‘The Midnight Club’ Review: Mike Flanagan’s YA Netflix Series Is Hauntingly Beautiful

EXCLUSIVE: Brian Wittenstein has left the Hyperion Talent Agency. According to multiple sources, it all came down quickly this week. I hear a client of his approached the leadership of Hyperion, launched and run by former UTA agent Ryan Bartlett, with a complaint about Wittenstein’s behavior. Details are sketchy but according to sources, whatever Wittenstein did had made her uncomfortable. After some due diligence, I hear Wittenstein was let go and escorted out of the building.

Khloe Kardashian is "done" with having kids. The 38-year-old reality star is already mother to four-year-old True and a two-month-old son with ex-boyfriend Tristan Thompson but does not wish to have another child in the future because she already has "one of each. " She said: "I’m one of both and I think I’m good.

Jennifer Coolidge was once "locked up" by border control. The 61-year-old actress was travelling from the US to London when she had issues with her passport and found herself detained by customs in the airport only to be offered a choice of noodles or crisps after waiting for several hours. She told Entertainment Weekly:" For some reason, [my passport], it wouldn't scan right, and next thing you know customs is calling me over.

A dancer who was a body double in the 2004 Harvey Weinstein-produced film Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights took the stand Thursday in Weinstein’s Los Angeles sexual assault trial. A so-called “prior bad acts” witness, Ashley M. gave a harrowing account of an hotel encounter with Weinstein during the Miramax film’s 2003 production in Puerto Rico that ended with Weinstein allegedly masturbating on her.

Tomorrow, we hear is Courtenay Valenti’s last day as Warner Bros. President of Production and Development after we told you first that she was exiting the Burbank, CA lot after a 33-year run.

“There are no small roles,” said famed acting teacher Konstantin Stanislavski. Did he foresee the future of William Jackson Harper, whose addition to the cast of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has been confirmed by Disney sources?

The one that nobody read? Matthew Perry gets candid about the cast of Friends in his memoir — but he still doesn’t think they’ll read it. 

[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]

Leslie Jordan was honored with a touching tribute during Thursday night’s episode of Fox‘s Call Me Kat, after the actor and comedian died in a single-car crash in Hollywood at the age of 67 on Monday.

Oh man, even more evidence Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson‘s relationship may not be quite as over as it seemed…

 New Twitter CEO Elon Musk is now officially in charge of the service, acccording to numerous reports, as his $44 billion acquisition has officially closed.

Rock ‘n’ roll all night — and then pamper yourself with an array of products that will lull you into sleepy time bliss.

From law school to the White House! Bill Clinton met Hillary Clinton (née Rodham) while they were studying at Yale Law School and have been together ever since.

UPDATED with afternoon session: A friend of Haleigh Breest’s who texted her in 2013 that filmmaker Paul Haggis had committed “borderline rape” against Breest dropped the “borderline” qualification in court on Thursday. 

EXCLUSIVE: Stephen Colbert joined his old friend Charlamagne tha God to give his thoughts on who should replace Trevor Noah as host of The Daily Show.

Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes are investing time in their spiritual side…

Glasgow Clan yesterday announced the departure of head coach Malcolm Cameron as their turbulent season continued.

Cashing in on her good name! Maren Morris once again reclaimed her “Lunatic Country Music Person” title after Fox News labeled her with the moniker amid her fe​ud with Brittany Aldean.

In his just-published memoir, Waypoints: My Scottish Journey, Outlander star Sam Heughan opens up about a brutal scene he shot in Season 1 of the Starz show and how it affected him negatively—a topic he hasn’t broached in depth before.

UPDATED with afternoon session: A Los Angeles police officer testified Thursday during Danny Masterson’s rape trial that while didn’t remember the specifics of an initial meeting with Jane Doe #1 in 2004 at the LAPD Hollywood station, he did take her claims about being attacked by Masterson in his Hollywood Hills home in April 2003 “to be a sexual assault.”

Jenny Ramirez is joining her old boss Corie Henson at NBC.

Still friends outside the house! Big Brother alums Taylor Hale, Joseph Abdin and Matt Turner reunited for a weekend trip to Alberta, Canada.

 

Adele is planning to study for a university degree in English Literature. During a recent fan Q&A session in Los Angeles to promote the video for her song I Drink Wine, the British superstar revealed that she wants to take up a course after she wraps up her Weekends with Adele residency in Las Vegas next month. "After Vegas, I really want to get a degree in English Literature.

A shady start? Prince Harry‘s highly anticipated memoir is already raising eyebrows — just from its title.

Her California girl! Katy Perry isn’t just amicable with fiancé Orlando Bloom’s ex Miranda Kerr — they’re BFFs, a source exclusively tells Us Weekly.

“Bly Manor,” “Midnight Mass” and now “The Midnight Club.”Based on novels by YA horror author Christopher Pike (also an executive producer), “The Midnight Club” is set in 1990s California and follows college-bound students.Ilonka (Iman Benson) is a star student who gets a terminal-cancer diagnosis right when it feels like her whole life is ahead of her. After finding Brightcliffe online, she gets her foster dad Tim — Matt Biedel, who looks like he gets the call when David Harbour is busy — to agree to take her to the mysterious hospice for a “trial run,” like “cancer sleepaway camp,” she says.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOLER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched through the Season 1 finale of Netflix’s “The Midnight Club.” “The Haunting of Hill House” and “Midnight Mass” mastermind Mike Flanagan turned his attention to a younger audience for his new Netflix series, “The Midnight Club,” which launched Friday. The new drama concludes its 10-episode first season with just a few answers, and many more questions about the fate of Ilonka (Iman Benson) and her fellow terminally ill teens at Brightcliffe Hospice, the Paragon cult’s mysterious connection to Dr. Stanton (Heather Langenkamp), the teens’ head caregiver and owner of the hospice, what actually happened to Julia Jayne/Shasta (Samantha Sloyan) and why those elderly ghosts are haunting Ilonka and Kevin (Igby Rigney).

