History Series / TheHauntingHour

** In "Headshot," Cassandra tells Lexi that "Gracie has become what she's always been, or she would have deleted that headshot long ago," meaning that, while Cassandra is the Devil (posing as a teen magazine modeling scout and photographer) who steals the souls of girls who want to be known for their beauty and turns them into ugly monsters, she didn't drive Gracie into being evil, just captured her soul in a headshot photo and encouraged her to do what she could to make it so she'd be the winner, even if it meant hurting and alienating everyone she's ever known and loved. After all, it was Gracie who disobeyed her mother, set up Dylan to get suspended for cheating on a math test, spiked Flynn's milkshake with Red Dye #3 (which makes her break out in hives), and alienated Lexi (her best friend and the one who knew that Cassandra was evil and using Gracie for her own gain) by calling her a "butterface" and telling her that (paraphrased), "When good things happen, your friends are the first ones to bail."

** [[spoiler: Meg]] in "Dreamcatcher" was an [[AttentionWhore attention]] [[SpoiledBrat brat]] who spooked Lisa with a scary story, broke her and Amelia's dreamcatchers, and left them to die in the claws of the titular Dreamcatcher.[[spoiler: She finally gets her comeuppance when she's stuck in his web, about to be eaten]].

** Also ''Dreamcatcher''

** "Dreamcatcher": At summer camp, Meg gets jealous of her former friend, Amelia, befriending another girl, Lisa. She doesn't care about the nightmares Lisa suffers after she cuts her and Amelia's dreamcatchers out of spite. When Amelia gets captured by a dream lurking monster, Meg leaves Lisa to deal with it, pretends to come help in the dream land only to ditch her out of spite, and then shows up when the rescue fails to gloat a bit, steal their flashlight, and leave them to die at the hands of the spider creature, [[spoiler:before tripping and falling into a trap herself. Karma strikes hard when one of the girls' alarm clock goes off, waking up and saving Lisa and Amelia, leaving Meg to get eaten by the spider creature (she couldn't wake up because she slept by herself in the mess hall and couldn't hear the alarm).]]

** The House from "My Old House" is a sentient building with the ability to summon food, manipulate everything inside of it, communicate through dreams, [[spoiler: turns into a blood red snake made out of its wiring, and can speak]], but we have absolutely ''no idea'' as to what the heck it actually is and how it even came into existence. Which makes its presence all the more horrifying if you realize that it's been watching the family for years. According to Wiki/TheOtherWiki, it's implied that it might be a demon.

** Jared, from "Uncle Howee", is [[BalefulPolymorph transformed into a giant marionette]] on the Uncle Howee Show, where it's implied that he'll be a smiling, vapid character on the program forever.

* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: Happens to Gracie in "Headshot". Though, if [[{{Satan}} Cassandra]] is to be believed, [[spoiler: Gracie [[BitchInSheepsClothing had always been that way]], and Cassandra merely pushed her to the point of revealing her true colors.]]
* ActOfTrueLove: Eric must perform one to save Hanna from the mirror, as only those who truly love someone can make take them with them across Mary's tear soaked river back to the real world.

** Kate the homecoming queen in "Detention." Though when she, Audrey, and Halftime discover that they're dead and their actions at the homecoming parade led to their early demise, Kate realizes how awful her behavior is and she is willing to go to Hell to spare the lives of Audrey and Halftime. Thankfully, Audrey and Halftime are having none of it and are able to talk her out of it in a legitimately touching scene.

** In "Cast", [[spoiler:we never find out if the crazy old lady acutually placed a curse on the main character or he's hallucinating it the entire time.]]

* CassandraTruth: Delivered by a [[MeaningfulName character named Cassandra]], no less! In "Headshot," Lexi confronts photographer Cassandra and demands that she undo whatever dark magic she's placed on Gracie. Cassandra flat-out tells Lexi that she hasn't done anything to corrupt her friend's soul; rather, Gracie was always a [[BitchInSheepsClothing cruel, petty person despite her nice demeanor]] (otherwise, she would have either deleted the headshot or turned down Cassandra's offer to have her photo taken), and the magazine photo shoot contest simply provided an opportunity to let her true colors show. True to this trope, Lexi refuses to believe Cassandra and tries to save Gracie herself. It doesn't end well. As the ending narration revealed: "But the choice wasn't mine to make. It was Gracie's and Gracie's alone."

