I’m not sure how much I should comment on the Early
Installment Weirdness of Are You Afraid of the Dark. It’s been many years since I saw this show,
and this is my first time seeing the episodes in order, so I’m not sure if I
can trust my memory. That said, these
early episodes put a lot more emphasis on the Midnight Society themselves than
I remember. This time we have Kristen
(Rachel Blanchard) bringing a dog named Elvis to the Midnight Society. She explains he’s there to provide “sound
effects” for her story.
I think when I do the second season, I’ll want to review my
opinions of the first, to see how the different story-tellers wove their
tales. As with the last story, we get a
literary reference that our young story-teller surely feels smart remembering
from class. However, this time it’s only
a short reference to Hamlet.
Most the story feels very much like a play, making me suspect
that Kristen may be a drama nerd drawing inspiration from theatrical
performances. For much of the story we
have two characters, who go from one set piece to the next while talking. This works well, allowing the show to give us
a creepy, yet minimalist experience.
It’s a bit hard to say who our protagonist is. Mia Kirshner plays Pam, a girl who wants to
learn to ride horses, as well as her deceased aunt who possesses Pam for much
of the episode. However, with Pam being
out of commission for so long, her sister Amy (Jennifer Gula) ends up as our
sympathetic character for much of the episode.
The episode doesn’t really dwell on the fate of Aunt Dora,
but from implication I can gather this: Dora was an avid rider. One day, when she was supposed to feed the
farm’s hounds, she died in a riding related accident. Because she was unable to feed the hounds,
and no one found out about her death until it was too late, the starving
animals attacked their elderly stable hand Giles (David Francis), causing him
to have a fatal heart attack (apparently just outright having a man killed by
hungry dogs is too much for a kids’ show, but that hardly detracts from the
story).
Later, Pam and Amy are playing with a talking board, and are
led to a box of Dora’s possessions. Pam
puts on Dora’s coat, and becomes possessed, leading Amy on a walk around the
property, telling her about a fox she calls Mon Petit Rouge, and eventually
encountering the furious ghost of Giles.
Dora then heads to the barn to feed the now-howling ghost dogs, but for
some reason wants to open the door before getting the kibble. This leads to a bizarre scene where Amy must
hold Dora back from the door while Amy gets the food, even though Dora herself
told Amy where the kibble was located.
The ending makes no sense at all, as the ghost-hounds trapped
in the barn run past both Dora/Pam and the kibble to attack Amy, but for some
reason Mon Petit Rouge shows up and they’re lured away, despite still having
eaten nothing. We’re even told in the
closing narration that Dora is no longer tormented by the sound of the starving
hounds, which I suppose might mean they ate Mon Petit Rouge.
...and then, they’re back in the attic, with the coat
apparently having no effect on Pam. The
only indication that anything strange at all happened was the sudden appearance
of kibble in Amy’s pocket. And in the closing, we’re told that Amy’s mother
finally agreed to let her learn to ride, presumably because she could now sense
that her sister’s spirit was at peace…or something…
It probably sounds like I’m bashing this episode, but far
from it. It makes about as much sense as
you’d expect from an unedited story by a girl in her early teens, and as always,
the atmosphere is awesome relative to the budget. I even love that they were able to sneak in a
reference to the girls being a “twinkle in (their parents’) eye,” something
that I imagine would have been far too close to sexual for Goosebumps.
So, yeah, like every episode of this show so far, check it
out.
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