Midnight Mass creator ditches Netflix for new streaming service

Praised by Stephen King and Quentin Tarantino for his magnificent use of suspense, filmmaker Mike Flanagan is the creator of Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor, two popular horror shows that left viewers shivering. It's likely that you have seen a few of Flanagan's earlier films too, like Hush, Ouija: Origin of Evil and Doctor Sleep.

In spite of his reception in the genre, his most recent show The Midnight Club didn't meet Netflix's internal goals for the show when it came out in October. Though Flanagan often isn't one for jumpscares, the show set the new world record for leaping out of your seat and after seeing that synopsis, it sounds justified. The Brightcliffe Home hospice houses a group of terminally ill young adults who meet in the night to tell each other ghost stories. But, when one of their fellow patients passes away, strange things start to happen and the peaceful image of the hospice might be a horrifying facade.

Here's the trailer:

Of course, The Midnight Club's cancellation is sad for fans and Flanagan had said that there was a grand plan for the show beyond its debut. "The show was designed to carry forward and we made the decision in the writers room not to reveal two of our kind of bigger existential secrets of the show so that we’d have something to say in the second season," he said in an interview with The Wrap.

Now, though, Flanagan and Intrepid Pictures CEO Trevor Macy have entered an exclusive multi-year overall series deal with Amazon Studios. This arises at the end of a pre-existing overall series deal between their company Intrepid Pictures and Netflix, and Deadline states that the two shopped around before settling on which streamer to opt for. I'm slightly gutted that it's not Apple TV but Netflix subscribers still have another show to look forward to from Flanagan - The Fall of the House of Usher.

“Amazon is a studio that we have long admired,” said Flanagan and Macy in a statement. “Their commitment to engaging in groundbreaking series and content aligns with the ethos of what we have built at Intrepid. We are looking forward to working with the entire Amazon team as we bring our brand of genre productions to the service and audiences around the globe.”