Shortly after his parents' divorce, Andy Carr lives with his mother and younger sister Christina. With finances low, he takes a paper round. One day, his mother inherits the house of her recently deceased uncle Miles. Cycling through the new neighbourhood, Andy knocks into local bully Koda, who, among the scattered newspapers, lays a boot on Andy's chest, and curses the memory of his "nutbag" uncle.
That evening, as Andy helps unpack, Mrs Carr, struggling with window blinds, asks him to see if the basement has a ladder. Andy slowly approaches the door of the basement, and descends into its darkened depths.
On a cluttered worktop, he finds an ancient radio; tunes in, and finds some upbeat electronic music. As it plays, behind him creaks the metal handle of a wooden door. He tunes out, and the rattle stops. He tunes back in, and the creaking resumes. Of its own accord, the metal latch flies upwards, and the heavy wooden door swings open. In the impenetrable darkness within, two glowing, entirely red eyes flash into being. A deep, softly echoing voice invites Andy in. He yells in terror, and runs.
Staggered with fear, Andy fetches his mother, who, wary of rats, takes a hockey stick. Down in the basement, she flings open the door, to reveal a small, empty chamber, set with a bare light bulb: the root cellar. She puts down the spooky voice to something on the radio.
Next morning, while Koda's father sets him to work scrubbing steps, Andy, on his paper round, flings a newspaper which bounces off Koda's door and knocks into his bucket, dousing him with soapy water. As the furious bully advances, Andy peddles for dear life.
While Christina video games, and Mrs Carr cleans the fireplace, Andy sketches the root cellar door. He asks about Uncle Miles. A recluse who somehow got filthy rich, he eventually died of old age. Mrs Carr unsuccessfully asks Christina to take the laundry down to the basement. Covered in ash, Mrs Carr falls back on Andy.
While a more modern radio airs rock music, Andy loads the washing machine. As the root cellar door creaks open, he looks round. Creeping towards him is what appears to be a five foot tall, string-less marionette of a young girl. In an eerily echoing voice, it invites him to come and have "lots of fun." As Andy stares, entranced, the apparition raises a creaking arm. Meanwhile, Mrs Carr passes the basement door, and wonders what's taking so long. Andy reaches to take the doll's hand. His mother switches off the basement's electricity, and the radio falls silent. With a scream, the doll flies back into the root cellar, which slams shut. Roused from his trance, Andy retains no memory of the apparition.
The next day, Andy returns to the basement with laundry. As he works, the radio plays soft rock, which is suddenly replaced by carnival fanfare. The Root Cellar door swings open. Instead of the small chamber, the doorway shows, beneath a night sky, a Hurricane ride swing its arms above a popcorn dispenser and a bunch of balloons. A Carnival Barker heartily promotes a myriad of thrills. Mesmerised, Andy slowly approaches.
Near the door, the Barker reaches out a hand. Horrified, Andy jumps back from the fingers, which are now those of an animate skeleton. With the carnival having vanished, the now skeletal Barker mockingly coaxes Andy back. An ethereal wind lifts Andy into the air. He clings to a worktop as the wind pushes him towards the Cellar. As the laughing skeleton reaches for his feet, Andy tugs forth the radio, unplugging it. The wind fades, and the cellar door slams. Andy realises the Root Cellar to be roused by music. As he cycles off to tell his mother, Koda stops him, punches him to the ground, and throws his bike into the path of a passing vehicle.
Onto the driveway, Andy drops his ruined bike. And then he has an idea. In the basement, he sets up a stereo with some speakers, covers them with a sheet, and locks the basement door.
While Koda scrubs, Andy throws him a free newspaper, which hits him on the head. Ready to dole out another beating, Koda gives chase, and is tricked into the backdoor of Andy's basement, which Andy bolts with a brush.
Through the locked door, Koda shouts threats. In the hallway, Andy flicks a switch, and the basement is filled with deafening heavy metal. As Koda screams, a red glow blazes through the cracks of the Root Cellar door. He watches the door open, and screams in terror.
