When kids scare the living sh*t out of each other

The Midnight Club, the latest in Mike Flanagan's horror universe, is more mysterious than it sounds.

The series, which premiered on 7 October in Netflix, is based on the 1994 novels by young adult horror author Christopher Pike. It's about a group of terminally ill teenagers living at Brightcliffe Hospice.

The patients — Ilonka (Iman Benson), Sandra (Annarah Cymone), Natsuki (Aya Furukawa), Kevin (Igby Rigney), Anya (Ruth Codd), Spence (Chris Sumpter), Amesh (Sauriyan Sapkota), Cheri (Adia) — creep into the hospice's library at night to take turns telling the scariest horror stories they could think of.

Heather Langenkamp plays Dr. Georgia Stanton. Viewers may recognize her as Nancy in the classic 1984 film A Nightmare on Elm Street.

For an idea of the sinister stuff that transpires in The Midnight Club: Occultist symbols appear everywhere; the elevator seems possessed; an old woman and man, both suffering from cataract, wander the halls; and the mysterious diary of a previously cured patient is suddenly discovered.

The Guinness World Records recently announced the series was recognized for the most scripted jump scares in a single episode — 21 in its first episode alone. The award was presented by the official Guinness adjudicator Andrew Glass during The Midnight Club panel at New York Comic Con on 6 October.

Flanagan, who also directed Haunting of the Hill House, Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, and Doctor Sleep, revealed in an interview with insider.com that several Easter eggs are scattered throughout The Midnight Club, including nods to his upcoming Netflix series The Fall of the House of Usher.

However, the 10-episode series' potential second season still hangs in the balance.

"This was designed to be ongoing. I don't know if it will, we'll see how it goes. And we probably won't know for another month or so what Netflix wants to do. But this was very much designed to continue. Pike has 80 books, so we have a lot of incredible material to pull from," Flanagan said.

The Midnight Club streams on Netflix worldwide.