Watch the first trailer for Netflix’s ‘Mr. Midnight’ adaptation

Netflix has released the first trailer for its live-action adaptation of the popular Southeast Asian fictional horror book series Mr. Midnight.

The streaming platform shared the trailer on October 14, giving viewers a glimpse into a distinctly Southeast Asian flavour of horror, featuring indigenous spooks like dukuns and toyols among a variety of supernatural creatures that will arrive on Netflix just ahead of Halloween when the series premieres on October 24.

The trailer also briefly introduces us to Malaysian actor Idan Aedan, Singaporean actress Chen Yixin and Australian actors Caleb Monk and Nikki Dekker, though the names of their characters were not revealed. The quartet will form a group of friends who become supernatural detectives, recording their adventures in a blog called ‘Mr. Midnight’ throughout the series, with the trailer hinting that “something is stirring” in the spirit world.

Based on the popular children’s book series by Singapore-based Australian writer Jim Aitchison under the pseudonym James Lee, the Netflix adaptation was announced when an Instagram account for the series sprang to life in late September. Early stills shared by the account indicated that the series would take some cues from Netflix’s hit Stranger Things series with house decorations and clothes straight out of the 1990s with stylised lighting, alongside the main cast of younger teens.

The new trailer suggests the series is set in a more recent time period, as a laptop and a smartphone can be seen briefly.

The Mr. Midnight series has spanned over 128 books including special editions, each containing two horror stories. The series has been highly successful in Singapore and Malaysia, with a marketing manager for bookstore chain Popular telling Mail & Guardian in 2006 that the series’ popularity was comparable to that of Harry Potter in the two countries.

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