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It's almost heeeere! Check out the new trailer:

Vanity Fair really delivered the goods today with a "first look" at The Midnight Club TV adaptation, including an interview with Mike Flanagan, some comments from Pike, and a bunch of tasty tasty pics with commentary from the show's creator. Some choice tidbits:

[In college, late 1990s]... Flanagan wrote a screenplay, and even drafted a business plan, offering friends and family a chance to invest their own money in his low-budget indie. Once it was all in place, he sent the proposal to Pike’s publisher. “They sent me a cease and desist letter,” he says.

We already knew the TV series will use other Pike books as the stories told to each other by the lead characters. Now we know more.

Adding numerous other Pike titles to the mix made The Midnight Club more complicated to pull off, but Trevor Macy, Flanagan’s producing partner at Intrepid Pictures, said they were necessary to broaden the scope of the series. Each one stands as its own mini-movie within the framework of the show, reflecting the mindset of the ailing kid who tells it.

[...] Among the other Pike novels that will featured are Witch (1990), about a girl with mystical abilities who tries to prevent her catastrophic visions from coming true; Gimme A Kiss (1988), in which a bullied student fakes her own death as part of a twisted revenge scheme; The Wicked Heart (1993), which follows the trail of a high-school serial killer whose preferred weapon is a hammer; and Road to Nowhere (2011), in which a heartbroken young woman running away from her life picks up two eerie hitchhikers.

Flanagan also talks about first approaching Pike via a private message through Pike's official FB page, and Pike talks to Vanity Fair about his own supposed aversion to Hollywood.

In 1996, NBC made a TV movie from his book Fall Into Darkness, which he thought was poorly done, and cut away too much of his story. “The main thing is I wanted [the books] to be adapted in a way that my fans would be happy with,” he says. “It sounds maybe conceited to say that turned me off all of Hollywood, but it really did turn me off for a long time.”

NBC wanted to collaborate again, but he says he turned them down. “After Fall Into Darkness, the network was really angry at me that I didn't let Chain Letter be adapted,” he says. And so began the rumor that Christopher Pike didn’t allow adaptations.

“People would write sometimes, but very seldom. And they would say, ‘Now, we know that you don't want anything to do with Hollywood and this and that.' And I hadn't made that decision,” he says.

The article gives us more specifics, too, about the longer arc of the show's first season, and the goings-on at the hospice. Click through for a read, it's all good stuff.

Awesome news this morning. October 7! HOPE IT DON'T SUCK.

Over on the Tor books website, Alissa Burger has a column called Teen Horror Time Machine, which revisits YA horror fiction from back in the day. Her latest column looks at two snow-themed books: Slumber Party and Carol Ellis' The Window.

Beware spoilers, but the column is a good read.

In many ways, the pattern Pike establishes with Slumber Party, the first of the Point Horror novels, became the framework for much of the ‘90s teen horror that would follow, with themes of isolation, adolescent social drama, dark secrets that refuse to stay buried, and characters who aren’t exactly who they seem to be. (Source)

Netflix unveiled its genre slate for 2022, and among less illustrious company you'll find none other than...

... Yeah, The Midnight Club! I mean, it was already official but this just makes it more official, y'know? Amiright? WE WANT A TRAILER.

(Source)

According to Stine in a 2013 interview with NPR:

One day I was having lunch with an editor, a friend of mine, and she had had a big fight with somebody writing teenage horror. Who will remain nameless. Christopher Pike. And she said, "I'm not working with him again. I'll bet you could write good horror. Go home and write a novel for teenagers. Call it Blind Date." She even gave me the title. It's embarrassing! It wasn't my idea. (Source)

Weird thing, though. Blind Date came out in 1986, and Pike's debut came out in 1985. I suspect Stine was being cheeky here; still thought it was worth a post.

You can listen to the interview behind the cut:

Tanis Fowler asks the question in a good article at The Hamilton Spectator.

[...] The Pike series, meanwhile, is based on the book “The Midnight Club,” which features a group of terminally ill teens at a hospice who gather together to tell scary stories, confront their fear of dying and make a pact to reach out from beyond the grave.

[...] “The Midnight Club” shares some similarities with preteen horror anthology series “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” and stars Heather Langenkamp, who final-girled her way through various Freddy Krueger movies.

