flanagan. The series premieres October 7.

Set in 1994, the 10-episode season takes place at Brightcliffe Hospice, a home for terminally ill teenagers to pass away peacefully on their own terms. Yet Stanford University-bound teen Ilonka (Iman Benson) is skeptical after being admitted following a thyroid cancer diagnosis, and the hospice has its own spooky history waiting to be uncovered. As Ilonka and seven other patients form the Midnight Club, a storytelling group that meets at midnight, the halls of Brightcliffe coming to life…literally. The club makes a pact that the next of them to die will give the group a sign from the beyond and “make ghosts” of each other.

“There are so many stories about this place, stories about people who thought they were going to die but didn’t,” Ilonka says in the trailer. “I don’t care what it costs. If there’s a way to save us, I’d bring the world down.”

The rest of the Midnight Club is comprised of Igby Rigney, Adia Benson, Annarah Cymone, Aya Furukawa, Ruth Codd, Sauriyan Sapkota, and Chris Sumpter. Frequent Flanagan collaborators Rahul Kohli, Zach Gilford, Samantha Sloyan, and Matt Biedel also star in the series. “A Nightmare on Elm Street” icon Heather Langenkamp plays Dr. Georgina Stanton at Brightcliffe.

“Doctor Sleep” director Mike Flanagan and producing partner Trevor Macy mark their first YA series for Netflix under their Intrepid Pictures overall deal. “The Midnight Club” will host its world premiere at New York Comic Con October 6 ahead of its October 7 Netflix debut.

Creator Flanagan previously told Vanity Fair that he has spent decades trying to adapt the story for the screen.

“It was about teenagers having to reconcile with terminal diseases and with death,” Flanagan described Pike’s works. “And it didn’t pull its punches there either. It was a real lesson in how you could use genre to talk about very serious things. This really blew my hair back.”

He added, “The engine of the first season for us is these kids really want some kind of reassurance that their lives aren’t really over. They believe the bonds they formed are strong enough that one of them could come back and tell the others, ‘Don’t be afraid. There’s something else on the other side.’”

Flanagan also recently confirmed his “Doctor Sleep” sequel is indefinitely shelved, tweeting, “We were so close. I’ll always regret this didn’t happen.” The “Shining” follow-up was set to focus on the fan-favorite character Dick Hallorann, played by Scatman Crothers (and killed) in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”; he’s played by Carl Lumbly in “Shining” callbacks in 2019’s “Doctor Sleep.”

In the comments section, Flanagan added that the film was canceled “because of ‘Doctor Sleep’s’ box office performance, Warner Bros. opted not to proceed with it. They control the rights, so that was that.”

“The Midnight Club” premieres October 7 on Netflix.

Check out the trailer below.

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