‘The Midnight Club’: 4 Things Mike Flanagan Changed From Christopher Pike’s Novel
The new creepy Netflix series, The Midnight Club, arrived on the steamer on Oct. 7. Showrunner Mike Flanagan brings one of the ’90s biggest horror author’s novels to life, and we are absolutely here for it. It’s based on Christopher Pike’s novel of the same name, but Flanagan makes a few changes to the original story. Trust us, it only amps up the scares. Let’s get into it. Here are four differences in Flanagan’s version compared to The Midnight Club novel.
[WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for the book and Netflix version of The Midnight Club.]
Mike Flanagan adds some scares to the Netflix version of ‘The Midnight Club’
As a ’90s kid with a deep (and slightly obsessive) love for horror, Christopher Pike novels easily became my go-to books. While Pike’s version of The Midnight Club seems scary from a quick glance at the book cover, it’s much more emotional than frightening. The cover features a group of teens sitting at a table while a black-robed creature with its back to the viewer holds a skeletal-like finger up in the air. The teens live in a private hospice center, and each night they tell stories to the group. Eventually, they make a pact that requires whoever dies first to try to contact the group from beyond the grave. The only problem is that only a couple of their tales qualify as horror.
Flanagan rectifies this in the television version. He only uses one of the stories told in the novel and instead fills his version of The Midnight Club with other works by Pike. If you’re familiar with the author’s work, you’ll find plots from his other books like Gimme a Kiss, See You Later, The Eternal Enemy, and more.
Additional characters than those featured in ‘The Midnight Club’ novel
Pike’s version of The Midnight Club features five main characters – Ilonka, Anya, Kevin, Spencer, and Sandra. All of those people show up in the Netflix series, but Flanagan throws in a few more as well. Audiences also get to know Cherie, a girl at Brightcliffe Hospice who comes from wealthy celebrities, Natsuki, a teen dealing with depression on top of her terminal illness, and Amesh, a boy dying from brain cancer who desperately wants his parents’ immigration paperwork to get approved before he dies.
Viewers also meet a male nurse who bonds with Spencer, Dr. Georgina Stanton, who runs the hospice, and Shasta, a mysterious woman Ilonka meets in the woods. The extra characters don’t take away from the story. In fact, they only add more depth and enhance the plot.
Mike Flanagan adds a cult to his version of ‘The Midnight Club’
In the novel, the story focuses simply on the teens coming to grips with their mortality. Each of their stories brings something unique to the plot, but again, most of them aren’t scary. Flanagan throws in a creepy cult to his version of The Midnight Club, and it amps up the fear factor.
In the Netflix series, before Brightcliffe took over the old Victorian home, a cult used parts of the house to perform rituals. When Ilonka meets Shasta in the woods, she sends her on a journey to learn more about the Paragon group. None of this happens in the novel.
More people die in Christopher Pike’s novel
Netflix hasn’t hinted at The Midnight Club continuing on for a sophomore season. I assumed like with Flanagan’s other Netflix series, like Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Hill House, and The Haunting of Bly Manor, all ran as limited series. Pike’s novel shows all of the kids dying by the end, but Flanagan took a different route.
In Flanagan’s version, only Anya dies by the end of episode 10. One member of The Midnight Club leaves for other reasons, but the rest are still alive in the series. Plus, the last episode of The Midnight Club features a pretty big twist that leaves the door open for Flanagan to pick up the story again if he chooses. (We really hope he does, so keep those fingers crossed.)
Stream all episodes of The Midnight Club exclusively on Netflix.
