Are You Afraid of the Dark’s Scariest Episodes: 10 That Left A Mark

Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark? is a spooky favorite among the network’s kid-friendly programming, with many of the show’s horror stories still scaring audiences decades later. Are You Afraid of the Dark? focuses on a group of friends known as the Midnight Society, who meet once a week to share scary stories around a camp fire in the forest. Are You Afraid of the Dark? followed a horror anthology format with a new story and characters in each tale, with the show emerging as a major hit on Nickelodeon in the early ’90s and running for six seasons. Are You Afraid of the Dark? proved so popular as to be revived not once but twice, with a two-season comeback in 1999 to 2000 and again for three seasons from 2019 to 2022.

One of Nickelodeon’s most enduring classic TV shows, Are You Afraid of the Dark? introduced an entire generation of kids to the horror anthology concept. Additionally, for being on a network like Nickelodeon with an explicitly kid-centric demographic, Are You Afraid of the Dark? could get surprisingly intense and genuinely scary in many of the tales related by the Midnight Society. Here are 10 of the scariest episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark?

1.) “The Tale of Badge” – Season 5, Episode 8

Are You Afraid of the Dark? frequently incorporated elements of fantasy and sorcery in the Midnight Society’s tales, with one of the stand-outs of both being “The Tale of Badge”. As budding young flute player Gwen (Aidan Pendleton) tries to hone her talents, she finds herself forced to use them in unexpected ways when a humanoid rat-like creature named Badge (Roland Smith) kidnaps her brother, demanding that Gwen hand over her grandmother, Badge’s arch-enemy and a one-time supernatural flute player known as the Setter Wind. The make-up on Badge alone makes his eponymous tale on Are You Afraid of the Dark? one of the show’s most memorable, with the episode’s combo of the monstrous Badge and elements both musical and magical making it a spine-tingling Midnight Society tale.

2.) “The Tale of the Unexpected Visitor” – Season 5, Episode 9

While Are You Afraid of the Dark? is packed with monsters and creatures a-plenty, “The Tale of the Unexpected Visitor” brings extraterrestrial life onto the show for a Close Encounter Nickelodeon-style. When Jeff (Charlie Hofheimer) and Perch (Chris Wilding) play around with the satellite technology of Jeff’s scientist father, they unwittingly summon a mysterious alien being made of pure light to Earth, who begins snatching up everyone around them. “The Tale of the Unexpected Visitor” might seem a bit dated in the internet age, but it nonetheless is a spooky time capsule of a time when such technology was in its infancy, and of the age old question of what happens to broadcast signals as they travel out into the vast universe beyond Earth.

3.) “The Tale of the Super Specs” – Season 1, Episode 6

Are You Afraid of the Dark? posits its own version of the sci-fi idea of seeing beyond the veil of reality in “The Tale of the Super Specs”, in which Marybeth (Graidhne Lelieveld-Amiro) gets a pair of super spec glasses from her boyfriend, Weeds (Eugene Byrd). However, far from being a simple party story novelty, the specs actually grant the wearer the ability to see into another dimension. Clearly, “The Tale of the Super Specs” is heavily influenced by John Carpenter’s They Live with a more kid-friendly tone, and the tale succeeds well in bringing the same sense of shocking fear of the unknown and discovering there is far more to the world than meets the eye with a set of super specs all its own.

4.) “The Tale of the Vacant Lot” – Season 5, Episode 11

Greed is the undoing of many characters in horror movies, and it forms the basis of Are You Afraid of the Dark?‘s spooky tale of avarice, “The Tale of the Vacant Lot,” in which Catherine Crawley (Jean Marie Barnwell) stumbles across a store in an abandoned lot, run by a woman named Marie who claims she can grant Catherine’s deepest wishes. The insecure Catherine keeps indulging Marie’s sales pitch, Marie claiming she’ll just take something of no significance to Catherine, with the protagonist soon realizing exactly how high that price is. With the horrifying visualization of what Catherine’s runaway desires end up causing, “The Tale of the Vacant Lot” is a spell-binding horror story of the power of greed preying on the most vulnerable.

