YMMV / The Haunting Hour

The book:

• Awesome Art: Par for the course, but especially notable with the images for "How to Bargain with a Dragon", "Are We There Yet?" and "Can You Draw Me?" The cover image, of a skull inside a thinning hourglass, is also pretty good in its own right.
• Fridge Horror:
  • The revelation that the setting of "Are We There Yet?" is a dystopian America where the population is culled by The Social Darwinist standards of bravery and intelligence being placed upon children raises a lot of this. Sure, Tammi and Artie managed to beat the odds by using their smarts to turn the dogs onto the judge to make him pass them, but what about any other children subjected to that fate? One can only imagine their parents.
  • Travis of "My Imaginary Friend" is already established as a Toxic Friend Influence who keeps risking Shawn and David's well-being by prompting them to engage in dangerous, potentially lethal acts. The climax even shows this, with Travis pushing Shawn to go out onto the thin ice, and David nearly drowning when he goes into the icy water to save Shawn. However, with the revelation that both Travis and Shawn are imaginary friends conjured by David's mind as a result of his parents' divorce, it almost seems like the kid has some virtually suicidal thoughts running through his head. Even worse, at the end, "Travis" returns and tries to push the hospital-ridden David to run away.
• Moment of Awesome: Tammi and Artie manage to avoid being taken away from their parents and very likely killed by turning the attack dogs onto the government official judging them, forcing him to pass the two and let them leave with their parents. This is especially awesome considering that he determined the two children to not be smart.
• Moral Event Horizon: While already being a monstrous individual herself, Lulu of "The Bad Baby-sitter" crosses this when she creates "mud cookies" of Matt and Courtney to force them to create more, so that she can torture everyone and anyone she pleases.
• Nightmare Fuel: The illustration for "Are We There Yet?" bears mention, considering it's a photorealistic skeleton dangling a key while eying the reader.
• Squick: The details of various entities, be they the ghouls from "The Halloween Dance", or the nightmarish paintings that the paintbrushes force Dylan to create, are described in an appropriately disturbing manner.

The movie:

• Designated Villain: Priscilla doesn't really do anything except make some catty remarks to Cassie about her fashion sense, and Cassie retaliates by inflicting Disproportionate Retribution on her. Yet apparently we're supposed to find this acceptable, but not feel the same toward Priscilla's attempted revenge
• Ham and Cheese: Brittany Curran minces and vamps it up like crazy in her Alpha Bitch role.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Plenty of people have pointed how similar the premise of the The Bye Bye Man is this movie.
• Unexpected Character: They got Jigsaw for this!?
• Wangst: Cassie, who has gone Goth and is prone to lonely montages set to heavy metal music just because she's moved away from her old home and friends. It gets pretty ridiculous pretty quickly.

The series:

• Adaptation Displacement: Most people are aware of the R.L. Stine stories that certain episodes were based on, but not many know that Catching Cold was actually adapted from a short story by Neal Shusterman, who also wrote the episode.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Questions are raised if Scarecrow-Man from "Scarecrow" is actually Jesus. This actually explains the Jesus pose along with scarecrow man in the original ending.
  • Several YouTube comments on the video for "Stage Fright" suggest the witch might not have been a villain in the story at all... considering she admits to eating Hansel and Gretel's parents as opposed to the children themselves. You know, the people who willingly abandoned their children in the forest to starve/be eaten by wild animals.
    • Added to that, the story about the boy that the witch beheaded is likely just made up since the twist is that the witch went mad from people telling stories about her eating children, she only eats adults.
  • A YouTube comment for the episode "Sick" suggested that the whole story was told inside the mind of a boy in the hospital with a terminal disease or maybe in a coma and that the mom, government agents, and TV morning-show hosts could be respective voices of doctors and his parents trying to speak to him (or are speaking within earshot of him) while he was still unconscious ^note Think of that Futurama episode with Leela being in this coma from a Space-Bee sting, then Fry telling her to "wake up" and you'll get the general idea. It would explain why this episode ended with a loud flatline and a white light, which can be reinterpreted as the doctors pulling the plug on the boy, but then again, the flatline sound and the white light could be a special off-screen weapon used to wipe out human life, with the flatline being an appropriate sound effect for the boy's and his mom's respective impending deaths.
  • Whether or not Cassandra the photographer was really the evil one in "Headshot." Yes, it is heavily implied that she's Satan and has been collecting the souls of young girls who want to be the face of Teen Teen magazine, but most of the blame can be put on Gracie and her pursuit to be famous. Cassandra even said that "Gracie is who she has always been on the inside," meaning that Gracie, deep down, has always been shallow and willing to ditch her true friends in the name of fame. Plus, towards the end, Cassandra's line, "The choice has always been yours", to Gracie sounds as though she wanted Gracie to delete the headshot, thus saving herself from Cassandra.
