Netflix has dropped its terrifying recent show The Midnight Club just in time for Halloween. Co-created by Mike Flanagan of The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass fame, the brand new series follows a bunch of young adults with terminal cancer who resolve to live out their final days at Brightcliffe Hospice.
Every night, the gang meets within the library for The Midnight Club, which is a likelihood to inform one another scary stories. The kids make a pact with each other: that whoever dies first will try to send a message from the afterlife, so as to keep hope alive for all of those left behind. Meanwhile, recent patient Ilonka is intent on discovering the secrets hidden within the partitions of Brightcliffe, including its magical, or reasonably cult-like, history.
Fans of the series are probably wondering whether the show is totally fictional, or if The Midnight Club relies on a real story. Here’s what you want to find out about Netflix’s recent horror-infused teen drama.
Simon Pulse The Midnight Club
Simon Pulse The Midnight Club
Is The Midnight Club based on a real story?
The Midnight Club relies on the book of the identical name by the writer Christopher Pike. Meanwhile, the stories the characters tell each night are all adapted from the works of Pike, a prolific author of books for young adults. Nonetheless, that does not imply that the thought for The Midnight Club is not based on something real.
As reported by Vanity Fair, the foremost character Ilonka (portrayed by Iman Benson) is, in reality, based on an actual person, who was accountable for giving Pike the thought for The Midnight Club. When this particular teenager was diagnosed with terminal cancer within the early ’90s, her parents asked if Pike would meet together with her as she was an enormous fan. Pike began writing letters and talking to her on the phone, which is how he learned in regards to the tradition that took place at her hospital every night.
Slightly than telling scary stories, the group of young patients would meet each night for a book club, where they might often discuss Pike’s novels. From there, Pike got here up with The Midnight Club. Sadly, Pike’s inspiration didn’t live to see the finished product, however the book stays a tribute to the young patient that inspired him. So although The Midnight Club is not exactly a real story, it’s grounded in point of fact, and inspired by a young fan that impacted Pike’s stories in an enormous way.
//Netflix
Is Brightcliffe Hospice an actual place?
The setting itself is undoubtedly a vital a part of The Midnight Club, full of more mysteries than could possibly be explored in only one season. The young adults who resolve to maneuver into Brightcliffe Hospice (generally known as Rotterdam Home within the novel) are selecting to live out their final days on their very own terms. Nonetheless, Ilonka arrives at Brightcliffe believing that the constructing might help cure her cancer. After conducting some online research and reading a couple of previous patient that was seemingly cured after a stay in the power, Ilonka decides that she is going to leave the hospice in remission.
Ilonka’s hopes appear to be confirmed when strange things start happening in and around Brightcliffe. From unusual encounters with strangers in the encircling woods to sinister hidden rooms concealing rituals, Ilonka quickly becomes convinced that Brightcliffe might need the healing properties she’s examine.
The setting also lends itself to the sinister, with hints of the occult and ghosts roaming the halls at nights. Whether or not the ghosts are really there or figments of the imagination conjured by strong painkillers is all the time unclear. “The hospice has a really colourful history,” The Midnight Club’s co-creator, Mike Flanagan, told Vanity Fair. “There’s a rumor … a couple of living shadow that prowls the halls of Brightcliffe. A few of the kids speculate that it could be death itself. And among the kids, especially toward the tip of their lives, speak about this thing, getting closer and closer to them.”
As for whether or not Brightcliffe is an actual place, unfortunately the reply is not any. The series was largely filmed in Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, with shooting locations including Burnaby and Ladner Village in Delta, per Distractify. It’s currently unclear where the home that doubles as Brightcliffe Hospice is positioned, but its unusual exterior creates the proper visual for a hospice with potentially magical properties.
Much of The Midnight Club invokes the supernatural and the unbelievable. Nonetheless, the story’s origins in real-life make the spooky series much more fascinating.
Watch The Midnight Club on Netflix now.
Amy Mackelden is a contract author, editor, and disability activist. Her bylines include Harper’s BAZAAR, Nicki Swift, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, ELLE, The Independent, Bustle, Healthline, and HelloGiggles. She co-edited The Emma Press Anthology of Illness, and previously spent all of her money on Kylie Cosmetics.
