Is There a Real Brightcliffe Hospice? What Location Is It In?
The Midnight Club on Netflix tells the story of eight kids who are terminally sick and reside in Brightcliffe Hospice. They must accept their coming mortality because there is no remedy in sight, but even in their darkest hours, they are able to laugh and express their love for one another. They diverge from one another during the day, but come together at the library at midnight to listen to a horror story. Each night, one of them performs on stage and “makes ghosts,” but they have no idea that Brightcliffe itself is home to a sizable number of ghosts. The setting’s past plays a significant role in the story as the adolescents’ quest for a cure pushes them to their breaking point. Here’s what you need to know about Brightcliffe if you’re wondering if it’s a real place or not.
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Is There a RealBrightcliffe Hospice?
No, the setting for Brightcliffe Hospice is not an actual location. The same-titled book by Christopher Pike served as the source of inspiration for “The Midnight Club.” The hospice in the books is known as Rotterham Home, another fictional location made up by the author. Pike created the plot and the setting, but after speaking to a fan, he had an idea for the characters and the environment.
A couple with a terminally ill kid once came up to Pike. She was a tremendous admirer of his writing. The parents contacted Pike in the hopes that their daughter’s final wish may come true because they understood how joyful it would make her to meet her beloved author. Pike, on the other hand, resided on the other coast, making it extremely challenging for him to meet her in person. But he continued to communicate with her via phone calls and letters. This young lady was the one who informed Pike of her hospital book club. Every night at midnight, she and the other patients would get together and discuss their favorite Pike tales. This affected the author, and he made the decision to create a tale as an ode to his followers.
How much Pike knew about the facility and whether or not he based Rotterham Home on it are both unknown. He took the idea of a book club as the foundation for his work, but instead of the kids talking about their favorite horror books, he made up new tales that they would swap. Although the girl did not live long enough to read Pike’s book, the author was nevertheless able to connect with other youngsters who were going through a similar experience.
The complex history of the hospice, as well as how it looked and felt distinct from other similar facilities, must have been made up by Pike because he was writing his book for a larger audience and needed to give the setting a spooky vibe. Additionally, the Netflix series gives the setting its own unique spin by emphasizing the establishment of Brightcliffe as a location full of secrets, horrors, and mysteries rather than as a typical hospice.
What City is Brightcliffe Hospice In?
British Columbia, the ideal location for a horror program like The Midnight Club, served as the backdrop for the entire thing. The area is mountainous and lushly green, making it the ideal setting for the mystery-filled tale. Regarding Brightcliffe Hospice, it appears that the story’s primary setting was a church in Delta, British Columbia. Other locations were also utilized, including Bridge Studios in Burnaby, British Columbia.The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass, three horror miniseries that Mike Flanagan produced for Netflix in the last five years, combine traditional frightening tales with a more in-depth examination of themes like sorrow and faith. Although I’ve always appreciated Flanagan’s unashamed earnestness, his storytelling may fall solidly inside the “monster as trauma metaphor” cliché in current popular horror (and his interviews occasionally skew pretentious, since he is insistent on distancing himself from horror tropes).
The Midnight Club, which is based on a book by Christopher Pike, aims to uphold that earnestness while also bringing in a touch of self-awareness. It’s a show about young adults who are terminally ill, and it’s just as likely to make you cry as Flanagan’s other works. But it’s also more explicitly about how horror stories are written and what makes them frightening. Additionally, even though it appears to be telling a continuous serialized story about a certain cast of individuals, it has a hook for an anthology series that will let it tell entertaining episodic side stories.
“The Final Chapter” begins in 1994 in Sacramento, California, when graduating senior Ilonka Pollock is enjoying her last few months with her foster father, Tim, before moving into the Stanford dorms. She is a rule-follower and a reader, but she is eager to step outside her comfort zone after graduation. She is already looking into college parties with her pal Lauren. A location where you may chat about your favorite science fiction for hours while meeting gorgeous boys? It seems perfect.
But after coughing up blood one night, Ilonka is soon diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer, ruining her college dreams. Ilonka is confined to a hospital bed for her 18th birthday nine months later, but her companion is living a brand-new world where everything genuinely matters. She is considered terminal because the tumors in her lungs didn’t respond to therapy and there is no sign of improvement. She might live for another year, but probably not much more.
Ilonka searches the internet for testimonies of thyroid cancer survivors because she is unable to accept that this could be her final year of life. After learning about Julia Jayne, a 17-year-old who was cured while staying at Brightcliffe Hospice in 1968, Ilonka decides to sign up for the fully sponsored program herself in hopes of finding a miracle.
After doing the initial Yahoo! search, it became apparent that something about Brightcliffe was peculiar and possibly harmful; Ilonka was already having troubling visions and déjà vu. Everything appears to be a massive, flashing sign telling her to turn around right away to us. Ilonka isn’t deterred, though. She’s already been given the most dire prognosis imaginable; for her, a miracle cure might end up being the major draw.