** "Headshot" combines this with DownerEnding: [[spoiler: Gracie's friend, Lexi, learns that Cassandra is the Devil and that Gracie inadvertently sold her soul to her to make her wish of being the prettiest girl in the world come true, so Lexi decides to reverse the spell by deleting Gracie's headshot from her cell phone -- which grows uglier as the real Gracie gets prettier. Sadly, Lexi didn't know that Gracie and only Gracie had the power to erase her own headshot and not go through with her DealWithTheDevil. On top of that, she had already won Teen-Teen's "Most Beautiful Face" contest, so there would have been no way to reverse it. Because of this, Gracie's human face is on Cassandra's wall of other girls who sold their souls and their looks to her and now wanders the Earth, her pretty face replaced by the hideous headshot from her picture]]

** Audrey, Kate, and Halftime in "Detention" -- until Audrey's apology to Kate reversed the events and made it so that way the homecoming voting scandal and the parade accident that killed all three of them never happened.

** Heavily implied in the episode "Headshot" with Cassandra the photographer implied to be The Devil. Justified, as the episode is based on ''Literature/ThePictureOfDorianGray'', which followed a similar story of a vain protagonist selling his/her soul to be beautiful forever, only for it to backfire, though subverted as, while Cassandra steals the souls of girls who want to be beautiful and be the face of ''Teen-Teen'' magazine, she doesn't warp their personalities to be evil, as the girls who take the offer are already shallow, vain, and cutthroat and the ones that delete the headshot are considered good.

** The show wasn't afraid of showing or mentioning kids dying. To name a few examples, "The Black Mask" had the visions of the three main characters dying allegedly at the hands of the handyman trying to fix the basement, the twist in "Detention" revealed that Audrey killed Kate the homecoming queen and Halftime the star football player by throwing a smoke bomb under a parade float, but [[HoistByHisOwnPetard also killed herself because the float was out of control and she was in its path when it swerved off the road]][[note]]though this might not count, since Audrey and Kate apologizing for their actions led to the entire detention/stay in limbo being erased[[/note]], Alex in "Sick" was obliterated in a house explosion to get rid of the creature that made him sick ([[MindScrew maybe]]), and Will was killed by Jake in "The Dead Body."

** In "Headshot," Lexi tries to invoke this trope by deleting Gracie's ever-changing headshot, thinking it will be enough to bring things back to normal. But since Gracie [[DealWithTheDevil made a deal]] with Cassandra in the first place, it was up to ''her'' to make the choice to erase the photo, and the result...well, see NightmareFace above.

* TheDollEpisode: "Really You," "The Return of Lilly D.," and "Worry Dolls."

* IgnoringBySinging: Played for horror in "The Girl in the Painting." When Becky finally enters the painting's world and meets the titular girl, they chat for a while, but then the girl tells her that it's [[WhamLine "feeding time."]] She then covers her ears and starts singing as loud as she can to drown out Becky's screams as a ''giant dragon'' rips the roof off the house and eats her alive.

* IgnoreBySinging: Played for horror in "The Girl in the Painting." When Becky finally enters the painting's world and meets the titular girl, they chat for a while, but then the girl tells her that it's [[WhamLine "feeding time."]] She then covers her ears and starts singing as loud as she can to drown out Becky's screams as a ''giant dragon'' rips the roof off the house and eats her alive.

** In "Inturders," Eve doesn't look as frightened as she should be when she notices [[spoiler: the army of evil fairies charging up at her front door.]]

** Cassandra in "Headshot" is similar. [[spoiler: While it's heavily implied that she's ''literally'' the Devil]] and steals the souls of girls who want to be pretty, she doesn't warp their personalities to do so. Rather, the girls who take up her offer are already shallow, cutthroat, and competitive (even if they don't show it), and befitting her [[spoiler: Satanic]] nature, she merely tempts them to act on this

* FootprintsOfMuck: In "Near Mint Condition", Mangler runs through some spilt food and Mark and Ted uses its footprints to track it from the kitchen to their mother's scrapbooking room.