    • In the same vein, another Youtube comment suggested that rather than Lexi being in denial of what Cassandra said that only Gracie could destroy the grotesque headshot, Lexi did it out of spite after realizing that Gracie wasn't forced to become evil but rather that's just her true nature.
  • The owner of the funhouse in "Funhouse". Sure, he psychologically tortures Chad with the model replica of the arguing family and urges him to vent his rage on his family, but it wasn't out of evil; it was for Chad to learn that he should face his inner demons. When Chad is cured of his anger, the carnie doesn't steal Chad's soul or force him to live in the funhouse forever; he just disappears. In fact, the only things weird about him are that no one knows where he came from and that he somehow knows about Chad and Kelly's family dinner night. Moreover, it's only Chad and Kelly that he comes for since no one else enters the funhouse despite it loudly entering a neighborhood at night.
  • Uncle Howee in his titular episode. Is he really a benevolent being trying to protect Cynthia from the harshness of her brother or a jerkass Reality Warper who torments anyone who disrespects his show (the latter option probably would explain the existence of Loomis the rabbit, since Loomis is implied to have no puppeteer controlling him, and, to a lesser extent, Mr. Clock)? And speaking of Jared, is he always a bully to his sister or did he just act that way because he wanted to see a movie with his friends, but his mom had to work late at the hospital? In fact, when Jared is trying to find Cynthia, was his concern coming from the fact that she's disappeared or, as Uncle Howee stated, is he afraid that his mom will ground him?
  • Lyria in "Intruders". One YouTube user commented that she would have probably not have been so angry at Eve if the latter simply refused to join the forest fairies at the expense of her brother's life; but by tricking Lyria into touching iron, Eve basically declared war on the fey folk, as she committed the first offense. That being said, there's no guarantee Lyria would have left Eve alone if she just said no, so Eve was probably right in threatening her first. The ending makes it clear that she may have been right in this regard, as Lyria ends up sending some fey to Eve's home, with clearly harmful intentions.
  • For some viewers, the house in "My Old House". The obvious intent of the episode is to get viewers to see that the house is Obviously Evil, but perhaps the building really had No Social Skills. Considering that it's a building, no one is aware of its sentience except for Alice, a girl the building seems to have a crush on. The house only wanted to live forever with her, but reality was preventing that from being possible. One could say that the house is actually a Tragic Villain who was confused on the perception of love and obsession. However, Alice rejects the house when she learns the lesson herself, but failed to explain it to the building. Because the house didn't understand, it must have felt like it got its heart broken by someone who dumped it. This is supported by Alice's Just Friends statement. For all we know, the house could have just been a confused love-struck fool who descended into a full-fledged Yandere because it had no one else to love. Unfortunately, the building passes the Moral Event Horizon by killing Alice and pursues another girl.
  • Was Big Yellow from "Mascot" really a monster killing kids, or just the Last of His Kind who really wanted to keep his steady job in order to prevent being taken away for being ousted as a non-human life form and forced to live in an unknown environment in the outside world?
• Anti-Climax Boss: The Mangler from "Near Mint Condition" ends up defeated when Ted decapitates it with a katana blade in a single stroke.
• Broken Base:
  • "Poof de Fromage." Either it's a very stupid episode that's out of place with the darker, more mature episodes (and reminds people of the Narmy days of Goosebumps), or just a goofy, light-hearted Breather Episode to get people's minds off the depressing twist ending to "My Imaginary Friend" and get them ready for "The Golem" two-parter.
  • The season three episodes are either just as good as seasons one and two, or are a major step down from the previous two seasons.
  • It's generally agreed "Dead Bodies" was made to address (and reverse) how dark "The Dead Body" was. However, some think the sequel went too far in vilifying Jake, who was ultimately just a murdered, bullied kid. His fate of rotting to death and being dragged off to hell can feel like Karmic Overkill, considering no one cared one iota about his original murder. It doesn't help that some of the initial controversy actually came from how much "The Dead Body" changed the original story, in which Jake really was Will's friend (and uncle.) Some viewers also wanted some closure to what happened to Jake's killers, considering they were too blame for the whole mess. Of course, there are even fans who liked "The Dead Body" because of the Cruel Twist Ending and didn't like the sequel changing it.