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Details On Brightcliffe
“The Final Chapter” spends the majority of its time introducing us to Brightcliffe’s existing residents and familiarizing us with the area’s basic history once Ilonka and Tim arrive there. It is managed by Dr. Georgina Stanton (the legendary Heather Langenkamp), who purchased the property in 1966 after it had previously been owned by a number of different parties, including a spiritual commune by the name of the Paragon. For the time being, Stanton strikes me as someone who truly cares about making these young folks comfortable during their final months of life. She opposes the combat metaphors that are frequently employed when talking about disease because she also lost a son; although talking about fighting cancer may seem soothing at first, it wrongly views death as a failure. She informs Ilonka and Tim that “Brightcliffe isn’t about fights; it’s about permission to leave the battlefield.” We’re not here to fight, and we’re not here to lose a war. Every day spent here is a success.
Ilonka gets to know the seven young people staying at Brightcliffe during a tour of the facility and later at dinner. Ilonka had already met Kevin (leukemia, four months at Brightcliffe) outside after catching a fleeting glimpse of him in visions. Spence (five months), the amiable man who gives her the tour, is there. We also get to know shy Natsuki (ovarian cancer, three months), pathological storyteller Cheri (three months), class clown Amesh (glioblastoma, two months), and veteran cancer patients Sandra (lymphoma, six months) and Anya (bone cancer, six months).
The majority of the young cast is made up of relative novices, with the exception of Igby Rigney and Annarah Cymone, who both appeared in Midnight Mass and play Kevin and Sandra, respectively. However, this show has a lot of potential. Anya, played by Ruth Codd, who is Ilonka’s roommate, intrigues me in particular since she gives the generally amiable group dynamic a welcome edge and funny cynicism. Anya’s memories of Rachel, the roommate she had with Ilonka before, hint at a richer backstory that future episodes will definitely explore. Rachel was obsessed with the occult in her later years and even left a pentagram drawing on the floor beneath the bed that Ilonka currently occupies. And in her dying moments, she claimed to have felt a shadow coming toward her. This shadow may be the one that follows Ilonka down the corridor at the end of the episode.
At Brightcliffe, the lights go out at 10 p.m., but Anya is caught sneaking out at midnight on her first night there by Ilonka. She goes with her to the library, where the group is congregating to share spooky tales. The Midnight Club, as the name suggests, was formed before any of these eight students attended Brightcliffe. It serves as a venue for storytelling, testing whether it is possible to terrify a group of young people who regularly face death. However, they have also made a secret agreement: Whoever passes away first will warn the others of what is to come from the other side. Nobody has seen a clear sign from the afterlife as of yet, but I have a feeling that won’t be the case for much longer.
The Midnight Club appears to be Flanagan’s meta-commentary on horror clichés. Natsuki tells the first tale, continuing the conversation she had with Ren (played by William Chris Sumpter and seemingly imagined in her mind as a version of Spence). Ren stumbles into an unfamiliar block and notices strangers observing him from every window, which gives the scene a spooky beginning. The mood quickly changes, however, when a girl’s dreamy repetition of “Are you lost?” transforms into an endless string of jump scares with her screaming visage appearing in whatever direction Ren looks.
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What Is The Plot Of Brightcliffe?
With the amusing shot of the girl suddenly arriving in the foreground to scream into the camera, Flanagan has a lot of fun here spoofing the tropes he wants to avoid. (His Wikipedia page even mentions a “lack of reliance on jump scares” in the second sentence.) When Spence interrupts Natsuki’s story to correct her, saying, “Anyone can smash pots and pans behind someone’s head,” you get the impression that he is explaining his own philosophy of terror through the characters. That’s stunning, not frightening. And it’s so damn lazy. Natsuki even uses a comical fake-out at the conclusion of the story, inserting a cat rather than a real monster from the shadows. (“Did you just scare us like a fucking black cat?” Spence opined. You complete that first, not last.
Ilonka is the author of the second narrative of the evening and is obligated to deliver a story as part of her initiation. Her account of Julia Jayne, a child whose tumors magically shrank and disappeared after she disappeared for a week while attending Brightcliffe, is mostly factual. According to Ilonka’s account of the events, Julia was preoccupied with the thought that she had only a year or so left to live. However, whatever transpired while she was gone, she returned a different person; she was no longer conscious of her own death date but was forever cursed to be aware of everyone else’s.
It’s not simple, you know? frightening a person who has already received the worst news they can ever receive. That is how Anya describes to Ilonka the appeal of the Midnight Club. But on a deeper level, it serves as The Midnight Club’s mission statement. When the audience is aware from the start that each character is almost certain to pass away within the year, how can you make them feel fear for your characters? Of course, the response is to remind us that there are worse things than death. Maybe Julia Jayne discovered that for herself.