We open with Kristen positing the question about why they tell scary stories at night. Wouldn't the day be the same? To which everyone responds basically by "duh, it's just scarier at night." Betty Ann is up this week, with Eric complaining that her stories are "gross but have happy endings". Everyone shuts him up, as is the correct option.
We open this episode with Kristen visiting Gary at his dad's magic shop, and we also open with Kristen easily falling for the old "finger in the guillotine" trick. Turns out that the magic shop is where Gary gets most of his ideas for his stories, to which Kristen tells him that the others haven't found Gary's work to be too scary lately. The audience can't tell yet since this is technically our first Gary story. In the order we're going it's been one Frank, one Betty Ann, one Kristen and two of David's. Which does seem odd when you think about how Gary is the de facto leader and we're beating around the bush to get to his story.
We then get introduced to the MacGuffin of the episode, the super specs. A pair of X-Ray glasses, to which Gary jokingly ogles Kristen after wearing them which, I mean, that really hasn't aged well, but since they're likely BS to begin with, I guess it's not worth getting heated over. Kristen's skeptical on the spectacles, but Gary just thinks she doesn't believe in magic.
We then go to the Midnight Society meeting where, sure enough, the topic of the evening is how Gary's quality has gone down the crapper. After scaring the supposedly hard to scare Kiki, Gary asks for the crew (no David this week) to give him another chance, to which they're willing to do so. His tale is about three types of people: Those who believe in magic, those who don't, and those who should. And thus we get "The Tale of the Super Specs".
We open the episode with Betty Ann and Kiki thinking they hear some sort of animal noise, which, you know, given we're in the woods is that really a surprise. When the others sans Kristen arrive, Kiki, whose entire MO so far has been to mock perfect Kristen in a very... let's say, tsundere-esque manner, burns her fingers trying to light the campfire. Are you afraid of the hubris is more like it.
Kristen soon arrives with a dog named Elvis, who I swear is just called that because they really wanted the line "he ain't nothin' but a hound dog" uttered at least once in this episode. She brought the dog along as added sound effects as it's her week to tell the story for the Midnight Society, The Tale of the Hungry Hounds.
Time for our next episode to cover. So let's get it twisted with The Tale of the Twisted Claw.
We open this episode with a ghostly figure exiting from a boy's closet and approaching him. The kid wakes up, thinking it's all a dream, but nope. The ghostly figure is still there, and... that's it. Turns out it was Eric's story this week and he doesn't give us an actual worthwhile ending, saying he'll come up with something next week. Since that's a lame way to end the night, Dave ends up being the one with proper story with a proper ending this week, so he submits for the Midnight Society The Tale of the Twisted Claw.
It'll be interesting to see how we move on from Zeebo, but here were are with another Are You Afraid of the Dark episode to cover. Does it stand a ghost of a chance? Find out with episode #3: The Tale of the Lonely Ghost.
Pre-story stuff this time sees David stock-scare Kristen before the two engage in some good old Canadian teen-preteen awkwardness. David remembered Kristen's birthday is coming up, so he gives her a present, but she won't be able to open it until after the meeting. Meanwhile, Eric is tossing grapes in his mouth before Frank pours water down his mouth, which, yeah Eric's been established as kind of the smart alec of the group, he could have choked, so poor form. Speaking of David, he's our narrator for this week's story, The Tale of the Lonely Ghost.
Okay, so we're now into our second review for the blog, and while the first one wasn't super eventful, safe to say this one's going to be one people definitely remember. So, I'm going by episode listings on Wikipedia for which episode goes next. Initially it was going to be The Tale of the Lonely Ghost as that's the order listed on the Youtube channel where I get the screenshots, but that one seems more over the place. So, let's not clown around much longer and talk about The Tale of Laughing in the Dark.
By the early 90s, horror for children was still a lucrative business, one that would get stronger over the decade. But as the 80s slasher icons went into hibernation and the genre faded back into the corner until Scream, the real success for horror came from both books and television shows for kids. And no show is more infamous than Are You Afraid of the Dark when it comes to 90s nostalgia. Premiering in 1991 before going full series the year later, Are You Afraid of the Dark? was the US/Canada collaboration of Nickelodeon and Cinar.
The series centers around a group of kids called "The Midnight Society". Each week the kids would gather in the woods around a campfire and one of them would tell a scary story which would lead into our episode. Similar to many of its contemporaries, the stories are all anthology based, usually bearing no connection to the other, save for a few characters who make multiple appearances. Stories would run the gamut of horror, sci-fi, mystery and other similar genres. The series ran for five seasons from 1992-1996 before returning with two more seasons in 1999 and 2000. And in 2019, the series was revived, though the series goes more for a overarching mystery than the show's original format.
With the preamble over, let's cover the first official episode of the series, The Tale of the Phantom Cab.
Welcome to Skeleton Picnic, a blog about horror from someone who isn't into horror, but is willing to try.
For the past several years now, I began blogging about horror books for kids. Mainly that of the series Goosebumps on account of it being tied to my early childhood trauma. It wasn't until I was much older that I read the books and covered them with my own brand of snarky blogging. I was also slowly branching into horror TV, but I don't feel it gelled as well as I had hoped for the blog. But it's something I still want to pursue. And now that I feel so ahead of what I've done with the book blog, it's time to finally start talking about horror in its visual medium. And thus, Skeleton Picnic was born.
For those curious about the title, Skeleton Picnic is tied to my relationship with Goosebumps and how the cover of Say Cheese and Die! scared me when I was younger, as did a lot of horror stuff honestly. Nowadays, it's probably my favorite Goosebumps cover and a driving force in me finally covering all of Goosebumps, as well as collecting for it. And now I think I can finally use this motivation to talk about horror media in other varieties. Classic kids horror, as well as other horror stuff I missed out on by not giving the medium a chance.
The general plan for the blog is to do recaps of episodes of certain horror shows first, give my review on them, what worked and all, then when I've finished a season or a series, I return to cover it with a recap blog I've dubbed "Horrific Hindsight". If you've read blogs from me before, this is pretty straightforward. So, hopefully you'll follow along as I finally break from my scaredy-cat tradition and give horror a shot. So welcome again to Skeleton Picnic!
We open with Kristen positing the question about why they tell scary stories at night. Wouldn't the day be the same? To which everyone r...
