Posted in: Netflix, Preview, streaming, TV | Tagged: Mike Flanagan, netflix, preview, teaser, the midnight club

The Midnight Club: Mike Flanagan on Christopher Pike Influence & More

Netflix is stockpiling one helluva "Netflix & Chills" for the upcoming Halloween season, with Mike Flanagan & Trevor Macy (Netflix's "Haunting" franchise) and Leah Fong's (Once Upon a Time) 10-episode series take on Christopher Pike's 1994 novel The Midnight Club (and other Pike stories) at the top of our "must-screen" list. With a little more than a month to go until the series begin haunting our screens, Flanagan is offering some insight into what differentiates this project from previous ones (such as Midnight Mass) and what it was about Pike's approach to teenage characters that influenced him.

"One of the big things we assumed was that the younger viewers could handle scares," Flanagan explained during an interview with Empire, addressing how he's adjusting his approach to a project expected to skew younger when it comes to viewers. And to that end, viewers also shouldn't expect any long, intricate & intense monologues anytime soon. "I wouldn't subject a viewer of 'The Midnight Club' to an eight-minute monologue," he added. But that doesn't mean viewers should be expecting a "kinder & gentler" Flanagan, who wanted to make sure that the series kept with Pike's dark and sometimes brutally real literary world. "He [Pike] wrote some pretty advanced stuff for his younger readers, and it was not at all uncommon for his teenage characters to die, pretty shockingly," Flanagan explained. "His books were full of things I found really exciting and thrilling and dark. So I became a bit of an addict."

Co-adapted by Flanagan & Fong and executive produced by Flanagan, Fong, Julia Bicknell, and Macy (via Intrepid Pictures), the series stars Adia, Igby Rigney, Ruth Codd, William Chris Sumpter, Aya Furukawa, Annarah Shephard, Sauriyan Sapkota, Zach Gilford, Samantha Sloyan, Matt Biedel, Iman Benson, Larsen Thompson, William B. Davis, Crystal Balint, and Patricia Drake– with Heather Langenkamp ("Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise) joining as the enigmatic doctor who runs the hospice.

Joining Flanagan behind the camera to helm the series are Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour (Black Box), Axelle Carolyn (American Horror Story), Viet Nguyen (Lucifer), Morgan Beggs (The Haunting of Bly Manor), and Michael Fimognari (To All the Boys: Always and Forever). Set to premiere on October 7th, here's a look at the official teaser for The Midnight Club (that included an introduction from none other than Rahul Kohli during the broadcast- no stranger to Flanagan & Macy's work):

"Anchoring the show as the enigmatic doctor who runs this hospice for young adults, I'm honored to welcome Heather Langenkamp," wrote Flanagan in his tweet first announcing the initial cast. "To horror fans like myself, Heather is royalty, and I am so excited to work with her." Elan Gale, James Flanagan, and Chinaka Hodge are also on board to write for the series- with Mike Flanagan directing the first two episodes. Here's a look back at Flanagan's announcement Twitter thread from early 2021 announcing the start of production:

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