Are You Afraid of the Dark: The Tale of the Nightly Neighbors

As strange as this sounds, I’m honestly getting kind of annoyed at how consistently good this show is. I’m eight episodes in and haven’t had any criticism except “occasionally the acting isn’t great.” No gaping plot holes, or moments of incredible stupidity, and many of the stories do seem like something kids might make up to scare each other (if a bit elaborate).

I spent most of this episode thinking that it would be my first mildly-negative review. Not horrible, but a bit generic and predictable...and then came the twist. I’ll be honest, I didn’t see the ending of this episode coming, but it didn’t create any obvious plot holes or logical inconsistencies.

This is another returning storyteller, Betty Ann (Raine Pare-Coull). While we’ve only heard one of her past stories, Eric (Jacob Tierney) sets us up by complaining that her stories are always “gross and boring,” but with happy endings. When we’re thrown an easier twist, we’re prepped to accept it.

The story concerns Emma (Suzanna Shebib) and her brother Dayday (Noah Godfrey). Emma is bored with her life and monitors the neighborhood in search of excitement, while Dayday is quite content watching television. So, when new neighbors move in, Emma is immediately suspicious.

The neighbor’s are the Brauns, a couple from the Ukraine (Carl Alacchi and Francoise Robertson), and their son Lex (Johnny Morina), supposedly paramedics studying the American healthcare system to see what improvements can be made in their own. The clues are laid out blatantly enough for children to get at a glance: they have large boxes, supposedly containing “refrigerators,” delivered to their homes, they only go out at night, and they constantly visit people who suddenly get sick and wear bandages on their necks.

Emma, picking up on the obvious “vampire” hints, warns Dayday not to invite them into the house. Unfortunately, when the couple stops by, their mother pushes past Dayday and invites them in, just as Emma is sneaking into their house. This leads to the fairly clever and time-saving plot device of Dayday simultaneously wanting to get rid of them (as he’s unable to completely convince himself Emma is wrong), while also not wanting them to return home.

Emma, meanwhile, discovers a freezer (which she calls a “refrigerator” for some reason) in their basement, filled with bottles of blood. When the family leaves, Dayday rushes to warn her, and the two barely make it out in time.

Thinking they’re now targets, the two attempt to slip into their neighbor’s house during the day to kill them with “wooden spikes.” They suspect the two are sleeping behind a locked door in the basement. Unfortunately, Mrs. Braun is still awake and walking around, and so the two run, abandoning their plan, apparently undetected.

...and then, the first twist: The Brauns are out in the daylight, carrying bottles of blood into the house. They explain that they’re no longer working the night shift, and the hospital had a surplus of blood so they’re storing some of it at home. They then ask Dayday if Lex could come over the play video games later. Everyone laughs.

I was all fired up to bash how stupid this ending is. I’d honestly been expecting the couple to be vampire hunters, but “it was all a misunderstanding” is obviously a cop-out for a show billed as any kind of horror. To say nothing of the fact that storing blood in a private residence almost certainly being prohibited under some rule. Also, in the real world when one hospital has a surplus of blood, some of it is immediately shipped to a place with a shortage.

Yes, I was all ready to rip into this “everyone laughs” ending, when the real twist hit: Mr. and Mrs. Braun aren’t vampires...they’re thralls. Their “son” Lex is the vampire they serve, and is planning on feeding on Dayday that night. Irritatingly, this twist fits all the evidence perfectly: they’ve been arranging their schedule to accommodate Lex (they waited until night to bring the freezer in, but they presumably could have been sleeping), they had to be invited in when all three of them were present, and they immediately change their schedule when they realize they were being suspected to “prove” their innocence.

It’s also worth noting that, in their vampire killing mission, Emma and Dayday hid very obviously under a table right in front of Mrs. Braun, who should have been able to see them easily. While the viewers assume this is just a convention of television, the ending makes it pretty clear she knew they were there and was playing along. So, the ending seems quite intelligent.

The Midnight Society scenes are a bit weak in this episode again, discussing “why things are scarier at night,” which is no more a theme of this episode than of any other vampire story. However, I can’t think of much else they could have talked about, so I’ll give it a pass. It at least felt like it fit with the story.

So, yeah, another irritatingly good episode, and I still have nothing major to complain about with this show.