Editor's Note: The following article contains spoilers for Season 1 of The Midnight Club. Created by Mike Flanagan and Leah Fong, The Midnight Club follows a group of terminal patients of Brightcliffe, a hospice dedicated to young adults. The series follows the group as they come to terms with their unfair situation and learn how to embrace death as a way to enjoy the little life that’s left on them. One of the main tools these young people use for dealing with the hardships of life is horror stories, tales they share in the library when the clock rings at midnight. That’s where the series name comes from, as the members of the Midnight Club take turns to scare their friends and share horror stories closely related to their personal experiences with death and sickness.
Following a quasi-anthology format, each episode of The Midnight Club invites a new Brightcliffe patient to share a horror story. All of these stories help the viewer better understand the patients while also being used to push character arches forward. So, there’s no question they are all meaningful in their own way. However, some stories stand out as true horror tales, either because they are scary or because they are utterly weird. And now that The Midnight Club is finally available on Netflix, it’s time we rank all the individual stories featured in the series, from the irrelevant to the most bone-chilling.
The School Girl Ghost (Natsuki)
Maybe it’s because we only listen to the ending of it, but Natsuki's (Aya Furukawa) tale of the schoolgirl ghost is by far the worst story in The Midnight Club. The story follows a young man who tries to go back home alone in the night, only to be tormented by a ghost who always shows up on his back. The story introduces Ilonka (Iman Benson) to the Midnight Club but has little more purpose than that. At least the tale of the schoolgirl ghost starts an interesting discussion about jump scares, marks of cheap frights in horror, but effective ways to release adrenaline in the bloodstream. It is also the scene that earned Flanagan and company the Guinness World Record for jamming in the most jump scares in one scene (21!).
Julia Jayne’s Story (Ilonka)
Just like Natsuki’s school girl ghost story, Ilonka’s first contribution to the Midnight Club is less about exploring the inner universe of the character and more about presenting the core mystery of the season. By giving Julia Jayne’s (Larsen Thompson) story a supernatural outline, Ilonka wants to test her new friends about their knowledge of Brightcliffe’s history while also proving she is a good storyteller and well-deserving of her spot in the club. However, even though Ilonka’s changes to Julia Jayne’s story are interesting, the tale is just a retelling of something that will be hammered the whole season. Besides that, Ilonka never gets to finish her first horror story, pushing this first tale to the bottom of the list.
The Eternal Enemy (Spencer)
“The Eternal Enemy” does too little, too late. This is a shame because Spencer (Chris Sumpter) is one of the best characters in The Midnight Club. Spencer’s only horror story goes back to his college years when he met the man who would give him AIDS. But instead of dealing with the damage that was inadvertently done to him, Spencer wants to celebrate love and his identity as a gay man. The issue with “The Eternal Enemy” is that the story only comes in the ninth episode when we are all more interested in the resolution of the series’ central mystery. The fact this tale doesn’t push the story forward also damages its reception. Finally, “The Eternal Enemy” is the second story of the season to deal with time travel and people altering their own fate, which feels a little uninspired just before the season finale.
See You Later (Amesh)
Amesh (Sauriyan Sapkota) presents “See You Later” after burying his suit in a fake funeral. As it turns out, Amesh survives longer than doctors first thought he would, and to celebrate the occasion, the young man shares a touching time-traveling story where he saves the whole world. “See You Later” is not scary, but it deals with some uncomfortable subjects, such as the human desire to go back in time and change the course of their lives for the better. It also speaks of Amesh’s fantasy of saving the world, something he will never do due to his health condition. While “The Eternal Enemy” is a freaky sci-fi story, it’s still not disturbing enough to rank higher on this list.
Gimme a Kiss (Sandra)
Who would have thought that one of the most entertaining stories of The Midnight Mass would come from Sandra (Annarah Cymone)? At the beginning of the series, Sandra looks like a one-dimensional religious fanatic, one that pushes away everyone different from what her faith preaches. But through “Gimme a Kiss,” Sandra can show how she’s a complex human being like all of her friends. On top of that, the story serves as an apology for the way she ignored how her religion damaged gay people like Spencer. While representing one of the most significant character growths of the whole season, “Gimme a Kiss” is also a perfect homage to campy noir stories, where detectives face absurd murders and incredible twists. The fact the story is presented in black and white and in a square screen format only makes “Gimme a Kiss” stand out even more from the rest of the club’s stories.
Witch (Ilonka)
Since “Witch” is split into two parts, the story becomes a testament to the changes caused by Anya’s (Ruth Codd) death. Ilonka tells the first half of “Witch” when Anya is still alive and the girl is considering using her Paragon discovers to save her friend. That’s why, in “Witch,” Ilonka turns into a sorcerer who’s capable of seeing the future and, unfortunately, causes the death of her friend. During this first half of the story, Ilonka ponders messing with fate and imagines the deadly consequences of preventing someone’s death. The story is only wrapped up during the season finale when Ilonka has already accepted she will die just like Anya and that the Paragon magic might not be real. That changes “Witch,” as the story becomes a fantasy where Ilonka gives away her life to save Anya. “Witch” hits even harder when Ilonka bursts into tears and can’t finish the story, leading the rest of the Midnight Club to co-author the beautiful ending.
Road to Nowhere (Natsuki)
It takes a while for Natsuki to get another shot at telling a story in The Midnight Club, but when she does, she blows our minds off. “Road to Nowhere” has a chilling atmosphere as we watch a version of Natsuki driving nonstop on a road that never seems to end. Natsuki’s character, Teresa, grabs two hitchhikers along the way, musicians trying to get to their next gig. Freedom Jack (Henry Thomas) is carefree and wild and wants Teresa to keep on driving. Poppy Corn (Alex Essoe) tries to convince the girl to stop and think about what she’s doing. There’s a constant eeriness in Teresa’s journey. The night is dark and mist prevents her from seeing too far away, and no matter how much she drives, she still ends up in the same gas station. As it turns out, the story represents Natsuki’s suicide attempt, a twist that’s not exactly surprising but still makes “Road to Nowhere” one of the most devastating stories of the season.
The Two Danas (Anya)
Doppelgängers, the Devil, the existential dread of losing control of your own body… Anya’s “The Two Danas” raised the bar for The Midnight Club anthology really high, and just in the show’s second episode. The story follows a ballerina who makes a deal with the Devil to split herself into two bodies. One body would stay home and remain the perfect daughter, while the other would party like there was no tomorrow. It’s a killer concept that’s flawlessly executed and helps to tell the audience exactly what to expect from the show: creative horror stories that serve a higher purpose, as they allow the audience to know the Midnight Club’s members better.
The Wicked Heart (Kevin)
Our boy Dusty takes the crown as the king of horror stories in The Midnight Club. Told in three engaging parts, “The Wicked Heart” is simultaneously a gripping serial killer story and a tragic tale of family curses. In the story, Kevin (Igby Rigney) plays the part of a serial killer haunted by the ghosts of his victims. Dusty is a sympathetic character, capable of committing gruesome crimes but still trapped inside the mask he puts on to trick everybody into thinking he’s perfect. And while Kevin doesn’t seem to have a killer instinct, he does put other people’s needs above his desires. “The Wicked Heart” is the best story of The Midnight Club because it still serves the bigger plot, and allows us to get to know Kevin. Still, this is one spooky story that works perfectly well as a twisted tale of a killer, spiced up with supernatural outlines.
The Midnight Club is available right now on Netflix. Check out the series trailer below: