I generally try to stay away from series during the Halloween and Christmas review season. Not because I dislike them or I think they are going to be bad but simply because I don’t usually have the time to dedicate to an entire series when I’m trying to post a new review each day. Thankfully, I was able to fit The Midnight Club into my schedule this year.

Ilonka (Iman Benson) is a teenager with terminal thyroid cancer. She decides to move into Brightcliffe, a hospice for dying teenagers. Every night, the group of eight teenagers get together at midnight to tell scary stories. Is there more to the tales they tell and is Brightcliffe just a hospice center?

Last year, Mike Flanagan gave us the brilliant Midnight Mass. While The Midnight Club is based on a handful of young adult novels by Christopher Pike, I had high hopes that this would be a good series. While there are some slow parts, I was not let down.

To be honest, I don’t want to give too much of the story away. I think that this is a show that should be experienced without a lot of knowledge ahead of time. There are a few things that are up to interpretation but some other things are explained eventually. But I think my favorite thing about the series is that each story told by a teenager is based in other Christopher Pike books. They aren’t exact replicas of the books, that tends to make for terrible television anyway, but they are versions that fit the members of The Midnight Club. It is definitely an imaginative way to make the most out of all of the source material available.

In short, yes, I think you should watch it. The Midnight Club is set up to be a multi-season show. I hope that Netflix doesn’t let us down and renews the series. We could definitely use a good spooky series like this every Halloween season. And since the show is set up to have the characters die and get replaced with new ones, having the actors age out of their characters shouldn’t be a big deal. I really would love to see more of this.

Midnight Mass is our second 2021 horror series from Netflix. They did pretty well with Squid Game but can the Americans outdo the South Koreans when it comes to horror? Let’s get to it.

Crockett Island is an isolated fishing village with a population of 127. Most people left the island for the mainland. However, a few have returned. Riley (Zach Gilford) has returned after spending a few years in prison for a drunk driving incident that killed a young woman. Erin (Kate Siegel) has also returned, although now she is pregnant. In addition. a new priest, Father Paul (Hamish Linklater), has arrived to temporarily replace the elderly Monsignor while he recovers from an illness. Shortly after Father Paul has taken over, miracles begin to happen. Leeza (Annarah Cymone), a teenager confined to a wheelchair, is able to stand and walk again. Older members of the community are beginning to feel the aches and pains of aging fade. Is God blessing the community or is something more sinister going on?

It isn’t often that I get blindsided by a twist in a movie. By the time the third act starts, I frequently know how things will end and I can just cheer for the main character. Midnight Mass not only surprised me, it kept me guessing about what was going to happen next. Would the show follow the lore or the religion? Would the characters figure out what is happening in their town? My husband and I would have long conversations about what we thought would happen in the next episode. While I’m not sure where the story would go from here, I really do hope that there is a sequel. Perhaps this could turn into an anthology like American Horror Story . It would make a pretty cool series where things are kinda related but also very different.

Just because I’m talking about the story, don’t think that the actors are lacking. Everyone is so convincing in their roles. I truly felt bad for them when things started to go badly. Well, I felt bad for most of them. There were some that I was hoping would get taken out. I’m looking at you, Bev (Samantha Sloyan). But every good show needs someone to offset the protagonists. And they were very good bad guys.

Now even though I enjoyed the series tremendously, I don’t think that everyone should watch it. If you are super religious, you might find the show a little offensive. But if you are comfortable in your faith or if you aren’t Catholic, I think you would enjoy the series. It is only seven episodes long. And I wish it were longer.