[...] “They’re kind of having to satisfy three different generations who all have very different values and expectations,” said [Fear Street fan Jessica] Guess.

“And that is a big problem with those books; they were not diverse, they were not very inclusive, most times the girls were in the victim seat … so updating some of those tropes is a big job.” (Source)

I think it's interesting that we've seen a renewed interest in Stephen King's work from the 70s and 80s, with homages like Stranger Things and the IT remake, and now we're seeing a revival of Pike, Stine and the YA horror of the 80s and 90s. The folks who once read those books are now the ones old enough to make films and TV series'.

Perhaps we'll see a resurgence in the YA suspense/horror genre itself? If so, how much of the pulpy nature of those books will be revived? That's one of the things that made 'em fun.

Pike hit Facebook today with an update on all sorts of stuff, even hinted at a new previously unmentioned YA series he's working on:

Mike Flanagan hit Twitter earlier to bring word of 5 directors joining The Midnight Club:

Honored to announce the other filmmakers helming eps of THE MIDNIGHT CLUB. Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, Axelle Carolyn, Viet Nguyen, Morgan Beggs, and my dear friend Michael Fimognari will all direct episodes. I'm grateful and lucky to collaborate with such terrific artists.

— Mike Flanagan (@flanaganfilm) June 13, 2021

Coming Soon.net provides a little c.v. for each:

[...] Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour (Black Box), Axelle Carolyn (Tales of Halloween), Viet Nguyen (Lucifer), Morgan Beggs (Smallville), and Michael Fimognari (To All the Boys: Always and Forever). This project will reunite Carolyn and Beggs with Flanagan, who all worked together on Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor, with Carolyn directing one episode while Beggs worked as a first assistant director on three episodes. (Source)

Got a Reddit account? We're over there now, if you're interested! r/PikeBooks. Come on over for a chat!

Remember Me. A stone cold classic in the Pike ouevre, and it turns out the PikeCast gang loves it. Me too. It's one of few I've read multiple times. They're joined by Grady Hendrix, about whom I've posted before, and in the podcast you can hear his thoughts on the Remember Me sequels.

Listen below.

Pike has spoken about this one multiple times:

I cannot remember when I first got the idea for Remember Me. But I do know that I discussed the story idea while driving my editor from Avon, Ellen Kreiger, the woman who had bought Chain Letter, back to her hotel in Orange County. I think this was in 1986. All of publishing was in the hotels around Disneyland because of the ABA -- the main publishing convention of year. It’s now called the BEA. Anyway, Ellen said it was a terrible idea. That no one would want to read about a dead girl.

I argued with her but frankly I didn’t really care what she thought. I felt I knew Shari, I felt she had a powerful story to tell. At the time I’d only written the first chapter of the book but Shari’s voice was very real to me. Which was odd in a way because I’d never written in first person before.

[...] I wrote Remember Me right after finishing the Final Friends trilogy. I had just signed a contract with Simon & Schuster for four books. For the first time in my life I thought I might be able to survive as a novelist. I was anxious to write a great book -- a story that would last. I was living in La Habra at the time, in a small apartment not far from my parent’s house in Whittier. I never cooked or bought groceries. I used to walk home for dinner and for lunch I’d walk to a nearby mall and buy a sandwich. I didn’t even have a TV. All I did in that apartment was write and sleep. It was a very reclusive period in my life.

Anyway, I remember taking my time writing the book. My editor, Pat MacDonald finally called and asked if she could see what I was working on. I sent her the first half, up to where Shari meets Peter at her funeral. The next few days, I waited anxiously to see what Pat thought. Keep in mind I was not writing a standard thriller and after turning in Final Friends, S&S wanted me to return to books like Chain Letter and Spellbound.

But I was delighted to hear that Pat loved the book. She had recently lost her mother and she found the story moving. With her encouragement I pushed on. Like Shari, Peter took on a life of his own and his entrance into the book accelerated the plot. Looking back, it’s obvious Remember Me wouldn’t have worked without Peter. Yet I had only a vague idea who he was when I brought him in. Peter is a classic example of how a character can sometimes save a book, even when the author -- in this case, me -- did not plan for him to be important. In the same way I did not plan for the detective -- I forget his name -- to be important. I certainly wasn’t going to explore his back story. But again, the character had other ideas. Remember Me was the first book where I felt I was on automatic pilot. The whole scene when Shari died, it was some of my best writing ever. But I wrote it quickly in a single draft. I was sort of surprised to see it all on my computer screen. In fact, it was that surprise that later gave me the idea that Shari’s brother, Jimmy, wrote the book while he was asleep.