* DeathOfAChild:
** "The Dead Body": Will is tricked into dying in the boiler room explosion that claimed Jake's life.
** "Wrong Number" (Steffani gets sucked into a cell phone video, sent to the Goth girl she bullied and deleted forever)
** "Swarmin' Norman" (Norman's insect pals attack him after they find that they're being used for evil)
** "Pumpkinhead" (the kids who trespassed on Old Man Palmer's farm get murdered and turned into zombies). Similarly, the SequelEpisode implies that Katie and her brother will die at the hands of her newly-transformed parents and the other pumpkinheads that just rose from the garden
** "Sick" (Alex discovers too late that his "fever dream" of the government putting him in quarantine and preparing to blow up the house to control the infection is real...[[MindScrew maybe.]])
** "Mascot" (Willie is digested after finding out that Big Yellow is a monster that only looks like a man in a cheesy mascot costume)
** "Ghostly Stare" (Lauren loses a staring contest against her brother and complains of feeling cold, meaning she fell into the open grave and is now dead)
** "The Girl in the Painting" (Becky is eaten by a dragon while living her new life in the painting she found)
** "Dreamcatcher": Meg gets trapped in the Dreamcatcher's spider web, and Lisa and Amelia are able to get out because they set their clock alarm. Meg, on the other hand, was asleep outside the cabin and couldn't hear the alarm, leaving her to be devoured by the Dreamcatcher and die in her sleep.
** "Near Mint Condition": It's stated that Mangler (the robotic teddy bear) was recalled after a string of child deaths and mutilations at the hands of the bear.
** "Argh V": Sam discovers that the family her parents picked up during their RV trip were the same ones who died in the crash that she read about online, and now she and her parents met the same fate as them.
*** It should be noted, however, that for every time they do show kids dying on this show, there are a few times where this is subverted and the kids are saved. Cases in point: "Detention" (Audrey, Kate, and Halftime do discover that they're dead, but when Kate and Audrey atone for the events that led to their death, they get their lives back and the voting scandal and parade accident are [[{{Retgone}} erased]]), "The Black Mask" (the three kids discover that the mask that showed the colonial kids dying in the past was actually a prediction of their own deaths and they stop it before it can happen), "A Creature Was Stirring" (Timmy and his family escape the house before the Krampus can burn it down), and "The Weeping Woman" (Chi saves his friend and his friend's sister from being lured into the lake and drowned by La Llorona).

* MoodWhiplash: Hoo boy, does "Near Mint Condition" run the gamut. The first act is largely silly, featuring Ted geeking out over the Mangler Robo-Bear, a [[StylisticSuck deliberately bad commercial]] for the toys, and Ted's younger brother Mark and his friend Jason teasing Ted over his collection. Then Mangler comes to life for the first time...and ''brutally attacks Jason'', leaving him comatose. Things remain grim when Ted and Mark travel to visit Mangler's previous owner's address: it turns out he was a toy collector so obsessed with his hobby that he spent money on them in place of things like food and heat. His sister is the only person who was able to put up with him--and even she's still bitter about how he ruined his life, and by extension, hers, with his obsession. It's outright stated that Mangler killed the collector; the woman is also clearly mentally unstable from her brother's death and her unresolved anger toward him, leaving her miserable. Then the episode takes another sharp turn in the third act, with Ted and Mark teaming up to fight the monster and cracking jokes while they do it.
* MoreThanMindControl:
** In "Funhouse," Kelly accuses the mysterious Carny of putting a spell on her brother Chad that is warping him into a monster. The Carny snaps back, "I didn't do a ''thing'' to your brother" and even remarks that he's trying to "fix" him. The funhouse is merely allowing Chad to indulge in his angry, violent impulses--it's not causing them; only he has the power to choose to stop.
** Similarly in "Headshot," Lexi orders [[LouisCypher Cassandra]] to undo whatever dark magic she put on Gracie to make her become a shallow AlphaBitch. Cassandra merely [[ShutUpKirk rolls her eyes]] and says, "Gracie's become what she's ''always'' been," explaining that, like any devil, she's only able to tempt people into pursuing dangerous things--they have to make the choice to actually do them on their own, and only [[BitchInSheepsClothing already-heartless people]] take her up on her offers.

