horror – Chapter Z Magazine

The Midnight Club is Netflix’s newest teen horror show, admittedly, a relatively unexplored genre in the last few years

The most notable piece of teen horror in modern times was Nickelodeon’s ‘Are You Afraid Of The Dark?’, and The Midnight Club seems to draw certain inspiration from the original show.

The ten-episode series is inspired by Christopher Pike’s young adult novel, with Mike Flanagan at the helm. Flanagan is Netflix’s go-to director for horror series, with Netflix’s Midnight Mass (2021), The Haunting of Hill House (2018), and The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020) lodged in his CV.

The Midnight Club tells us the story of an enigmatic doctor running the Brightcliffe Hospice. Eight terminally ill young adults reunite at midnight to tell each other spooky stories, which start becoming real after one of the group dies mysteriously.

Iman Benson plays Ilonka, a high school salutatorian diagnosed with terminal cancer. An idealist and academic, Ilonka comes upon Brightcliffe, the facility where her foster father can take her to be placed in hospice, hoping there could be a secret cure for her there. Instead, she stumbles upon other terminal patients sharing nihilistic stories that somehow stave off the feeling of dread from the awareness of their illnesses by implying there could be something far worse. Everything seems standardly dreadful until the first jump-scare, where the stories end up being more than just that. \

The Midnight Club © Netflix

The story explores the existential dread and fear of certain death while mixing the patients’ vulnerability and hope for a cure despite their suffering from terminal medical conditions. Some of the patients have different types of terminal cancer. Others have AIDS, one has depression. The series takes place in the mid-1990s.

There are also ominous rituals, creepy nurses and a constant feeling of bleakness: if the characters survive the horrors at the hospice, they’re still most likely going to die because of their illnesses.

The series premiered on Netflix on October 7th and stars William Chris Sumpter, Ruth Code, Aya Furukawa, Annarah Shephard, and Sauriyan Sapkota. Zach Gilford, Matt bindle, and Samantha Sloyan have recurring roles.

Good horror discusses the most primal human fears and ugly things that could happen to someone through storytelling and, most likely, jumpscares. Beyond fear, good horror storytelling instils a diversity of human emotions: compassion, empathy, and curiosity. The Midnight Club is an example of great horror. Grief and loss aren’t easy to cope with, much less when everything is mysteriously trying to kill you at a hospital.

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey see Pooh and Piglet become murderous animalistic humanoids instead of stuffed animals

The concept surrounding might sound barebones for a slasher film in the 21st century if it weren’t for the two iconic childhood friends chasing down Christopher Robin and others. Yes, we’re talking about a real thing.

The Hundred Acre Woods has been left without food and, amid starvation, the two beloved animals have eaten Eeyore and are set out on revenge against their former friend.

Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain on January 1, 2022. This means anyone can make an adaptation now. The film is produced by Jagged Edge Productions and will be distributed by ITN Studios and MovieCompany.

Christopher Robin returns years later with his new wife and a couple of friends, looking to introduce them to his old friends. Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet weren’t amused, to say the least. The lack of food and fending themselves for so long made them become feral, returning to their animal roots.

To avenge their betrayal, they decided to go on a murderous rampage for human flesh, including attacking a group of college girls who occupy a rural cabin. The film was shot in the Ashdown Forest of East Sussex, England and has received some criticism for the apparent fact that it takes a beloved childhood character and turns him into a slasher film serial killer.

Winnie-the-Pooh from the new Horror Adaption @ Immortal Masks

In the trailer, Pooh wears a red flannel shirt with overalls, while Piglet wears a boiler suit and looks more like a Boarglet. Apparently, this was an intentional choice by the director to avoid potential issues with copyright claims and to distance the movie from the children’s book series.

People have called the film a horrific take on Winnie-the-Pooh, and that it had the makings of a dark and twisted cult classic. However, Jon Mendelsohn, a writer for Collider, called the film images bizarre, nightmare fuel and that the internet is freaking out.

Others praised the idea, with Rotem Rusak from Nerdisk expressing that seeing the iconic childhood bear reimagined as a nightmarish slasher monster denotes a delightful imaginative spirit.

If you’re not alienated by the idea of children’s characters being turned into monstrous killers, ala online creepypasta meets the big screen, then you might enjoy the film.

And, the backlash didn’t deter creator Frake-Waterfield, who wants to create a sequel to go “even crazier and more extreme.”

Other stories that entered the public domain include Bambi, with some Redditors clamouring for a more book-accurate animated film adaptation.

The Midnight Club is Netflix’s newest teen horror show, admittedly, a relatively unexplored genre in the last few years

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey see Pooh and Piglet become murderous animalistic humanoids instead of stuffed animals