Based on Welcome to Dead House, book #1 of the original Goosebumps series.
The Benson family have just moved to the dreary town of Dark Falls after the father inherits a spooky mansion from a great-uncle he didn't know he had, but soon find out the town is full of walking, talking dead people.
The episode provides examples of:
- Adaptational Villainy: The townspeople of Dark Falls become more sinister than they were in the book. In the original story, while the kids liked to mess with Amanda and Josh's heads, there was still an undercurrent of sadness and tragedy in their actions, and they don't seem to particularly enjoy what they have to do to survive. In the TV show, once the truth is revealed, the kids and adults become rather maliciously gleeful as they corner the Bensons.
- Adaptation Expansion: The reveal about the gas leak in Dark Falls happens earlier via an old newspaper, but Amanda's family don't learn what it really did to the town until later. Also, we learn that the reason Amanda heard voices in her room and the source of the draft she felt came from a hole in her closet. There's also an added subplot about a tacky dried flower wreath Mrs. Benson thinks is a good luck charm but might actually be the cause of the strange occurrences in the house. It's not, but it actually was protecting Amanda's family until they were tricked into destroying it.
- Black Comedy: The episode is extremely serious and dark in tone through Parts 1 and 2, until a scene where Compton Dawes, the family real-estate agent, creeps out from under the family's vehicle where he was apparently hiding, proceeding to chase them as they speed away, shouting loudly, "please! You dopes, can't you understand? I NEED YOU!!! Come back, come back! Dark Falls needs you! ...I'M HUNGREEEEEEEE!!!".
- Cassandra Truth: Amanda feels like there is something seriously wrong with her new house, and with the town of Dark Falls in general. Even after seeing an adult man peeping at her from a window adjacent to her bedroom, a ghostly boy wandering around, a deceased girl looming over her bed and a group of menacing kids wielding baseball bats, her parents don't believe her while her younger brother, Josh, just expresses annoyance at the house because it "stinks".
- Chekhov's Gun: Mom hangs up a tacky wreath, which later they assume they need to destroy to stop the zombies. It turns out it was protecting them from the zombies.
- Good Luck Charm: The Benson family puts up a fugly-as-hell wreath, appearing to be made of dead leaves and human hair, which mother Penelope Benson proclaims is an old good luck charm from her side of the family, which father Jack Benson and realtor Compton Dawes both hate. The wreath is sadly later burned in the fireplace, which turns out to have been a bad idea since it really was lucky and was the only thing protecting the Bensons from the malicious townsfolk of Dark Falls.
- Limited Wardrobe: While the Bensons all change their clothes and wear multiple different outfits throughout the show, the townsfolk of Dark Falls consistently wear the exact same thing, and all in very dark colours. The most prominent example is Karen Thurston, who wears a gray shirt with an ambiguous brand logo on it (a letter 'G' with a crown over it). It's unclear why the Dark Falls townsfolk never change clothes, but implied to either be sheer poverty or, worse still, that these are the clothes they were buried in when they were killed.
- Nightmarish Factory: The few glimpses viewers get of the shady Dark Falls Chemical Factory are aesthetically hideous, including a slapdash plywood sign with the words "Dark Falls Chemicals: Closed — Danger!" painted on it. Making matters even worse, the Benson family learns that not only is everyone in town unemployed since the factory's closure, but in a past accident reported in the town's local newspaper, many workers were killed by an accident at the factory, which mutated them all into beings that feed on human blood and can't go into direct sunlight.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The people of Dark Falls. They're undead, but also mutants, and also possess some qualities of vampires (such as being Weakened by the Light) and in addition to this, they need (or think they need) to eat healthy, living people to survive. So they're mutant vampire cannibals.
- Weakened by the Light: As in the book, the undead denizens of Dark Falls find direct sunlight intolerable. Instead of pushing a tree over to expose the sun, the Bensons smash out a window inside of a house during The Siege after the townspeople have managed to get inside of the house, causing their undead neighbors to disintegrate into Empty Piles of Clothing.
- Wham Line: Related to the Adaptation Expansion plot involving a tacky dried flower wreath Mrs. Benson thinks is a good luck charm but might actually be the cause of the strange occurrences in the house.Mrs. Somerset: You thought that wreath would keep you safe. Well, you were right.Mr. Somerset: Now it's gone. You just destroyed the one thing that could protect you.Mrs. Somerset: If it hadn't been for that annoying little wreath, we would have fed when you first moved in.]]
