Mike Flanagan's 'Midnight Club' set Guinness World Record for jump scares

The Midnight Club is a 10-episode Netflix horror series created by Mike Flanagan and Leah Fong. Its first episode, "The Final Chapter," directed by Flanagan, runs 58 minutes and contains 21 jump scares, the most in a single television episode and enough to earn a Guinness World Record.

The show follows eight young, terminally ill adults living together in hospice care who gather each night in the home's dark basement to tell stories and make a pact about signaling from the other side. Flanagan set out to infuse the series intro with as many scream-inducing moments as possible, crafting a premiere meant to test audiences' resilience and establish the show's concept.

The scare tactics vary: some moments are genuinely terrifying, others lean on familiar clichés like the cat, and at one point so many jolts arrive in quick succession that laughter becomes the only response.

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