Dark Snarks: #05: The Tale of the Hungry Hounds

 

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.

We open the story on a rainy day, as those are the days that protagonist Pam likes to rummage through the attic, given her mother never throws anything out. So there's stuff from multiple past generations. We cut to one particular summer as Pam's cousin Amy is visiting. We first see them wearing their grandparents' old wedding clothes, which, okay, that's one way to start, as Amy tries to scare Pam in the dress. Pam's slightly freaked out given that she is definitely more spiritual than Amy, believing in the supernatural. Like, there is definitely a bit of a gothic hipster vibe to Pam and so far she might be the best protagonist. It's a short list so far, but still.

As Amy talks about how she doesn't believe in ghosts, that's our cue for a box to fall over, revealing an image that looks an awful lot like Pam, but is actually her aunt Dora Pease with Dora's horse Mirage. And, as if one box was enough to start building the story, the girls find a large chest belonging to Dora marked in the year 1963. They hear noises, which freak out Pam, but Amy thinks it's just a mouse that chewed its way inside the chest. And they just leave it unopened for now and move on.

Pam and Amy walk over to the nearby horse pen and Pam tries to get on, just as her mother shows up to honk the horn and cause Pam. Her mother is upset and doesn't want her to be around horses, given what happened to Dora years ago. She simply doesn't want Pam to be around horses as clearly they're too dangerous. But, like, you honked the horn. This is more your fault than any horse. And you still live near horses. This is really you dropping the ball there, ma. 

So the girls are still eternally bored, but what luck, Pam found a Ouija board from the attic, which her mom and Aunt Dora used to play with. Surprised her mom doesn't find this dangerous either, but I guess it's not immediately horse-related. Of course, the board moves on its own and reads Let Me Out (Which Amy thinks is Leet Mout, which actually got a chuckle from me). Pam deduces that it must mean the chest they found earlier. The girls head up to the attic and open the chest, finding some old stuff including a red riding coat. Pam puts it on and seems to transform, her hair changing and seemingly going into a trance. 

And then she just walks out the window which now has a magic stairway. Well that's convenient.

As Amy tries to get her to go back, the tranced Pam (who is now a possessed Dora because that's clearly where this is going) heads to the graveyard, picks up a bone and mutters "mon petit rouge", and something about a red fox that was kept in the cage. She wanted to protect the fox from the dogs, (Oh yeah, 14 minutes in and we're actually talking about dogs), who were ravenous and ready to hunt. On the day of the hunt, she looked at Mon Petit Rouge in the cage, shaking and frightened. She let him run free. The dogs were furious, and despite Dora trying to ride off on Mirage to find the fox, but something scared the horse, causing it to trip and fall, killing the both of them.

Amy thinks Pam's acting crazy, but then things get weirder as a strange old ma named Giles shows up, calling Pam Dora and talking about her chore of taking care of the dogs. He's not too happy about her letting the dogs starve, especially since the dogs attacked him. He escaped and died of a heart attack. But I guess since he's now an angry ghost, he chases the girls to the barn. Pam/Dora now has her obligation to feed the hounds in the barn, but Amy locks her in the stable to try and keep her from, you know, being killed a second time and taking Pam with her. Amy decides that if this is going to stop, she'll have to feed the dogs instead.

Pam/Dora tells Amy to go look for the kibble, which gives her time to escape because she really needs to feed those dogs. She opens the door, freeing the dogs who go after Amy. Suddenly, the fox, Mon Petit Rouge, shows up and the dogs give chase. Amy heads off to see Dora on Mirage, riding off into the night. 

Amy returns to the attic, confused as to what just went down, and suddenly Pam arrives, seemingly waking up from whatever just went down, saying she has to feed the dog. We end the story with Pam having no idea what Amy's going on about and Amy wondering if it was a dream, only to find kibble in her pocket. Kristen finishes up the story saying that now, suddenly, Pam's mom is fine with Pam riding a horse, as Dora is now longer haunting the place, nor haunted herself by the howling hounds. 

This episode is okay, but a bit of a mess in places. I like the concept of the story, how the ghost of Dora is sort of trapped by the events of what led to her death and has to rectify it. And the episode does a fine enough job building to it through the exposition dump within. And some of the acting is just okay, particularly from Pam/Dora's actress Mia Kirshner. I just feel like most of the episode feels kind of uncoordinated in getting to the stuff about the dogs, who don't feel like they play any notable part of the story until that exposition dump. Honestly, this episode could have been more about a ghost horse than ghost dogs before then.

And the scares do feel really minimal, though Giles is at least creepy enough to provide a minor scare. And it really lacks that cheesiness that makes these episodes fun to watch. I don't know, maybe it's because Lonely Ghost was so recent that it makes this one feel a bit poorer by comparison. There's still things good about it, but it feels clunky in execution and really lacking in making it memorable. The Tale of the Hungry Hounds gets a B-.