If you are as big a fan of Mike Flanagan movies and TV shows as I am, you are probably already on your fifth binge of Midnight Mass on Netflix. In fact, it might be the latest installment of your own personal marathon of his other TV shows on the streamer (collectively called The Haunting Collection) or even a few of his latest horror movies in anticipation for his next project.
Lucky for you, his return to television is coming soon with a new horror series called The Midnight Club, which has nothing to do with the story of the aforementioned, similarly-named series (in case you were wondering), but does have a few behind-the-scenes connections to the 2021 hit. Read on to learn how they relate, along with everything else we know about the latest of Flanagan’s great Netflix horror TV shows – starting with when we can expect to stream this new, terrifying tale.
The Midnight Club Premieres On Netflix October 2022
A glance at Netflix’s 2022 TV show schedule will assure any Mike Flanagan fans that they will not have to wait much longer to stream his latest project. The Midnight Club is set to premiere on the platform on Friday, October 7, 2022 – just in time for the Halloween season.
Mike Flanagan Adapted The Midnight Club From A Christopher Pike Book
When Midnight Mass was first announced, rumors suggested it would be another installment of Mike Flanagan’s Haunting Collection before it was confirmed to be an entirely new story and not another loose book adaptation. However, The Midnight Club marks the executive producer’s return to making literature into a bone-chilling Netflix series, but also his first try at a young adult novel, along with co-developer and Bly Manor writer, Leah Fong. In fact, the upcoming show marks the first time since the 1996 TV movie Fall into Darkness that a Christopher Pike story received such treatment.
The Midnight Club is the 21st book by Pike, who is a hero of the young adult suspense novel trend of the late 20th century, during which R.L. Stine’s Fear Street books and iconic Goosebumps series also became great successes. Published in 1994, it focuses on a group of terminally ill teenagers who bond at the Rotterdam Home hospice by telling each other scary tales late at night. However, as the series’ official trailer teases, no story they could make up is as haunting as the dark history of the hospice at which they reside, called Brightcliffe.
Several Midnight Mass Cast Members Appear In The Midnight Club Cast
Obviously, Flanagan’s upcoming adaptation of Pike’s classic novel will have no canonical ties to his recent limited series about strange occurrences happening to an island community’s local parish. However, the filmmaker did enlist some familiar faces from his Midnight Mass cast to return for this new series.
Annarah Cymone and Igby Rigney, whose young Midnight Mass characters are Leeza Scarborough and Warren Flynn, are series regulars in The Midnight Club cast. In recurring roles, we have Crystal Ballint (who played Cymone’s onscreen mother, Dolly), Zach Gilford (who played Rigney’s brother, Riley), Matt Biedel (who played Sturge), and Patricia Drake (who had a small role as Crockett Island native Joanie). Frequent Flanagan collaborators and fellow Midnight Mass vets, Samantha Sloyan (who stole the show as the cold-hearted Beverly Keane), Robert Longstreet (who played Joe Collie), and Rahul Kohli (who played Sheriff Hassan), are also slated to appear.
Horror Movie Legend Heather Langenkamp Also Joins The Midnight Club Cast
There are also plenty of newcomers to the Flanagan Family in the Midnight Club cast, the most exciting of which has the honor of being called one of the greatest Scream Queens in the history of horror movies. Heather Langenkamp is best known for playing Nancy Thompson in Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street cast in 1984. Flanagan confirmed in a tweet that she was starring in the series as “an enigmatic doctor who runs the hospice” at which the titular young group stay.
Speaking of which, other young newcomers in the main Midnight Club cast include Shudder’s Creepshow Season 2 star Iman Benson, the aforementioned Aya Furukawa (who debuted in The Cabin in the Woods), William Chris Sumpter of Starz’s Power fame, and first-time actors Adia, Ruth Codd, and Sauriyan Sapkota. Fellow recurring actors include former The X-Files cast member William B. Davis and actress and model Larsen Thompson, who recently appeared in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run performing her other passion: dancing.
Co-Creator Mike Flanagan Directs Two Episodes Of The Midnight Club
In addition to developing The Midnight Club into a new Netflix series and executive producing the show with co-creator Leah Fong and his longtime partner Trevor Macy, Flanagan is also returning to the director’s chair for a confirmed two episodes. In a tweet included in the same thread that revealed a good deal of the information above, the horror auteur gave a shout out to the other filmmakers taking the reins for the remaining chapters.
The Midnight Club’s additional helmers include Blumhouse’s Black Box director Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour and Axelle Carolyn, who directed episodes of The Haunting of Bly Manor, American Horror Story, Shudder’s Creepshow series, and a segment of the anthology horror movie Tales of Halloween. Viet Nguyen (director of several DC TV shows), Morgan Beggs (whose impressive career as a second unit director also includes Bly Manor), and Michael Fimognari (Mike Flanagan’s friend and longtime cinematographer) will also direct episodes.
The Midnight Club Started Filming March 2021 In Canada
During Midnight Mass’ halt in production (due to the outbreak of Covid-19), it was announced that Flanagan’s next project would be The Midnight Club, as Variety reported exclusively on May 5, 2020. According to Bloody Disgusting, the new series – like Midnight Mass, as well – would be filmed in Canada. The cameras started to roll in March 2021 and series star, Aya Furukawa revealed on Instagram (via Mike Flanagan Source on Twitter) that the final day of shooting was September 9, 2021.
Flanagan's dive into Pike’s work will not stop at his Midnight Club series, as he and Trevor Macy are working on an adaptation of the author's 1993 sci-fi novel, The Season of Passage. The filmmaker also has another Netflix series in the works based on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. From his top-notch Stephen King movies, his brilliant takes on Shirley Jackson and Henry James with The Haunting Collection, and now YA horror novels, he is looking to be the patron saint of scary literary adaptations.
