Sunday, October 8, 2017

TERROR TEE-VEE: A Countdown to Halloween (Day 8)






“Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story…”

ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK?

In the 90s, in response to the popularity of such children's books like the Goosebumps series, Nickelodeon launched its own horror/fantasy anthology series aimed at the pre and post-teen viewers.  And what followed was a pretty neat collection of campfire tales.



The series revolved around a group of teenagers who referred to themselves as “The Midnight Society” and would meet in the woods at a secret location and would tell each other tales of terror.  The tale told would then be the episode that unfolded.

The inital run of 13 episode seasons went on for 5 seasons.  The show was brought back for two additional seasons a few years later with a different cast.

Of all the episodes produced for SNICK’s “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”,  these are probably the best, scariest and most fun of the bunch (your mileage may vary):


Season 2, Episode 2
“The Tale of the Midnight Madness”
brings us the mysterious Dr. Vink who promises a failing movie theatre a big audience if they show his long lost vampire movie.  When the theatre manager refuses to hold up his end of the deal, after a big turnaround the employees see a monstrous Nosferatu coming off the screen for revenge!







Season 1, Episode 3
“The Tale of the Lonely Ghost”
a girl goes to stay with her aunt while her parents are out of town.  Her cousin is a real mess who refuses to play with her until she agrees to spend the night in the  abandoned house next door—the supposedly haunted house next door.  The source of the haunting turns out to be a mirror that the girl enters and becomes trapped in.  This frees the ghost, who was, herself, trapped in the mirror.






Season 5, Episode 1
“The Tale of the Dead Man’s Float”
reminds us that it’s always a bad idea to build anything on top of an ancient burial ground, let alone a school pool.  The result is one hell of a gnarly, soggy ghost. In fact, it’s kind of hard to believe this guy made it to screen as he is so effectively gorey.  You just know he gave some kids nightmares.




With that...
"I declare this meeting of the Midnight Society closed.”



1 comment:

Caffeinated Joe said...

Never watched this show. Looks interesting enough, though. Might want to give it a go one day.