Note: Spoilers for the final episode of “The Midnight Club” Season 1 follow below.Fans of filmmaker Mike Flanagan’s other Netflix series may have been shocked to discover that, when it came to the Season 1 finale of “The Midnight Club,” there are a couple of huge plot threads left dangling. Indeed, this is the “Haunting of Hill House” and “Midnight Mass” creator’s first series that’s designed to be an ongoing show instead of a limited series, and in that regard the “Midnight Club” finale ending offers up a pretty massive cliffhanger.The first season of the Christopher Pike adaptation concludes with Ilonka (Iman Benson) and Kevin (Igby Rigney) finally kissing as the kids of the Midnight Club have come to some semblance of acceptance with regards to Anya’s (Ruth Codd) death and Sandra’s (Annarah Cymone) miraculous recovery.Julia Jayne (Samantha Sloyan), meanwhile, is in the wind having had her ritualistic sacrifice thwarted by Dr.

By It takes a certain kind of wisdom to know your calling in life as a child. It takes even more to then make that happen. But watch Iman Benson on screen, and it becomes so clear she knew something at age nine that most people take a lifetime to figure out: This is what she’s meant to do. The actor, now 22, has had roles on hit shows like Suits and BlackAF, but she delivers her first true breakthrough performance in Netflix’s The Midnight Club, now streaming.

Mike Flanagan is as sentimental about storytelling as he is about horror, for better and for worse. Sometimes that has led to a unique heartbeat in his work—the aching pain in his landmark Shirley Jackson adaptation “The Haunting of Hill House,” or his dedication to making us see the demons of “The Shining” in a different light with his unfairly maligned feature “Doctor Sleep.” But his latest project, co-created with Leah Fong, shows that affinity getting the better of him.

Four years after Mike Flanagan's breakout success with , the horror expert is back with a new offering, this time titled. The new show, streaming on Netflix starting Oct.

A THRILLING new Netflix show has broken records for having the most jump scares in a horror series.  The brand new show, The Midnight Club, has been presented with a Guinness World Record for having the single most jump scares in an episode.  The show follows the success of its creator Mike Flanagan’s previous Netflix horror offerings, The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass.  The show received acknowledgement for having a total of 21 jump scares and received the honour at the New York Netflix headquarters.  Mike has begun to develop himself as one of the horror genre’s biggest presence after directing the feature film Hush as well as being involved in Stephen King’s sequel to The Shining, named Doctor Sleep.  Read More on Netflixflix tips Four incredible Netflix hacks that almost no one knows – including secret menuROYALLY WEIRD Aussie who bizarrely claims he’s Charles' child reveals plan for Netflix doc Despite achieving the most jump scares, Mike has expressed his dislike for jump scares in movies in the past.  He said to Deadline: “My whole career I completely s*** on jump scares as a concept, and I wanted to make sure it was pinned to me, too, as much as it is to the show, to Netflix, and all of us who have inflicted this on everyone.” He added: “Now, I have my name in the Guinness Book of World Records for jump scares, which means next time I get the note, I can say, ‘You know, as the current world record holder for jump scares, I don’t think we need one here.’” Most read in Streamingit's back! Legendary TV show returning after 18 years off screen - with an iconic comebackLAST CHANCE Every TV show and film leaving Netflix in NovemberBINGE TV New on Netflix: Latest releases and what

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic Mike Flanagan has, of late, distinguished himself as one of Netflix’s signature creators and as a generational figure in the horror genre; though his past series for the streamer, including “Midnight Mass” and “The Haunting of Hill House,” have been of various quality overall and from episode to episode, they’re consistently interesting. His willingness to engage ideas with his scares sets him apart, perhaps more than it should. So it is with “The Midnight Club,” which Flanagan and Leah Fong co-created based on the work of YA novelist Christopher Pike. Here, Iman Benson plays Ilonka, a college-bound high school salutatorian who receives a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Ilonka is both a star student and an idealist; she researches Brightcliffe, a facility to which her foster father can take her to be placed into hospice, and holds in reserve a secret hope that there will, there, be a miracle cure for her. What she finds, first, is a circle of ill teens who gather when the clock strikes twelve to share scary stories; it’s a mordant nihilism they share, and a sense of indulgent pleasure in the knowledge that things could be worse: They could be fighting against cosmic forces of evil.

A Guinness World Record for the most scripted jump scares in a single episode of television has a claimant. Coincidentally (well, not really), it’s a new series premiering on Netflix.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Mike Flanagan has faced his worst fear: The jump scare. The “Midnight Mass” and “Haunting of Hill House” mastermind packed 21 separate instances of the classic horror trope into the premiere of his latest Netflix series, “The Midnight Club,” a tally so high it actually breaks the Guinness World Record for “most scripted jump scares in a single television episode.” A Guinness World Record official presented Flanagan and Co. their certificate for the achievement during the “Midnight Club’s” New York Comic Con panel Thursday night, which included a preview of the premiere episode ahead of the show’s Friday launch.