90s children/teens almost universally love this show and who can blame us? It featured stories the main characters told each other at meetings of their group they called “The Midnight Society”. As a horror lover I got annoyed at how often these stories that weren’t even real within the show still got tied up with a big bow of a happy ending. Nonetheless, there was some definite good stuff here.

There were 65 (91 if you count the revival just a few years later) episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? For the purposes of this post, I’ll focus on six, as there are six scary stories the villain writes about characters in Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark.

“The Tale Of The Twisted Claw”: I’ve expressed my adoration for The Monkey’s Paw. This is a kid-friendly variation but still a little unnerving, and well written. I’d give it 78/100.

“The Tale Of The Night Shift”: Didn’t care for this one. It went overboard making everything all hunky dory* at the end. Plus it TWICE succumbed to the “nice guy” syndrome I just praised a movie for subverting. 20/100 for some good visuals by 90s cable TV standards and a really cute girl as the vampire. As a kid at the time I loved that sort of bubbly personality (and still do!).

“The Tale Of The Frozen Ghost”:  This one I definitely liked! Melissa Joan Hart, someone who was already famous for her own Nickelodeon show Clarissa Explains It All, makes a special guest appearance as a babysitter who joins her extremely uptight, timid charge at his elderly relatives’ house. While things get resolved nicely in the present day, the darkness of the past backstory makes this episode layered. Plus Hart gives a stellar performance as someone who has essentially been a nanny to this boy and believes he needs tough love. Glad she went on to star in two more popular series after Clarissa. I give this episode 66/100.

“The Tale Of The Dollmaker”: This reminded me of the Twilight Zone episode “Miniature”. Except not as good. It also reminded me of when I visited Alaska last year, dropped by a miniatures museum, and took a picture of a display featuring a logger in the midst of his job. Maybe it was because he was by himself and doing heavy labor, but I singled him out by captioning, “I was thinking what a great Twilight Zone episode it would be if this guy were alive.” I’m guessing that non-existent episode would have been better than this one, too. I’ll give it 49/100 for the set design, costume design, and makeup that makes you feel like you really are in a dollhouse where a girl has been turned into a doll, but otherwise episodes of this show go so far out of the way to make everything blissful at the end that I don’t feel like I’m watching scary stories. I feel like I’m watching fairy tales.

“The Tale of the Ghastly Grinner”: Same complaint here. 30/100 for the interesting story but I don’t even feel like describing that, even though this is one of the show’s most popular episodes.

“The Tale of the Midnight Madness”: This episode I loved though! Did at least tack something amusingly cryptic onto the end, so it certainly didn’t feel like a fairy tale. More importantly, though, it was a truly awesome premise. I love revival theaters and in this story a real-life historic one that’s struggled for survival, Pasadena’s The Rialto, is facing foreclosure. One of the employees, a teenager who reminded me a lot of myself, is trying his best to help save it even while the cute female coworker he has a crush on is ready to move on. Then, however, a strange old man approaches the manager with a deal: said old man gets will allow the theater to show his copy of Nosferatu on Saturdays in exchange for getting another night every week to show different movies of his. This episode is a must for fans of The Rialto or Nosferatu and highly recommended for fans of revival theaters and classic horror movies in general. 82/100.

On that last note, though, I feel like Are You Afraid of the Dark? isn’t really for horror aficionados. Regarding what I’ve been complaining about regarding the happy endings, some people might say that I need to look at it from the perspective of someone in early adolescence, give or take. I was part of this show’s target demo, though, and in the midst of its run I bought a collection of scary short stories at a book fair in my elementary school.  It was written for my grade level yet it got pretty dark. I remember one story was about a school field trip where they actually spent the night at a museum and one boy decided to explore the Egyptian exhibit after lights were out. The following morning nobody could find him and everyone had to just leave. However, the narrator concluded by telling us that if they’d checked the mummy exhibit they’d have found an extra one – belonging to the body of an eight-year-old boy.

Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark also went in a chilling direction with its stories and I feel like it can be appreciated by horror fans of all ages. Are You Afraid of the Dark?, on the other hand, was too tame for people outside of its target demo of tweens. Even among them, people like me who really love being scared would be underwhelmed. There are a couple of episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? which went in a more intense direction, but for this post I chose to focus on episodes typical of the show’s output.

That said, I recognize the things Are You Afraid of the Dark? did right and here I gave it deserved praise, along with a solid rating for the overall series!

P.S. I chose a great time to write about this show, as there will be a limited revival this October. Watch a teaser below!

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to comment.

Bottom line: Great for nostalgia for people my age who were fans and good for current kids who like mild scares.

*Hunky dory? Maybe I’m really an 1890s child instead of 1990s.