New Netflix show sets world record for jump scares

It’s officially spooky season. Personally, I’m far from a horror enjoyer, regardless of whether it’s in movie, TV show or game form. Until very recently, my only experience with horror games was limited to Five Nights at Freddy’s, which is in equal parts embarrassing and funny. 

Anyway, it’s for precisely this reason that I’ll be staying far, far away from The Midnight Club. The new 10-part Netflix series premiered on 7 October, and the first episode has smashed the world record for the most jump scares in a single TV episode, which is something I never wish to sit through. I realise, however, that I’m just a wuss, and this probably sounds quite exciting to a lot of people. 

Take a look at the trailer for The Midnight Club right here.

As reported by Entertainment Weekly, the series’ creator, Mike Flanagan (also the creator of Midnight Mass and The Haunting of Bly Manor), isn’t actually a fan of jump scares - as a horror trope, he thinks they’re just lazy. That said, he’d constantly been pushed by executives to include more of them, which is why he aimed to break the world record in The Midnight Club. 

“I thought, ‘we’re going to do all of them at once, and then if we do it right, a jump scare will be rendered meaningless for the rest of the series.’ It’ll just destroy it. Kill it finally until it's dead,” he said. “But that didn't happen. They were like, ‘great! More [scares]!’”

It definitely sounds like this amount of jump scares is a one time deal from Flanagan, though: “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,” he continued. “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.’”