Netflix isn’t content with just breaking their own records for hours streamed, as their latest horror series The Midnight Club has just smashed a record in its opening episode.
Helmed by one of horror’s best new minds in Mike Flanagan, the series has wasted no time establishing itself. The Midnight Mass creator’s new series presents itself as a thiller horror mystery, as he looks to make 2022 as impressive as his 2021 was. It’s looking good so far, with the first episode breaking a record.
The Midnight Club’s pilot smashed a Guinness World Record which may not be beaten again anytime soon, with it earning the gong for most jump-scares in a single episode of television. Boasting 21 scripted jump scares, Flanagan was presented with his world record during a presentation at New York Comic-Con, and spoke further on why he did it.
Flanagan says he’s been instructed to add more of the horror trope into his works, and has said he has no respect for the jump scare, believing them to be “the worst”. There’s an actual reason for why his series has then included so many, and it’s an ultimate act of both pettiness and sharp writing.
“This is particularly important to me because I hate jump scares and I think they are the worst. My whole career, people have been like, put more jump scares in, and do them faster! […] The notes were already coming in of, ‘time to do jump scares.’ So I thought, we’re going to do all of them at once and, if we do it right, a jump scare will be rendered meaningless for the rest of the series and we’ll just destroy it and kill it, finally, until it’s dead.”
An act of active subversion of tropes also has another side to it for Flanagan, with him saying it’s all part of his devilish plan to eliminate the jump scare forever by playing both sides.
“Now I have my name in the Guinness Book of World Records for jump scares, which means the next time I get the note I can say, ‘As the current world record holder in jump scares, I can tell you I don’t think we need one here.’ And that’s my whole strategy.”
The Midnight Club is set to launch on Netflix from Oct. 7 as he continues to cement himself as one of the best in the genre.