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Mike Flanagan recently hit the Guinness Book of World Records for the most jump scares in a single TV episode. He included 21 jump scares in the first episode of his new Netflix horror series The Midnight Club called "The Final Chapter." While the show would be impressive on its own, with the smart characters and dialogue present in Flanagan's other projects, the way that The Midnight Club uses jump scares makes horror fans think about the place that this trope has in the genre.
While episode one has several jump scares in a row, there are a few placed throughout season 1, and they are always used well. There are a few reasons why The Midnight Club has nailed the reason to use jump scares in a scary story.
There's an art to a good jump scare and horror fans love debating this topic. When discussing his Guinness Book of World Records inclusion, Flanagan told NPR that he thinks that too many movies employ this element. Flanagan said, "I think they're overused is really my point. It's not that I dislike them. I react very much to not the jump scare itself, but to the insistence that I get usually from executives that say, 'you need to have a prescribed number of [jump scares] in the show, and you need to have five jump scares in the first 15 minutes or else it's not scary.'"
Flanagan wanted to put a ton of jump scares into one episode, and it's definitely a fun, wild and funny ride. Natsuki (Aya Furukawa) tells the first scary story of the show about a boy walking home alone one night and continually being followed by a mysterious, terrifying figure. The figure keeps popping up and is always behind him or over one shoulder. While the character in the tale is definitely freaked out, the other characters aren't so pleased with this story.
This scene is effective and hilarious. Some horror movie jump scares are good and it works in this episode because Flanagan is poking fun at how many can be included in a single horror film. Fans are used to certain tropes in this genre and while some slasher tropes are necessary, not everyone believes that having a person pop out of the darkness is a good idea.
The characters who are part of the Midnight Club and who live at Brightcliffe Hospice have a funny and smart conversation about how jump scares are a problem. Spence (William Chris Sumpter) says that being "startled" is different from being scared. The fact that Flanagan makes this distinction makes The Midnight Club one of the most exciting and entertaining horror TV shows that has been released in a while, as it's great to hear characters talking about horror in such a wise way.
Flanagan gets two things right about jump scares: keeping a sense of humor about them but also making them truly scary at times. There are so many movies where jump scares are used so poorly that it's hard not to feel frustrated. Often, a character will open a closet or door and there will be nothing there. This rarely works as well as it's supposed to, as it's become cliched and tired to see the character sighing and going on with their evening, thinking that there's no threat at all. Flanagan knows that a horror movie packed with jump scares can feel irritating for audiences who are looking for something different.
There are many good horror movies without jump scares, but sometimes, a well-placed one just does the trick. Illonka (Iman Benson) often sees an older woman without eyes standing behind her when she's walking around the hospice in the middle of the night and these are genuinely terrifying jump scares. Each time this happens, it's hard not to wince and feel chilled, as it's clear that something sinister is at Brightcliffe. These jump scares serve an important plot point. They prove that not only are there dark secrets hiding within the walls of this beautiful mansion, but Illonka has a special connection to the past as she's the character who is able to summon the magic of the five sisters. Illonka is fearless and tough in many ways but can't help but shudder when she sees this woman.
Flanagan puts out such impressive work because he knows that horror fans are looking for a more exciting, intelligent, and sophisticated scary story since so many tropes have been overused. It will be cool to see how Flanagan uses jump scares (or doesn't, as the case might be) in his next show based on an Edgar Allen Poe story, The Fall of the House of Usher, which recently finished production.