Netflix horror series The Midnight Club has broken the Guinness World Record for the most jump scares in a single episode.
Showrunner Mike Flanagan returns to the streaming service following his success with The Haunting of Hill House, ...Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass with the new series based on Christopher Pike’s 1994 novel of the same name. The series follows a group of terminally ill teenagers who gather at midnight in the spooky Brightcliffe hospice to share horror stories, while something sinister appears to be bubbling below the surface.
The show has proved yet another big hit for Netflix, as it currently sits behind Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story in the number two spot in the US, and writer-producer Mike reportedly already has plans for a second season. Mike – who also directed Stephen King’s The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep – has proven himself the modern master of horror tension, and as with his previous chilling outputs, The Midnight Club is chock full of scary and disturbing moments.
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There are a whopping 21 jump scares coming in just its first episode, an accolade which has broken the Guinness World Record for the most scripted jump scares in a single television episode. Mike has previously spoken of his disdain for jump scares and says he has a “love hate relationship” with them, describing it as “mostly hate” as he feels they can be “very lazy.”
In one particularly meta moment in the show’s first episode, the characters even berate one another for including too many jump scares in their story telling. The horror auteur, who was officially presented with his award during a panel at New York Comic Con on Thursday, said to Deadline: “My whole career I completely s**t on jump scares as a concept, and I wanted to make sure it was pinned to me, too, as much as it is to the show, to Netflix, and all of us who have inflicted this on everyone.
“Now, I have my name in the Guinness Book of World Records for jump scares, which means next time I get the note, I can say, ‘You know, as the current world record holder for jump scares, I don’t think we need one here.’”
The Midnight Club is available to stream now on Netflix.
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