Mike Flanagan’s horror series, The Midnight Club, has already broken records. During the series’ panel at New York Comic Con, the record for the most planned jump scares in a single television episode was broken. Official Guinness World Records adjudicator Andrew Glass presented the certificate on October 6 at the panel. The streamer asserts that one episode of the upcoming season contains a total of 21 jump scares.
The Midnight Club, which is based on a book by Christopher Pike, follows the residents of Brightcliffe, a hospice where young adults may accept their imminent death and take charge of what is left of their life. The Midnight Club is the fourth television series concept that Flanagan and his collaborator Trevor Macy have been working on under their Intrepid Pictures label. Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Hill House, and The Haunting of Bly Manor are now part of the same series.
Mike stated in an interview with Tv Insider that “This is particularly important to me because I hate jumpscares. My whole career, people have been like, put more jump scares in and do them faster.” He further added, “I hate them ’cause I feel like it’s very easy to walk up behind somebody and smash things.” In an effort to make them meaningless and “just wreck it and kill eventually till it’s dead,” Flanagan claimed that the Christopher Pike-based television series incorporated so many jump scares in one episode.
With a flawless career filled with films and TV shows that employ the supernatural to address human themes, Flanagan is currently one of the most significant voices in contemporary horror. The director is renowned for his intensely emotional horror films, but he is also renowned for his expertly performed jumpscares, which seamlessly integrate into the story to give us a rush and keep us glued to the backs of our seats. Jumpscares abound in movies like Ouija: Origin of Evil and television shows like The Haunting of Hill House, but none of them feel cheap, therefore these works are all highly regarded.