5.) “The Tale of the Manaha” – Season 5, Episode 7

A trip to summer camp should be a fun-filled adventure for the average kid, but Are You Afraid of the Dark? spins a darker summer story in “The Tale of the Manaha,” with a group of kids at Camp Towaki meeting a centuries-old Native American Shaman (Michael Greyeyes), who warns of the revival of monsters known as the Manaha. The woodland setting of “The Tale of the Manaha” adds plenty of atmosphere to the story, along with Greyeyes’ performance as the vengeful Shaman seeking to reclaim the supernatural power over the forest he was collecting before being imprisoned by his people. It isn’t quite a “Blair Witch”-style campfire story told on a ’90s Nickelodeon show, but “The Tale of the Manaha” nonetheless rises to the standards of scariness upheld by the Midnight Society.

6).) “The Tale of the Chameleons” – Season 5, Episode 10

At the height of the popularity of Sister, Sister in the mid-90s, Tia and Tamera Mowry were two of Are You Afraid of the Dark?‘s biggest guest stars at the time in the episode “The Tale of the Chameleons.” The spooky tale focuses on a teenage girl named Janice (Tia Mowry), who encounters an unexpected doppelganger in a shape-shifting chameleon determined to take over her life. A chilling tale riff on the classic horror story of a villainous lookalike out to assume the protagonist’s identity, “The Tale of the Chameleons” ends on one of the more eerie twists of Are You Afraid of the Dark? that elevates it as one of the show’s scariest episodes.

7.) “The Tale of the Phantom Cab” – Season 1, Episode 1

Are You Afraid of the Dark?‘s pilot episode “The Tale of the Phantom Cab” got the show’s horror anthology template rolling splendidly with its introduction the Midnight Society’s scary story ritual and its first campfire story of brothers Denny (Jason Tremblay) and Buzz (Sean Ryan) lost in the woods. When they happen upon a cabin occupied by the show’s recurring character, Dr. Vink, they find themselves faced with a riddle they must solve to get home, or risk an explosive demise in the titular Phantom Cab. Built entirely around a genuinely clever riddle, “The Tale of the Phantom Cab” combines suspense with brain power for a fantastic start to Are You Afraid of the Dark?

8.) “The Tale of the Renegade Virus” – Season 4, Episode 1

A year before Virtuosity and five years before The Matrix, Are You Afraid of the Dark? delivered it own chilling tale of techno sci-fi horror with “The Tale of the Renegade Virus,” in which the story’s young prankster protagonist Simon (Christopher Redman) gets more than he bargained for when he gets pulled into a computer game. Even worse, an evil computer virus (Paul Cagedlet) seeks to take over Simon’s mind in order to escape into the real world. Cagelet’s hammy performance as the Brainiac-like virus gives the story plenty of juice, with “The Tale of the Renegade Virus” overall being one of Are You Afraid of the Dark‘s best sci-fi-themed spooky stories.

9.) “The Tale of The Ghastly Grinner” – Season 4, Episode 9

Are You Afraid of the Dark? plunges into the comic book world with “The Tale of the Ghastly Grinner,” in which aspiring comic book artist Ethan Wood (Amos Crawley) ends up accidentally unleashing the villainous Ghastly Grinner (Neil Kroetsch) into the real world. The Grinner is one of the most memorable villains ever seen on Are You Afraid of the Dark?, a menacing supernatural clown with the Joker’s sinister smile who turns his victims into cackling, drooling zombies. Made well in advance of the 21st century superhero movie boom, “The Tale of the Ghastly Grinner” is a great Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode to re-visit both for its scare factor and as a snapshot of the comic book genre before it really took off.

10.) “The Tale of The Dead Man’s Float” – Season 5, Episode 1

Are You Afraid of the Dark? dove in, quite literally, on the terror of drowning in “The Tale of the Dead Man’s Float,” in which high school science geek Zeke (Kaj-Erik Eriksen) and Clorice (Margot Finley) discover a long-abandoned swimming pool in their school that Clorice petitions to be used for her swim team’s practices. Unfortunately, the pair end up unleashing the disturbed ghost who haunts the pool, and who previously pulled the several people into its clutches, including the younger brother (played by a young Jay Baruchel) of former lifeguard-turned-custodian Charlie (Michael Ayoub). For being seen on a Nickelodeon show, the monstrous, skeletal creature lurking in the pool is easily the most frighteningly unforgettable beast ever seen on Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and “The Tale of the Dead Man’s Float” continues to resonate as a horror tale with centered on both tragedy and overcoming fear, and one of the scariest tales ever told on Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Are You Afraid of the Dark? is available to rent and buy as both seasons and individual episodes on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home.

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