** Season four is even more explicit with this trope: "Near Mint Condition" notes that several children have been killed by Mangler the Robo-Bear (including the original owner of one of the few remaining Mangler bears left in the world after the recall, as mentioned by the owner's mentally disturbed mother, who was obviously affected by his death and the fact that he was a toy-collecting geek who wasted his life), while "Argh V" goes a step further by actually showing the Applebaum children -- who look about eight and six at the oldest -- as zombies.

** In "My Old House", [[spoiler: ''what's left of Alice'' is shown mounted on the wall by [[{{Yandere}} the house]]]]

* NotBrainwashed: In "Funhouse," Kelly thinks that the titular attraction has somehow hypnotized Chad into becoming a rage-addicted monster. The Carny running the funhouse tells her that this isn't the case--Chad's anger is his own problem, and the funhouse is just giving him a place to indulge in it.

** In "Headshot," Lexi accuses Cassandra of corrupting Gracie, but the woman/demon shrugs and says "Gracie's become what she's always been," explaining that if Gracie was truly a good person, she wouldn't have taken the [[DealWithTheDevil offered deal]] in the first place.

** Katie does this in "Detention," leading her to nearly go off in the hearse to Hell after Audrey and Halftime realize that they're dead and their underhanded actions led to their demise and the homecoming weekend being canceled.

*** It should be noted, however, that for every time they do show kids dying on this show, there are a few times where this is subverted and the kids are saved. Cases in point: "Detention" (Audrey, Katie, and Halftime do discover that they're dead, but when Katie and Audrey atone for the events that led to their death, they get their lives back and the voting scandal and parade accident are [[{{Retgone}} erased]]), "The Black Mask" (the three kids discover that the mask that showed the colonial kids dying in the past was actually a prediction of their own deaths and they stop it before it can happen), "A Creature Was Stirring" (Timmy and his family escape the house before the Krampus can burn it down), and "The Weeping Woman" (Chi saves his friend and his friend's sister from being lured into the lake and drowned by La Llorona).

** The show wasn't afraid of showing or mentioning kids dying. To name a few examples, "The Black Mask" had the visions of the three main characters dying allegedly at the hands of the handyman trying to fix the basement, the twist in "Detention" revealed that Audrey killed Katie the homecoming queen and Halftime the star football player by throwing a smoke bomb under a parade float, but [[HoistByHisOwnPetard also killed herself because the float was out of control and she was in its path when it swerved off the road]][[note]]though this might not count, since Audrey and Kate apologizing for their actions led to the entire detention/stay in limbo being erased[[/note]], Alex in "Sick" was obliterated in a house explosion to get rid of the creature that made him sick ([[MindScrew maybe]]), and Will was killed by Jake in "The Dead Body."

** The original ending to "Black Mask" had the kids finding out too late that they were seeing the future and getting killed by the falling roof; the TV version had them alive and able to save the handyman (thought to be the villain) who was about to die.

** [[spoiler: Mark]] doesn't die in the "Ghostly Stare" like he did in the short story.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: "Best Friends Forever," "A Creature Was Stirring" (the first episode with this trope that [[{{Reconstruction}} has a more-or-less happy ending]] as [[spoiler:Timmy's parents decide not to divorce after losing their house to the Krampus as the children need love and support from both parents while they try to find a new place to live]]), "Headshot," "The Red Dress," "The Girl in the Painting," "Terrible Love," "Worry Dolls," "Long Live Rock and Roll" (another episode that has a happy ending as [[spoiler:Holden defeated Sir Maestro in the guitar duel and was able to save his friends]]), and "Mrs. Worthington" (another episode with a more-or-less happy ending as, while Nate and his sister begin to be more civil towards each other, they don't notice that Mrs. Worthington's hand is still in the attic and has drawn herself so she can come back to life).

* BittersweetEnding: "A Creature Was Stirring" ends with [[spoiler:the family's home destroyed and the family with little but the clothes on their backs. However, they got through the episode alive, and the parents have cancelled their divorce.]]

* ChristmasEpisode: "A Creature Was Stirring" and "Goodwill Toward Men," making for a nice bookend for the series, as it started with a Christmas episode and ended with a Christmas episode ("Really You" was a pilot/series sneak peek, and doesn't count as an official episode).

