The Tale of the Dark Music

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Midnight Society

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Air Date: Saturday, October 31, 1992
Storyteller: Eric (Jacob Tierney)

Frame: As the Midnight Society gathers at the bonfire, Gary (Ross Hull) has been working on getting it going, and Frank (Jason Alisharan) runs up to Eric, angry at him, as they were supposed to come together. When the group asks what the problem is, Eric reveals that Frank, the "tough guy" in the group, is actually afraid of the dark. Luckily for Eric, it makes for the perfect segue into his story, which also happens to be about a boy who's scared of the dark. What follows is easily one of the most accidentally funny stories in the season. 

Story: Andy Carr (Graham Selkirk), his Mom (Kathryn Graves), and younger sister, Christina (Jennie Lévesque, who also played "The Lonely Ghost"), move into a new house inherited by a supposedly crazy uncle. Andy has a rough go of it when he's immediately picked on by a hilariously over-the-top neighbourhood bully named Koda (Leif Anderson), and he eventually finds a pantry full of horrors that no one seems to believe him about. But while we question what the entity living in the pantry is, the real question is, how soon will Andy reach the point where he's had enough of things and uses the mysterious pantry to his advantage?

Review: I'll repeat it; this is among the most accidentally hilarious episodes of Season 1. Although it's not without its fair share of lousy dialogue from everyone else, Koda is one of the funniest, most over-the-top bullies I can think of. He's just a terrible sociopath who wants nothing more than to beat up Andy, and there's no reason for it other than Andy's uncle being a bit eccentric. Aside from its hilarity, however, it does have a pretty cool ending and ends up being one of the more enjoyable episodes of the season as a whole, even if that is mainly achieved through ironic laughter.

Final Rating: Spooked

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