Directed by
William Malone. 13 year-old Tara (
Lindsay Pulsipher) is kidnapped by a couple of retired musicians, Anton (William Samples) and Judith (
Lori Petty), and imprisoned in their run-down basement. While in there, she learns that she is to be sacrificed as part of a
Deal with the Devil to resuscitate the couple's teenage son, Johnny (Jesse Hadock).
Tropes:
- Alone with the Psycho: The Human Sacrifice simply consists of leaving the victim trapped in the basement with the monster.
- Black Magic: How the parents first summoned the entity they want to bargain with.
- Couldn't Find a Pen: Johnny writes in the dust for most of the episode, while Tara writes her Last Words in blood.
- Creepy Crosses: The monster has an inverted cross on its forehead.
- Cute Mute: Johnny, at first.
- Deal with the Devil: The couple agrees with a dark force to kill twelve children in return for their son coming back to life. Eventually, Johnny also trades his two parents for Tara.
- Death of a Child: The backstory are Johnny's parents grieving over his death.
- Decapitation Presentation: The monster keeps the heads of its victims in a drawer in the basement.
- Died on Their Birthday: Johnny is revealed to have drowned on his fifteenth birthday. This devastating loss compelled Johnny's parents to make a deal with a demon and perform a ritual that involves them providing a sacrifice of one virgin teenager per year until they fill a quota of twelve.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Played straight with Tara, whose death by disembowelment is mostly covered in shadow. Averted Trope with the parents, who are killed in broad daylight.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Johnny is so sick about the whole thing that he makes another Deal with the Devil himself to take his parents in exchange for their latest victim.
- Human Resources: The garden corridor used during the ritual to bring Johnny back to life is made of human bones.
- Human Sacrifice: With Virgin Sacrifice implied.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: Johnny has no control of his transformation into the monster or its actions as one.
- Monochromatic Eyes: The monster's eyes are all-white.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Johnny gives his parents the same treatment they've done to eleven children in their attempt to bring him back.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: A grieving couple appeals to an otherworldly force to resurrect their dead son. In return, they have to feed him twelve children. The child shows his... gratitude to them in a similar way.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Johnny's parents successfully complete their Deal with the Devil, sacrificing Tara to get him back. Johnny, however, is so disgusted by what they did that he offers them to the power they bargained with to get Tara back. The power accepts.
- Room Full of Crazy: The basement Tara is imprisoned in, which is littered with the last messages of previous prisoners.
- Superpowered Evil Side: It is soon learned that the monster is Johnny, who transforms into it (involuntarily) to kill the other children pawned for his life. After the ritual is completed, Tara becomes it to kill Johnny's parents.
- They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: The kidnappers are an otherwise normal suburban couple.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: The couple finds the ritual through writings on Black Magic that once belonged to one of their students.
- This Was His True Form: Johnny looks most cadaveric when he walks down the garden corridor.
- Transformation Trauma: Johnny's transformation into the titular Fair-Haired Child is not pretty.
- Undead Child: The monster has an oversized cranium and no teeth, which makes it look like a decomposing fetus.