** Heavily implied in the episode "Headshot" with Cassandra the photographer implied to be The Devil. Justified, as the episode is based on ''Literature/ThePictureOfDorianGray'', which followed a similar story of a vain protagonist selling his/her soul to be beautiful forever, only for it to backfire, though subverted as, while Cassandra steals the souls of girls who want to be beautiful and be the face of ''Teen-Teen'' magazine, she doesn't warp their personalities to be evil, as the girls who take their offer are already shallow, vain, and cutthroat and the ones that delete the headshot are considered good.

*** It should be noted, however, that for every time they do show kids dying on this show, there are a few times where this is subverted and the kids are saved. Cases in point: "Detention" (Audrey, Katie, and Halftime do discover that they're dead, but when Katie and Audrey atone for the events that led to their death, they get their lives back and the voting scandal and parade accident are [[{{Retgone}} erased]]), "The Black Mask" (the three kids discover that the mask that showed the colonial kids dying in the past was actually a prediction of their own deaths and they stop it before it can happen), "A Creature Was Stirring" (Timmy and his family escape the house before the Krampus can blow it up), and "The Weeping Woman" (Chi saves his friend and his friend's sister from being lured into the lake and drowned by La Llorona).

** "Headshot". However, it also falls under CruelTwistEnding for some fans who thought Gracie was redeemable. Cassandra proclaims that Gracie has become [[BitchInSheepsClothing who she really is]] in the end so when [[spoiler: she becomes ugly beyond reality, not many feel sorry that her [[FacialHorror ugly headshot]] has now become her permanent face.]]

* MoreThanMindControl: In "Funhouse," Kelly accuses the mysterious Carny of putting a spell on her brother Chad that is warping him into a monster. The Carny snaps back, "I didn't do a ''thing'' to your brother" and even remarks that he's trying to "fix" him. The funhouse is merely allowing Chad to indulge in his angry, violent impulses--it's not causing them; only he has the power to choose to stop.
** Similarly, in "Headshot," Lexi tells [[LouisCypher Cassandra]] to undo whatever dark magic she put on Gracie to make her become a shallow AlphaBitch. Cassandra merely [[ShutUpKirk rolls her eyes]] and says "Gracie's become what she's ''always'' been," explaining that, like any devil, she's only able to tempt people into pursuing dangerous things--they have to make the choice to actually do them on their own, and only [[BitchInSheepsClothing already-heartless people]] take her up on her offers.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Lexi in the end of "Headshot", tries to help Gracie [[spoiler: by deleting the cursed headshot on her phone for her to save her soul. Unfortunately, it was Gracie's choice to delete it herself and Lexi inadvertently doomed Gracie to be as ugly as sin and sealed her fate in Hell.]]

** The trope is also played with in the two episodes. "Long Live Rock 'n Roll"'s protagonist, Holden, is outright told this by Maestro ("I've had many names over the span of many years, but, lately, I go by, 'Sir Maestro'"), and later confirms it when he tells Holden that he's been collecting the souls of anyone who wanted power, not just musicians or even creative people. In "Headshot," it's Lexi, not Gracie, who discovers that Cassandra is the Devil (Cassandra answers Lexi's question of "What are you?" with "Haven't you already guessed?" before her face transforms into a screeching demon. Additionally, Cassandra tells Lexi that, while she does steal souls and offer encouragement to be evil, she doesn't warp them to be evil, as the girls who don't get rid of their headshots have already proven their true nature, which fits the Devil's traditional portrayal as one who ''tempts'' people into evil). Unfortunately, that means that only Gracie can reverse the effects of her deal with her--when Lexi tries to save her friend, it's already too late as Gracie needed to make the choice herself.

** Cruelly subverted with Gracie in "Headshot". She may seem nice at first, but with a little push she becomes who she [[BitchInSheepsClothing really is.]]

** "Terrible Love": [[spoiler:After Cupid grants Maggie's wish to have Brendon leave her alone (resulting in Brendon getting knocked out and having to go to the hospital after falling down the stairs), Maggie meets up with class nerd Stuart, and tells him that she's glad to see him after everything that's happened -- and Stuart reassures her she'll find love again...just as Cupid draws his arrow and hits Maggie, making her fall for Stuart.]] In a way, it is a karmic ending, as [[spoiler:Maggie didn't listen to Cupid's warning about what happens when someone gets hit twice with one of his love arrow, and is now paying the price for what she did to Brendon]].

