If you’re a horror buff, then chances are that you’ve already seen and been scared out of your wits by Netflix’s latest show The Midnight Club.
Did the first episode of the series terrify you more than usual? It’s probably because it had a record-breaking number of jump scares packed in a single episode.
The show, which premiered recently, has broken the Guinness World Record (GWR) for most scripted jump scares in a single episode.
According to GWR, the official definition of a ‘scripted jump scare’ is that it’s a pre-planned action sequence that is executed with the intent to make a person jump or scream in fright.
Apparently, The Midnight Club’s 21 scary sequences in the first episode met the criteria for scripted jump scares, leading the show to break this bizarre world record.
The announcement was made following its premiere at the New York Comic-Con where audiences sat through record-breaking amounts of jump scares in the first episode of the show and then witnessed GWR’s adjudicator Andy Glass officially announce the news to the public.
The show is based on a 1994 Christopher Pike novel and follows the story of Ilonka Pawuk, a high school senior with a bright future ahead of her. Her life turns upside down when she gets diagnosed with a terminal illness and is sent to a hospital run by a mysterious doctor. Here, she joins a group of fellow terminally ill teens who meet every night to share scary stories with each other. One night, the group makes a pact declaring that the first one to die amongst them has to send a message from beyond the grave. This is when things start to go south. Cue the jump scares!
The show’s creator Mike Flanagan joked at the event that one of the reasons he added so many jump scares in a single episode, despite not being a huge fan of them, was to pacify the producers who kept pestering him to add them. Flanagan claimed that he has his eye on the ‘most number of on-screen deaths in a single episode’ world record now.
Let’s wait and see if he manages to break that one!
