Are You Afraid of the Dark: The Tale of the Twisted Claw

The Tale of the Twisted Claw was originally shot to be the pilot episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?  When the show was picked up, it was changed to the fourth episode to explain Frank’s (Jason Alisharan) presence after his introduction in the new pilot.  It seems a bit out-of-place here, as we now end up with two consecutive stories from David (Nathaniel Moreau).

That said, however, the placement still makes a degree of sense as David was evidently not the intended storyteller of the episode.  We open on a story by Eric (Jacob Tierney), which he abruptly cuts off mid-scare to leave as a cliff-hanger, even admitting outright that he has no idea where the story is going.  The other members of the Midnight Society are disappointed that they can’t get a full story, so David volunteers to fill in for the night with a story he’s been working on.

The story we get is The Monkey’s Paw for kids.  Quite frankly, it’s probably the best adaptation of the story you could hope for, targeted at an audience who are probably just a few years away from being assigned the story in school.  This means that, while the episode goes for a far more overtly supernatural route than the original, it’s still free to carbon-copy the climax.

This is yet another time when the frame story helps the narrative a lot.  When I was younger and telling ghost stories with the other Cub Scouts I do remember one boy who blatantly retold the story of Tailypo, using more contemporary language. Here, we change the setting and age of the characters, but in a way clearly designed to make it more relatable to its new audience.  So, it does feel very much like something that a creative child might come up with after reading The Monkey’s Paw for class.

The story this time follows two kids named Dougie (Noah Plener) and Kevin (Maxwell Medeiros) who play pranks on “Mischief Night,” the night before Halloween.  As a show of bravado, the two decide to prank Miss Clove (Ann Page), an old woman who everyone in town believes is a witch.  The prank results in a broken vase, and the two run off.

This scene establishes Miss Clove as a character and very much makes me wish she’d been one of the recurring roles on the show.  Rather than acting distraught, she laughs as the two run off.  It isn’t even an especially evil laugh.  It’s the laugh of someone who appreciates pranks, and is now preparing to get the two back.

Starting the night before Halloween was a smart move, because it allows a break in the action without making the night seem absurdly stretched out.  Unfortunately, the story takes up a total of three nights, making the decision a bit under-utilized.  After the prank, we cut to the next night, and the two make their rounds looking for candy.  They decide to go to Miss Clove’s door, assuming she won’t recognize them in their costumes when she only saw them for a moment the night before.

Miss Clove, obviously aware of who they are, decides to “reward” the two with the charmed wooden claw of a vulture, which she says is charmed to give them each three wishes.  The look on her face is priceless, as we can tell that she’s just barely containing her laughter at her own joke.  She even says “be careful what you wish for!  You just might get it!”  Honestly, this mixture of the old witch and the clever trickster is a hybrid archetype I’ve never quite seen before, and would love to see again.

The inclusion of a total of six wishes gives a lot more ability to build up to the climax.  However, in the story as it’s told only five are used, so either the writers cut one out, or Miss Clove was giving the kids an extra wish as a safety net in case they really screwed up.  It does add a bit of extra tension to the climax, as both boys still have one final wish left.

Dougie’s first wish is for their Trick-r-treating to be over so they can go home.  They find themselves assaulted by masked punks who take their candy…and they do indeed return home.  Kevin then wishes to beat his rival (Jason Tremblay) in a race at school, and a dog runs onto the track and trips the rival.

That night, Dougie’s parents (Paul Stewart and Linda Smith) are off to a restaurant, and the two begin to fight over the use of the claw.  It’s at this point that the episode gets dark fast.  Kevin angrily says that he wishes Kevin would “lose his folks,” and they get a phone call telling them that the two had been in a car accident and were being rushed to a hospital.  Dougie, in a panic, says he wishes his deceased grandfather was there, and the two see a car outside that looks like his grandfather’s, and there’s a knock at the door (as I said, a carbon-copy).

Kevin, afraid that Dougie’s grandfather will be a skeleton or a corpse, tries to use his final wish.  Realizing that Kevin was not responsible or rational enough to fix the problem, Dougie tries to stop him, and a fight breaks out as the knocking continues.  Finally, Dougie secures the claw, and wishes that they had never broken the vase.

The results are subtler than most reset buttons.  The door opens to reveal…Dougie’s parents, unharmed, who say they left their keys.  Kevin no longer has the metal from the race.  Outside, the unbroken vase is sitting on their porch, with a note that says “Trick ‘R Treat.”  We all realize that the old lady got exactly what she wanted: a good joke.

This is, honestly, a show that keeps exceeding my every expectation.  This episode is about as close to perfect as I can imagine this show getting.  Yes, I could sit and nit-pick minor things, like the decision to spread the story over three nights instead of two, but what’s that matter ultimately?  The boys provide a good Yin and Yang of the irresponsible Kevin, and the very marginally more responsible Dougie.  Like I said, I don’t know how the show can get better, but I hope it proves me wrong.