• Cliché Storm:
  • "Pool Shark". The episode's A plot involves a pool boy named Kai who sees a shark swimming in the pool and going out of his way to prove that he's telling the truth, but he himself has a crippling fear of the water thanks to a shark attack that scarred him for life as a child so it all comes down to him facing his phobia once and for all. However, the B plot includes a love triangle where he tries to impress a pretty girl who finds herself stuck with an obnoxious bully of a swim coach who treats her badly and picks on the hero Kai because he's afraid of the water. Naturally, this all plays out as well as you'd expect it to.
  • "Séance" uses just about every horror movie cliché in the last couple of decades. Our main protagonist is a shy teenager who is treated as a loser by everyone, but is invited to join a gang of cool kids when they host a séance to contact an evil ghost. They tell the protagonist a spooky story about a serial killer who haunts the town which everyone but the main character knows about, only for it all to turn out to be a practical joke to scare the protagonist. However, the legend is of course revealed to be true and the vengeful ghost haunts the house as it stalks the children. Numerous jumpscares, fake-outs, and spooky hijinks occur. It's revealed that it was all just a revenge prank by our heroine, except it turns out that the ghost was Real After All and does intend to harm the kids. All in all, most of the horror elements have been done before, even by this show.
• Complete Monster: "Scary Mary": The titular ghost, based on the Urban Legend of Bloody Mary, was superficially vain in life, burning to death because she was too busy looking at herself in a mirror. Taking a vicious streak as a ghost, Mary takes to stalking young beautiful girls before dragging them to her realm to imprison her until they become her slaves. There Mary would remove their faces and frequently wear them to see if a boy has called upon her, reacting in a violent rage when none does. When she gets her hands on a girl named Hannah, her friends try searching for her before her friend Eric learns the means to enter Mary's realm. Upon doing so, Mary forcibly takes Hannah's face, and locks her in a trunk posing as Hannah when Eric comes to rescue her. When Eric sees through her, and manages to rescue Hannah, Mary mocks Eric by saying Hannah has no face as her rage burns the farm house around them. Even as Eric and Hannah successfully escape, the episode's ending shows Mary is still stalking Eric.
• Crazy Is Cool: Uncle Howee of his titular episode. A Reality Warper this side of Pinkie Pie who's out there to teach bullies a lesson with teleportation powers and a catchy song.
  • Chuck from "The Walls" who apparently is willing to poison maple syrup bottles with paint thinner and already comes prepared with encyclopedias filled with demons and apparently is willing to give Jeffrey a Bug Bomb to do away with the Klemit.
• Creepy Awesome: A given, considering what type of show this is.
  • Lily D from "Really You" thanks to her deranged physical appearance and being one of the most complex villains in the show.
  • Fear from "Fear Never Knocks" is an over-the-top, Faux Affably Evil boogeyman who plans to take over the world with a magic box that can enhance his already nightmarish powers, but his actor's phenomenal performance and his creepy facial expressions make him one of the most impressive villains in the series.
  • Big Yellow from "Mascot" gained a lot of love for his legitimately creepy costume design and coming close to Magnificent Bastard status thanks to his evil plan working out entirely in his favor.
  • Nanaue from "Pool Shark" for being a wereshark and one of the few heroic monsters in the series.
  • Manny the praying mantis from "Swarmin' Norman" thanks to his creepy facial expressions and being the only compassionate character in a story where Humans Are the Real Monsters.
  • The Mad Artist from "Brush With Madness", who is the closest thing the show has to a real life Serial Killer.
  • The Dreamcatcher from the episode of the same name is remembered as one of the most terrifying beasts the show ever had haunt our nightmares. His spider motif only makes him even more intimidating.
  • The Switchman from "Toy Train" thanks to his ominous presence and the fact that he was really the hero of the story.
  • Mrs. Worthington from the episode of the same name. Margot Kidder is clearly having a fantastic time in the role, and she imbues it with a perfect mixture of hamming up the comic moments and acting legitimately creepy as she remains perfectly calm while preparing her hideous tortures. The fact that The Stinger implies she isn't dead makes it all the better.
  • The Funhouse Owner from "Funhouse" due to the sinister vibe he gives out in regards to the titular funhouse. Just like the Switchman above, he's Good All Along.
  • Uncle Howee, who is just as scary as he is funny. After all, who wouldn't want to be his friend?
  • The House from "My Old House" thanks to his gruesome true form coming across as one of the most horrifying monster designs in the show's final season.
• Creepy Cute:
  • Norman and his pet praying mantis Manny from "Swarmin' Norman" are the most lovable characters in the whole story.
