Mr. Midnight: Beware the Monsters

This is based on books and so not meant to be scooby doo. Also no dog but it feels like scooby. 4 kids investigating supernatural mysteries.

Even if this is set in (Indonesia I think) and the Fred character is a young Indonesian and the shaggy is a blond sort of good looking white guy, they make a better scooby team than any of the adaptations I've seen (11.2022).

Well filmed, well acted, nice use of the local legends. A change from the US or UK settings.

It's fun, a bit spooky but not super scary.

Any fans of the style should watch this.

I enjoyed it. Each episode got better.

Not sure what else to say.

Aimed at younger teens but Mr Midnight has something for everyone. We watched it with the family and all really enjoyed it.

It's a lot of cheesy fun with genuinely hilarious and spooky moments. I especially liked learning about Indonesian/Singaporean folk tales. A different world which gave quite a new and refreshing take on the monster/teen adventure genre.

The cast were great, the monster designs were AWESOME! Just a really fun ride from start to finish.

Maybe it's a little cheesy and goofy, but nothing wrong with that from time to time.

I recommend it if you're looking for a new show. I wasn't familiar with the books beforehand.

It's family horror series that's reminiscent of Goosebumps, except the monsters are drawn from the folklore/horror traditions of southeast Asia. Unlike some comparable family/YA Nextflix series like The Irregulars or Dead Boy Detectives, which are tonally and thematically all over the place, this show is reasonably wholesome and it's charming in its consistent simplicity. The mysteries, monsters and intrigue are on the level of Scooby Doo and production values aren't much better. But the young main cast and a few supporting adults are affable and the show's brisk pace helps to keep the proceedings engaging.

I really enjoyed this and had a lot of fun watching.

It reminded me of Scooby Doo, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but in a very different setting, with very different types of ghosts and monsters. It was a lot of fun to watch, and I literally laughed out loud at parts because it was really campy and funny.

The kids were likable, and some of the adults were too (which rarely happens in teen movies). That was a really nice change of pace, as I find a lot of the characters in movies are pretty unlikable and I struggle to care what happens to them. I did care about these kids though.

I'm not in the right age demographic for this, but as an older lady, I found this thoroughly fun and entertaining.

I.

I live in peranakan culture and i know that the Nusantara archipelago has a lot of culture including the assimilation of a lot of culture.

One thing that baffles me is the mismatch reality of how crowded singapore is and how it's potrayed in the series, which almost empty. The problem is that most horror movie does not really goes along with modern technology, its just makes all the mystery illogical.

Second, there's too many ghost that's not even in south east asia. For example Jikiniki is japanese. The chinese hopping vampires are not South east asian culture, and the lore itself does not match it. If you're bitten by a vampire, then you're become a vampire and you are mortally damaged by sunlight. In this case, the vampire immune to sunlight.

The dialogue is attrocious especially when they try to use Bahasa (indonesia/melayu) in the series. They speak even more rigid than a formal news anchor. And i "love" how they have no accent at all, makes it very "believable".

For example, Thai movies are making horror comedy, but they are still scary but funny as well. I don't know what genre is this series. It's not horror and it's definitely not comedy. More like, "look at me! I'm a diverse movie!"

And lastly!! I love it when they somehow can read ancient java/sunda script out of the blue.