In the first episode of Netflix’s The Midnight Club, Dr. Georgina Stanton (Heather Langenkamp) sits down with the newest resident of Brightcliffe, the hospice for teenagers that she runs. Evoking Susan Sontag and Barbara Ehrenreich, Stanton reflects on the language with which people discuss terminal illness—the language of fighting, and losing, to disease. “Brightcliffe isn’t about battles,” she says. “It’s about permission to leave the battlefield. To focus on living instead of fighting.” But 18-year-old Ilonka (Iman Benson) has the near-impossible in mind. She read about a young woman named Julia Jayne who, once upon a time, walked out of Brightcliffe, inexplicably healed. Ilonka wants to do the same.
The thrust of The Midnight Club, which takes place in 1994, consists of Ilonka’s research into not only what happened to Julia, but also Brightcliffe’s darker history as a cult compound, decades before Stanton converted the sprawling home into a hospice. That past rips into the present, as Ilonka has creepy visions that appear to be connected to the cult, and she and the other teens see ghosts and sentient shadows in Brightcliffe’s old hallways. The cinematography effects an air of foreboding, with claustrophobic close-ups and slow pans that imply the presence of creatures looming just out of frame, but the proceedings are more tense than scary.
Created by Mike Flanagan and Leah Fong and based on the work of Christopher Pike, The Midnight Club smartly uses the trappings of horror, and other modes of genre fiction, to explore the power of storytelling as a means of reckoning with the unfathomable. Ilonka, an aspiring writer, finds an outlet for her creativity, as well as a sense of community, in the titular club, a longstanding group of teens who meet every night to share stories they’ve spun. The series depicts these tales with its main cast and guests, channeling various genre traditions in style and theme to reveal the psyches of their weavers and the relationships of Brightcliffe’s residents.
Not long after Anya (Ruth Codd), a hard-nosed realist, decries the “black-and-white” religious conviction of Sandra (Annarah Cymone), the latter concocts a noir riff at a club meeting that subverts the group’s expectations of her. The surprising yarn’s color palette is, like Sandra’s supposed worldview, black and white, and features forbidden love, jealousy, and chaotic revenge. It feels authentic, like a teenager’s take on noir, replacing a beat cop with a high school journo and relishing delectably over-the-top patter.
Sandra’s tale also demonstrates the propensity of the storytelling segments to liberate the series from Netflix’s stale house visual style. Instead of soaking scenes in dimly lit blues, Sandra’s escapade illuminates them with cracking lightning and roaring flames.
Early in the series, in a counseling session, Amesh (Sauriyan Sapkota) laments that his terminal diagnosis will keep him from experiencing the PlayStation, which is due to be released in eight months. Later, during a club gathering, he tells a sci-fi story about a computer game with the potential to stave off nuclear war. As Amesh constructs a universe in which his passion isn’t dorky but lifesaving, the series thoughtfully suggests that the grief he feels for video games he’ll never play isn’t misplaced but virtuous—that he’s mourning, through the PlayStation, the myriad worlds and possibilities he’ll miss out on.
Storytelling, as The Midnight Club understands it, is a vehicle of agency. And agency, in turn, is the foremost tenet of life at Brightcliffe, prized by the teens as well as the adults around them, including Dr. Stanton and Mark (Zach Gilford), a nurse practitioner who takes a patient named Spence (Chris Sumpter), who has AIDS, to meet and hang out with his friends, who are gay rights activists. Mark and Spence discuss the warping effect of fear—and its ability to, unlike death, be overcome. Despite the hate directed at Spence, Mark, and people like them, Mark says, “every single one of us deserves love.” The touching sequence captures the revelatory impact of seizing narratives, of cracking them open and rearranging the pieces.
Ultimately, the teens aspire to achieve agency not just in life but in death. The club’s members vow to relay a sign, once on the other side, of the other side’s existence. Anya, in an endearing moment of intensity, promises to provide undeniable proof that there’s something beyond the veil when she passes. “None of this ‘boo’ bullshit,” she says. That, too, is a stirring declaration of agency, power, and legacy: a rejection of conclusion, an insistence on keeping the story going.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