I’ve spoken before what happened as I wrote the last page of the book, the last line. Immediately after I typed in the words, “I want people to remember me,” I felt someone tap me on the right shoulder and heard the words, or else was given a very powerful telepathic jolt, “See you later.” I did not imagine it and I cannot explain it. But it happened. It shocked the hell out of me. I almost fell out of my chair.

Remember Me went on to become a huge bestseller. S&S asked if I would write a sequel. They didn’t pressure me but I should have said no because the book was perfect the way it was. And I didn’t say yes because of money. [sic. If you read another quote further down, Pike probably means he did write it for money.] I actually struggled to write the sequels, although I did like the idea of having Shari return as a Walk-In. It was while I was trying to figure out how to write Remember Me II that I suddenly got off my bed and wrote the first few pages of The Last Vampire. (Source)

After FF [Final Friends] I sat down and wrote Remember Me, and I recall something that stunned me shortly after it came out. I used to go for runs with an old friend of mine from high school, David, and afterwards we’d go to a mall near Knotts Berry Farm to eat. It was one of those huge malls with a massive food court where you could find practically anything you were hungry for. Anyway, David and I were sitting and eating at the mall when I noticed a bunch of teenage girl sitting around our table, reading. Actually, they were mostly reading Remember Me, although a few had Weekend or Chain Letter with them. It was the first time I’d ever seen someone reading one of my books and it was an interesting experience. David went to tell the girls that I was Christopher Pike but I stopped him. I doubted they would believe him. At the same time I thought it would be more fun to tell them that I knew him, which is what I did. Of course, most of the girls thought I was just some annoying pervert. However, a few seemed to believe me, particularly when they quizzed me about the book, details about the story. Naturally, I was able to answer all their questions in exquisite detail. (Source)

You can see that anecdote was later written into Master of Murder.

Why did I write a sequel [to Chain Letter]? I was offered a lot of money, and I wanted to keep my publisher happy. That’s the same reason I wrote two sequels to Remember Me. Obviously neither of those books were meant to have sequels. (Source)

Vultures! Cross country! A poor imitation of journalism! This was one of my earliest Pike reads. Before this I had only read Slumber Party, Weekend and Chain Letter.

What'd Cooper and co. think? Check it out:

The PikeCast assume correctly that Pike ran cross country in school: He did:

I think Monster came from all those damn football players and cheerleaders I knew in high school. Ha! Actually, I ran cross country and track and the cheerleaders never came to our meets. They only went to the football and basketball games. It’s no wonder I made them into monsters. (Source)

SPELLBOUND: This was the first book I wrote on a computer, the first book I typed. I was stunned when I was able to write it in six weeks, after Last Act had taken months. The magic of word processors -- I was able to rewrite my paragraphs as I wrote them so when I finished the first draft I was basically done with the book. S&S bought it the same time as Last Act. It was just re-released and I just reread it, something I never do with my books. I was proud that young version of me wrote it. I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. (Source)

Yeah, The PikeCast were not overly keen on Master of Murder. Me? I LIKED IT, SUE ME. Haven't read it in a while, though. Not since probably the very early 2000s. It's obviously a wish fulfilment novel, especially if you fancy yourself a future best-selling author.

The Pike Cast took on Bury Me Deep a few weeks back, the sun-soaked scuba-diving Hawaii ghost story. Fun fact: Wes Craven's company optioned this one back in the day. Obviously nothing happened there.

What did the Cast gang think? Give it a listen:

Pike himself had this to say about the novel:

BURY ME DEEP: Atilla The Hun was supposed to have said, “Bury me deep,” when he was struck down. I thought it was a cool title for a ghost story. I think it’s obvious from reading the book that I have scuba dived off Maui. I love Maui, I love all the Hawaiian islands, and I wanted to see if it was possible to tell a ghost story in a sunny modern hotel rather than in a dark and stormy castle. Bury Me Deep was another big seller. It got on the New York Times list. But I was never happy with the book. Once again, I felt the ending was weak. To me the book had no mood, no deeper power. It’s a quick read, sure, but I don’t think it touched anyone. (Source)