** "The Girl in the Painting" [[spoiler:After Becky finally makes it to the world of The Girl in the Painting, the girl asks if she can stay with her forever. When Becky says yes, the clock strikes six, and Becky is fed to an unseen, but implied dragon-like creature. It's then revealed that the girl in the painting and her mother have planned this all along and use the painting as a trap to capture people who see their world as perfect and feed them to the dragon outside their window]].

** Sam in "Argh V," especially since she has to deal with her [[KidsRaiseYou parents who act more like children]] than she does.

* WhenYouComingHomeDad: ''Worry Dolls'' is a unique case where the kids eventually figure out that the parents are simply trying to their best to put on the table and learn [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor the hard way]] that [[MyBelovedSmother the opposite extreme]] can be just as bad.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: "Best Friends Forever," "A Creature Was Stirring" (the first episode with this trope that [[{{Reconstruction}} has a more-or-less happy ending]] as [[spoiler:Timmy's parents decide not to divorce after losing their house to the Krampus as the children need love and support from both parents while they try to find a new place to live]]), "Headshot," "The Red Dress," "The Girl in the Painting," "Terrible Love," "Worry Dolls," "Long Live Rock and Roll" (another episode that has a happy ending as [[spoiler:Holden defeated Sir Maestro in the guitar duel and was able to save his friends]]), and "Mrs. Worthington." (another episode with a more-or-less happy ending as, while Nate and his sister begin to be more civil towards each other, they don't notice that Mrs. Worthington's hand is still in the attic and has drawn herself so she can come back to life).

** "Dreamcatcher": [[spoiler: The dream catcher demon takes innocent girls into its webs where it then mauls them to death and eats them alive while they scream in horror.]] Heck, this episode outright show blood from a girl having claw slashes on her wrist.

** In "Detention", someone says something about the "powers that be" [[spoiler: Possibly refering to God and such, due to the reveal of the detention being purgatory]].

** ''Creature Features'' is based on one of the books in the Literature/StrangeMatter series. The only thing it retains is the basic concept and a few charecter names.

** In "Wrong Number" ([[spoiler:in which a mean girl gets trapped in her cell phone, sent as a video message to the Goth girl whom she bullied, and ends up getting deleted]]). Unlike the Cruel Twist Endings listed above, the main character of this episode '''[[BreakTheHaughty deserved]] what happened to her''', since the old woman she harrassed was the grandmother of the Goth girl they bullied. The old woman even let's the bully's "friend" go since she was at least nice to the Goth girl and meant no ill will to either her grandaughter or her, and was even going to let the bully go if she genuinely apologized (which she didn't). Nice to see some vengeful ghosts can be reasonable.

* MoreThanMindControl: In "Funhouse," Kelly accuses the mysterious Carny of putting a spell on her brother Chad that is warping him into a monster. The Carny snaps back "I didn't do a ''thing'' to your brother" and even remarks that he's trying to "fix" him. The funhouse is merely allowing Chad to indulge in his angry, violent impuses--it's not causing them; only he has the power to choose to stop.

** Also averted in "Terrible Love" when Maggie tells Cupid that Brendon (who has been driven mad with a hyperdose of the hormones associated with feeling love) is going to kill her after her botched attempt at breaking up with him. She probably didn't mean it literally, but considering his {{Yandere}} behavior, it's safe to say that she did mean it literally.

* OneWordTitle: A few of the episodes, such as ''Inruders, Mascot, and Spores''.

** Uncle Howee from the episode of the same name is loud and theatric every minute he's on screen. Justified as he's played by Creator/TomKenny, who often plays hammy characters (usually cartoon characters like [=SpongeBob=] [=SquarePants=] and Heffer Wolfe from ''Rocko's Modern Life'').

** "Headshot", first when Cassandra [[spoiler:reveals [[{{Satan her true nature}}]], and then, in the ending, when [[spoiler: Gracie is doomed to have an horrendously disfigured face for all eternity.]]