  • Big Yellow from "Mascot" thanks to his Sesame Street look, goofy dance, and pride in his work.
  • The Mangler from "Near Mint Condition" due to his cybernetic teddy bear look.
• Demographically Inappropriate Humor:
  • In "Really You", Lily's older brother remarks that he wants his own life-sized rubber doll, but that he wants his doll to look like actress Meghan Fox.
  • In "Alien Candy", an older bully looks at the protagonist in the school locker room and remarks, "you really grew a pair!" - meant to refer to the protagonist being ballsy and brave in this case.
  • "The Walls":
    • Chuck mentions that when they found the old man's body, it was lying face down (and possibly naked) in a pile of sugar, which sounds like a polite way of saying that he was doing cocaine and OD'ed.
    • Jeffery's dad tells Jeffery that the Klemit (a sugar-addicted demon that lives in his bedroom wall) didn't kill the old man who lived in their house; it was the fact that the old man was 114 and had a 29-year-old girlfriend. He even sarcastically quips “Do the math.”
  • In "Creature Feature", John (who was turned into a tick-creature) is hit with an offscreen Groin Attack. While she and Nathan witness the injury, Lisa asks if John "still has any".
  • From "Nightmare Inn":
  Jill's Mom: "This is the first time your father and I-
  Jill: "TMI"
  Jill's Mom: "What? We had our first Sunday brunch here."
• Designated Hero: Jason from "Bad Egg" is introduced as a trouble-making, smartmouth brat who everyone looks down on, but the episode wants us to see him as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold forming a strong friendship with a monster who everyone judges as evil like he is. Eventually, the baby monster helps him grow as a better person thanks to the power of their friendship. Unfortunately, Jason does not make himself look completely innocent when he goes out of his way to annoy his parents, picks on his little brother (who does like him), causes even more problems while trying to save the baby monster, increases issues for the government agents who are trying to prevent the creatures from being loose on the public, and by the end has no shred of regret for any of his actions and promises to cause even more mischief with his pet monster at military school. Not exactly traits one would give to a lovable kid hero.
• Designated Villain:
  • Abigail Raven from "The Red Dress" is just a simple, if not ominous, businesswoman who charges the protagonist Jamie the titular red dress for $400, but instead of paying for it, Jamie just steals it from her while Abigail stalks and harasses her until she pays her compensation for what she stole. From her perspective, Abigail is just a businesswoman who was robbed and giving Jamie fair warning to return it now or suffer the consequences.
  • The government agents from "Bad Egg" are intended to be seen as bad guys for trying to make money off of the experimental egg monsters, but when you get down to it, they are completely in the right for attempting to recapture all the beasts because as far as they (and the audience) know, the test animals might be dangerous and are a threat to the world's ecosystem since they were bred for military purposes. However, the episode plays them up as an obstacle for our heroes to comically outwit.
• Esoteric Happy Ending:
  • 'A Creature Was Stirring" wants us to believe that the family is happy at last: the parents are no longer going to divorce and they all "have each other", as they put it. Then you realize that they lost everything they had, except for the clothes they are wearing, they are homeless and they have nothing to eat. There's just no way that they'll survive the winter, unless they have neighbors or relatives they can stay with, but happy endings on a show like this are few and far between.
  • "Terrible Love": Maggie finally finds love after class nerd Stuart orders Cupid to fire his love arrow at her. Yes, never mind that the effects of the love arrows are permanent (since the "love potion" inside the arrows are common human hormones and Cupid told Maggie that one hit is enough), which is why Cupid can't, in good conscience, shoot two arrows at the same target, as a hyperdose leads to love-induced insanity (as seen with Brendon), meaning Maggie will be in love with a nerd whom she hardly knows forever (though it is payback for Maggie trying to make a hunk in her class fall for her, even though she doesn't know much about him). And, what if Stuart makes the mistake of asking Cupid for another hit?
  • "Near Mint Condition": Ted is able to defeat Mangler by decapitating it with a katana he previously bought online and he and his brother decide to tape its head back on its body, pack it up so tight that it can't escape, and put it for sale online. Considering how advanced the robotics on the toy seem to be, what's stopping it from repairing itself and going after whoever buys it next?
  • The canon ending to "Spaceman": Our protagonist has learned that his neighbor's son is really a ghost who wants to play space with him because he wants friends. When the elderly mother catches them talking, she politely asks him to leave so her deceased son can move on, but the protagonist decides that he's perfectly willing to stay and play spaceman with her dead son every day, and we end on a happy note of them playing with their imagination. This would've been heartwarming if it didn't have a child agreeing to play with a dead child's corpse and entertain a madwoman's fantasies for the rest of his life. The alternate ending, where the boy realizes how insane the reveal is and is forced to play with the dead kid's spirit forever, throws a lampshade on just how disturbing the situation is once viewers really think about it.