Andy switches off the music, and descends, to see if Koda has learned his lesson. Koda is nowhere in sight. Stood by the worktop is a brand new bike. Andy curiously switches on the radio. Gentle guitar strings rouse, from behind the door of the Root Cellar, a blue glow and an ethereal mist. The door swings marginally open. The deep, echoing voice from before offers Andy anything he might want, as it did his uncle, in exchange for just one thing: food. From the hallway calls Christina, who passes on an instruction for Andy to make dinner. Andy looks thoughtfully upwards. The voice chuckles. Andy smirks.
As the meeting ends, Eric remembers his father's flashlight to be in the hands of Frank - who seems to have disappeared. Eric stays to wait. After all, he's not afraid of the dark... until his shoulder is grabbed from behind by Frank, who runs off, laughing.
This episode provides examples of:
- Accidental Murder: Andy locks Koda in the cellar only intending to teach him a lesson, instead the monster in the cellar kills him.
- Affably Evil: The Root Cellar's voice, while eerie, is polite and friendly, and offers Andy limitless wealth in exchange for feeding it.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Relentlessly bullied by Koda, dutiful, easygoing Andy devises a ruthless, intricate plan to teach him a lesson.
- Bigger on the Inside: This may be the case with the Root Cellar, which swaps its walls respectively for a black void or a thriving carnival.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: While sapient, the Cellar has no qualms about eating people, but this seems to be out of hunger rather than malice.
- Blue Is Calm: Having devoured Koda, the Root Cellar, roused by a broadcast of gentle music, opens to exude a soft blue glow, from which the disembodied voice offers an alliance.
- The Bully: Seemingly to spite the latter's uncle, Koda picks on Andy at any opportunity.
- The Corrupter: Merely aiming to scare Koda into leaving him alone, Andy unwittingly feeds him to the Root Cellar. To its offer of limitless wealth in exchange for more victims, Andy responds with a Psychotic Smirk.
- Corrupt the Cutie: Having found his retaliation to Koda has resulted in the boy being eaten, Andy seems disturbingly tempted by an offer of limitless wealth in exchange for more prey.
- Creepy Basement: The Carrs' basement is dark, silent, and hosts some kind of incorporeal entity.
- Creepy Doll: The five foot stringless marionette, with its blank expression and disproportionately chipper voice.
- Dem Bones: The Root Cellar conjures a phantom carnival, whose barker suddenly becomes a maniacally laughing skeleton.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Koda may have been an irredeemable Jerkass, but he probably didn't deserve to be fed to a being of unspeakable horror.
- Eldritch Abomination: Behind a wooden door in the Carr's basement, an inscrutable entity manifests as a patch of impenetrable darkness in which float two glowing red eyes, which it replaces with various objects and locations.
- Eldritch Location: The Root Cellar manifests various items, including a phantom carnival.
- Genius Loci: The entity seems to be part of the house itself.
- Hate Sink: Koda is nothing but a mean bully and Christina's bratty behavior doesn't endear her to the audience, either.
- Ironic Death: Koda, judging by his introductory Leitmotif and tee shirt, seems fond of hard rock. In the Carrs' basement, a broadcast of such music sets on him the Basement Boogeyman.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The root cellar creature eats people, although what this actually entails, given its apparent lack of a corporeal body, is somewhat ambiguous.
- Infinite Supplies: Uncle Miles's excessive wealth is revealed to have been supernaturally supplied by some kind of ethereal entity in his basement.
- Music Soothes the Savage Beast: Inverted, broadcasts of any kind of music rouse thematically relevant manifestations.
- No Name Given: The closest the entity gets to a name is Betty Anne’s "boogeyman in the basement."
- Nothing Is Scarier:
- Beyond its ethereal inscrutability; power to recreate matter and appetite for humans, little is revealed of the Basement Boogeyman's true nature.
- Whatever form it takes in pursuit of Koda, unrevealed to the audience, terrifies him out of his wits.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Andy's final smirk indicates that he has no problem feeding people to the cellar monster for personal gain.
- Red Is Violent: To a ferocious blast of heavy metal, the Root Cellar door opens to exude a red blaze. At whatever's inside, Koda stares in abject terror.
- Reality Warper: The Root Cellar manifests tangible objects, including a carnival, and seems to eat people by erasing them from perceptible existence.
- Scare 'Em Straight: Andy merely aims to scare Koda into getting off his case - although inadvertently takes things too far. Eric says him to have applied to Christina a similar approach.
- Voice of the Legion: Of a polite, friendly variety.
