In the spotlight … Igby Rigney and Iman Benson in The Midnight Club. The young actors prove adept at primal screams and heartwrenching monologues, but those longing for the regular Flanagan stars should not despair: his favourites are sprinkled throughout in delicious cameos. But even the best among them cannot reach the beguiling heights of TikTok star Ruth Codd’s screen debut as nihilist rebel Anya (Flanagan has wisely snapped her up for House of Usher). The other residents at first seem like a morbid Breakfast Club, with familiar teen stereotypes, though of course all is not as it appears with Igby Rigney’s dreamy boy-next-door Kevin, William Chris Sumpter’s quick-witted Spence, or Annarah Cymone’s naive Sandra. Never has someone been so menacing while brandishing a blueberry. Though resolved to spend her final days at Brightcliffe a glimmer of hope remains, and she cannot resist the help of Samantha Sloyan’s sinister local naturalist, who seems to have emerged from Goop headquarters by way of Salem. Iman Benson is Ilonka, who was on her way to an Ivy League college when she got her diagnosis. The performances are uniformly excellent: unable to rely on his regular cast of players, Flanagan has assembled a new crop of young talent to play the dying teens.
Occasional missteps aside, Flanagan’s reverence for the literature from which his work derives keeps this Pike tribute intriguing throughout. The Haunting of Hill House (Jackson) was a triumph, but The Haunting of Bly Manor (James) was weighed down by bland sentimentality. Having pleased the streaming overlords, Flanagan got to create his own sub-genre, with horror mini-series rooted in the literature of Shirley Jackson, Henry James and Stephen King, with Edgar Allan Poe-inspired The Fall of the House of Usher expected next year. His first forays breathed new life into the slasher genre by terrorising a deaf woman in Hush, and sex in Gerald’s Game built to a degloving scene that nearly broke the internet. The Midnight Club is Flanagan’s fourth Netflix series.
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