• Evil Is Cool: Perhaps the shows biggest draw in relies on all the excellent horror monsters. There are so many examples that it would actually be easier to list all the villains who are not cool.
• Genius Bonus: The Grim Reaper posing as an old woman who knits on the episode Flight^note about a boy on an airplane flight to meet his divorced dad befriending the ghost of a playboy millionaire who doesn't want to confront the fact that he's dead makes more sense if you're familiar with Classical or Norse Mythology, wherein the Fates (shown as three old crones) and Norns would spin a thread to represent a person's life.
• Ham and Cheese: The show's guest stars really loved every minute of being in the spotlight.
  • Tom Kenny as the energetic, overly-excited, wacky comedian Uncle Howee. It's Tom Kenny, did you expect any less?
  • Christopher Heyerdahl as the titular Fear in "Fear Never Knocks" is clearly having the time of his life portraying a Faux Affably Evil boogeyman.
  • Christopher Lloyd as Grandpa Montgomery from "Grampires" is channeling a lot of Doc Brown's energy, if the doc was an epic vampire warrior.
  • Margot Kidder as "Mrs.Worthington" is as over-the-top as she is creepy.
  • Debby Ryan as mean girl Steffani Howard from "Wrong Number" is enjoyably soaking up her role every second she's onscreen.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The villain of Brush With Madness being a disturbed comic artist who stalks and implicitly kills two kids he met at a convention becomes even more unsettling with stories circulating of real-world artists exhibiting predatory behavior toward fans and female creators in the industry.
• He's Just Hiding: The unnervingly ambiguous ending of "Fear Never Knocks" implies that Fear is possibly still alive and coming for revenge.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In "My Sister The Witch", Jodelle Ferland played Alice, a girl who learned witchcraft while at boarding school. The season after, she was in the two-parter "The Most Evil Sorcerer", playing a character who outright says that she hates magic.
  • In "The Return of Lily D.", Natalie arms herself with a frying pan.
  • Brenna O'Brien voiced Rin in the English dub of Inuyasha, who was a human girl that tagged along with Sesshōmaru and Jaken, two Youkai. Youkai are essentially Japan's equivalent of The Fair Folk, and in The Haunting Hour's third season, O'Brien played Lyria, a forest fairy.
  • Prior to playing a character in Grampires, Christopher Lloyd (the guy who played Grampa Montgomery) was in R.L. Stine's Haunted Lighthouse 4-D, which played at SeaWorld.
  • Dylan Minnette plays Corey in Season Two's Brush With Madness (about a comic book geek who meets his idol, who turns out to be a jerk who isolates himself from the world because of how obsessed and shallow his fans are). Minnette also plays the male protagonist in the ''Goosebumps'' movie, which also stars Jack Black as a fictional version of R.L. Stine. Coming around full-circle, eh, Dylan?
  • Picture this: A lonely girl, living with distracted parents, discovers a seemingly wonderful world of magic, and meets a member of The Fair Folk, who offers her a chance to stay in that world forever, albeit at a very high price. Is this describing the Season Three episode Intruders or Neil Gaiman's novel Coraline?
  • In Spores, Michelle Creber became a tree.
  • "Goodwill Toward Men" was a Christmas Episode about a snobby rich family (save for the daughter, Missy) who receive a Christmas angel statue (the kind that go on the tops of trees) and wake up the next day to find their reality warped (their fired gardener/pool cleaner and his son are the rich family while the rich family is poor and forced to live on the streets). A month after the episode aired, there was an American Dad! episode ("I'm Dreaming of a White Porsche Christmas") that had a similar plot (Stan's reality is warped overnight after he sticks a Christmas angel statue on a tree and wishes that he had Principal Lewis' bachelor life).
  • In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, Zachary Gordon's character says that having a brother is overrated. In "Night of the Mummy", he gives up mortal life to be with his brother.
    • In "The Cast", Robert Capron's character has a broken arm. In Diary of a Wimpy Kid, his character breaks his arm.
  • In "My Imaginary Friend", a character fades away into nothing with the words "I don't wanna go."
  • There's a slightly more well known Nate who temporarily gains the power to bring drawings to life.
• Hollywood Homely: Lexi in "Headshots". However, the two people that call her plain/ugly—Cassandra and Gracie—are purposefully doing it out of spite (Cassandra is annoyed that Lexi has discovered her true intentions behind the Teen Teen magazine contest, while Gracie has become so vain and cutthroat that she doesn't realize Cassandra is using her and thinks Lexi's claims are out of jealousy). In reality, Lexi would be considered relatively pretty compared to other girls her age.
• Hollywood Pudgy: In-Universe in "Stage Fright", where Hansel and Gretel sing about how they've gotten fat. The teens playing them look just fine.
• Jerkass Woobie: Hank, the uptight father from "Toy Train" is emotionally distant from his son Logan and practically ignores his entire existence. However, it turns out that he's been so closed off because he's been bottling up his own guilt and traumatic past for years, since he accidentally caused an innocent man's death on the train tracks when he needed saving from an oncoming locomotive. The entire episode is about whether or not he'll grow out of the jerkass part or not.
• Les Yay: Becky and her obsession with "The Girl in the Painting" has a lot of underlying subtext. It really doesn't help that throughout the episode Becky fantasizes about the other's life because she thinks she's so perfect. Becomes Harsher in Hindsight when it turns out that said girl in the painting was luring Becky to her death.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: When it comes to "The Dead Body" and its sequel, some viewers wanted to have seen the forgotten bullies who killed Jake, and started the whole mess, get a comeuppance. Some even hoped they would've been dealt with in the sequel episode. it doesn't help that his memorial writes off his death as an "accident," implying they got away with it. A popular fan theory has the janitor be one of Jake's killers, but this is never confirmed in the episode. He could've just seen the memorial.
• Love to Hate: Farmer Palmer is a very creepy and interesting Serial Killer who decapitates people and uses their heads and bodies to create pumpkin monsters.
• Memetic Badass: This post makes a case for Natalie from "The Return of Lily D."
• Memetic Molester: The House in "My Old House" comes across as this. Considering that it is in love with a little girl this character may actually symbolize a pedophile. Then it kills/captures said girl and keeps her body trapped within its walls. Then, a new little girl moves into it and we get the implication that it will do the same events with her.
  House: (smiling) Welcome.
  Girl: Mom!
• Memetic Mutation: The episode "Spores" is often joked about being a prequel to The Last of Us.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Jake crosses it by leaving Will to die and appears to rub it in his face by dancing with Will's crush. Fortunately, the Sequel Episode rectified it for anyone who thought Jake was a Karma Houdini.
  • Lilly D crossed it by constantly framing Lilly, and manipulating Lilly's mom into liking her more than her flesh-and-blood daughter.
    • She does it again in "The Return of Lilly D". Lilly D tries twice to kill a bird Natalie was taking care of, knocks out the Doll Maker, kicks Natalie's wheel-chair bound grandfather down the stairs, and finally attempts to murder Natalie with a knife.
  • The entire episode of "A Brush With Madness" was one for Allan Miller, but only if you believe that Corey is trapped in Allan Miller's graphic novel, and not the theory that Corey isn't real and Allan Miller made him and the story up to vent his frustrations over going to comic book conventions and dealing with fanboys who don't understand the true intentions of his work.
  • Meg in "Dreamcatcher". She acts rude to Lisa and Amelia while at summer camp (she's jealous that Amelia has decided to spend more time with Lisa, a newcomer), and purposefully damages their dreamcatchers, causing them to be plagued by the titular demon haunting the camp (even if she didn't really believe in the story, destroying someone else's belongings is a pretty crappy thing to do). Later on, she finds them trapped in the Dreamcatcher's web and decides to leave them to die, commenting "I'm an only child; I don't like sharing." It's really hard to feel sorry for her when she ends up alone in the web, with the ending implying that she dies.
  • Daniel Quinn, Greg's great-great-grandfather, in "Lotsa Luck." Throughout the episode, he's remembered as a hero for being the only person to ever keep his soul when dealing with leprechauns—but it turns out he achieved that goal by selfishly wishing to save his own soul and offering that of his next male descendant as a trade.
  • The titular house in "My Old House" crossed it by making Alice a literal part of it after she witnessed her parents, worried to death over her safety, searching for her and decided to leave.
  • Farmer Palmer crossed it by decapitating children and using their severed heads to create his pumpkinhead monsters.
• Narm
  • Found throughout the series due to the sketchy effects and acting.
  • "Nightmare Inn"'s werewolves look like something out of a 1990's cable television show.
  • The robot from "My Robot" is obviously a man in a suit that's very hard to walk in.
    • Also from this tale is the pretty laughable way the story demonstrates the robot's strength. When the kid hero asks how strong the robot is, the android shows off its raw power by crushing a soda can. Not helping is the show playing dramatic music as the can is crushed slowly while the kids look impressed.
  • The Dreamcatcher himself can be hard to take seriously. Besides being a very obvious riff on Freddy Krueger, the guy looks like a mockbuster version of The Babadook and his spider-like legs are clearly just big stilts.
• Nightmare Retardant:
  • The horrifying Christmas demon (known as a Krampus) that spits acid and is smart enough to blow up a house, just to teach a strained family a lesson on togetherness during the holiday season, is picked up by Santa Claus riding in a red SUV-limousine as hip hop Christmas music plays in the background. It's a lot funnier than it sounds.
  • The Photoshop effects of the demon in the photographs in "Red Eye", particularly the one that looks as if the Alp and Georgia's father are best friends enjoying a day out.
  • The reveal in "Poof de Fromage" that the aliens that Jean-Louis is trying to destroy are just common Cheetos-style cheese curl snacks.
• Paranoia Fuel: "The Walls," "Red Eye," "Dreamcatcher," "Sick," "The Perfect Brother," "Uncle Howee" (even though it's mostly played for laughs), and "Spores."
• Periphery Demographic: A lot of the show's fans are older viewers who grew up on Goosebumps (the books and the TV show) and Are You Afraid of the Dark?.
• The Scrappy:
  • Jason's father from "Bad Egg" might be the most despised character in the entire series. To put it bluntly, the man is an unpleasant jerkass who frequently chastises his kid and absolutely nobody liked him for bringing the show's fun down every second he was onscreen.
  • Jean-Louis from "Poof de Fromage" was this for his annoying accent and very weak humor. Not helping matters is that he might have made most of his presence in the episode worse by being so ineffective at saving the day. He could also double as an Ethnic Scrappy for those who feel that his French mannerisms and accent are too stereotypical.
  • Philip in "My Robot" thanks to backstabbing the only friend he ever had and getting away with it.
• Seasonal Rot: The first half of season three is seen as the point where the show reached its peak and went downhill. The second half of season three (shown as season four in North America) is somewhat better (because of episodes like Dead Bodies, Coat Rack Cowboy, Detention, Long Live Rock and Roll, Toy Train, and Uncle Howee), and season five seems to be a return to the basics, though some people will complain that the constant use of downer endings is a bit tiresome (in fact, the only episodes that have happy endings are "Grandpa's Glasses," "Near Mint Condition"^note though "Near Mint Condition" is more esoteric, since there is a chance that Mangler will repair itself and claim another victim, and "Goodwill Toward Men"^note Missy begs the angel to set things to the way they were, and she ends up in a reality where her former gardener and his son are her rich family while her selfish, formerly rich family are the hired help).
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • "Spores" is often joked about being a spinoff of The Last of Us.
  • "Detention" is also frequently described as The Breakfast Club meets The Twilight Zone.
  • "Dreamcatcher" is often compared to being a better remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) than the intended reboot film was.
  • Some of the episodes had plots similar enough to some Nightmare/Haunting Hour stories that were not directly adapted to count as an adaptation to some. A notable example is Mrs. Worthington, which shares The Bad Babysitter's premise of an evil babysitter creating voodoo dolls of people.
  • With its concept of an egg monster that turns out to be good, with the real villains being scientists, Bad Egg is as close as we'll get to a TV episode of the Goosebumps book Egg Monsters from Mars.
  • The Return of Lilly D has the evil doll being given to a kid in hopes that it will turn them good. Basically, it's as close as we have to an adaptation of Slappy's Nightmare.
• Squick:
  • Norman's death in the end of "Swarmin' Norman," which concludes with said character getting Eaten Alive by millions of insects.
  • The fungal mutants in "Spores" are Body Horror at it's finest due to the convincing make-up showing plant parts growing out of the human victims.
  • The true secret of how "Pumpkinheads" are created is full of this.
• Too Good to Last: Despite being rated one of the highest viewed shows on the network and regarded as fantastic horror series, Discovery Family had it cancelled on an untimely notice after only 76 episodes aired. The only confirmation of its cancellation was R.L. Stine posting its conclusion on Twitter.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: For some fans of the original version of "The Dead Body," Jake going from a good ghost in the original story to a bad ghost. Made somewhat more egregious by the television adaptation giving him a tragic death.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Jake from "The Dead Body" was a bullied loner who was ultimately burnt to death by the popular jocks while in high school. You can't help but feel a little bad when he's begging for his life in the flashback. Even the adults who should've protected him wrote him off as a strange kid. In fact, his backstory's not that different from Curtis Danko from When Good Ghouls Go Bad. Granted, him having Will take his place keeps him from being too sympathetic, but it's not like he asked to die in the first place. Of course, not too many people must've felt too bad for him, considering a sequel episode undoing his second chance at life was made in response to the first one. It also helps that Jake really was a good guy in the original story.
    • It's also didn't help that even Will wanted nothing to do with Jake once he learned he was a ghost, as if he had a choice in having been murdered. At this point, Will had sided against the only character who actually tried to help him, in favor of the janitor, who is heavily implied to have been Jake's killer. It is really tempting to read Jake's betrayal as a Let Me Be Evil moment. This is even helped by the fact that Jake never revealed his past to Will, it was the janitor who revealed him as a ghost, making it strange sending Will to the past was his original plan.
  • Norman from "Swarmin' Norman" is meant to be a Villain Protagonist who went from a bully victim to a monstrous bully himself after his power to control the insects corrupted him, but most viewers had a hard time turning against him since the torment he suffered at the hands of the jerkass bullies still felt worse than him abusing his insects. To make it worse, there's never a point in time where Manny, his loyal pet, tries working things out with him and just assumes that his former master is evil after he squashes two insect minions in what could easily be interpreted as an accident or misunderstanding. Needless to say, some viewers had a hard time calling the conclusion a well-deserved Karmic Twist Ending and thought that Norman's fate of getting eaten alive by millions of insects was a worse punishment than what the bullies suffered.
  • Manny the praying mantis from "Swarmin' Norman" is also meant to be viewed as a creepy, disgusting monster, but some found the insect to be the most tragic character in a story where the humans are horrible in comparison.
  • Big Yellow from "Mascot", who many feel is a down on his luck guy that's ultimately just trying to keep his job since he has nowhere else to go. The fact that he's a real monster who might be the Last of His Kind only adds more fuel to the fire.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Eve's parents in "Intruders". Eve is supposed to be a Bratty Teenage Daughter who's clearly jealous of the attention her parents give her baby brother; however, as some YouTube commenters have pointed out, her parents are a little too occupied with her brother, and her mom doesn't even remember what it was like when Eve was born (though that could also be interpreted as her mother doesn't want Eve to know that she wasn't born from her and is, in fact, a member of The Fair Folk who was adopted by humans). Eve's still a brat, but her frustration isn't exactly unwarranted in this case.
  • Becky in "The Girl in the Painting" is supposed to be a girl who only wants a fancier lifestyle and to live in a fantasy world. However, she acts like a crazy, stuck up wannabe Rich Bitch while being influenced by the painting and disobeys her mother when all she asks from her is to pull her own weight around the house by doing small chores. Then when she enters the painting, she actually loses all sympathy when she willingly abandons her mother, despite her mom attempting to break the portrait's hold over her and doing nothing horrible to her at all. Some viewers didn't exactly feel sorry for her when she was devoured by a monster due to her blind loyalty to the girl in the painting.
  • Both of Sam's parents in "Argh V"; her mom is arguably less so than her dad, but still pretty awful. They come off as very flighty with their Hands-Off Parenting, and remain completely unwilling to even really listen to their teenage daughter's concerns right up until the very end of the episode. Even when it's revealed that they died in the crash they previously thought they survived, and only as a result of Sam's dad taking his eyes off the road to tease her both of them just treat it like another grand adventure. It's hard to feel sorry them as a result of this.
  • Jason from "Bad Egg" was intended to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who had a good side deep underneath his rough exterior, but sadly the episode had a hard time expressing the heart of gold part thanks to him being smug, snarky, irresponsible, and unintentionally making his problems worse than before. Not many people felt that sorry in the end for him like the show hoped we would.
  • Nate's bully of a sister Molly and his mother in "Mrs.Worthington" are designed to be flawed people who are good deep down and the show wants the viewers to see them make amends with Nate and survive all the horrors, but to many they come across as extremely abusive and neglectful towards the kid, to the point where he fantasizes his imaginary friend torturing his sister. Yet, the show still argues that they're innocent in everything. Some people just felt that they did too much damage to the kid hero that an apology simply couldn't make up for.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The spectacular comic book transitions from "Brush with Madness" are very well detailed and also adds to the clever foreshadowing of how Dylan's entire life is nothing more than a drawing.
  • The Grim Reaper from "Dead Bodies" looks both cool and scary for a children's show. Also, the way he kills Jake Skinner is some of the show's greatest and darkest imagery ever.
  • The House's true sinister snake form made up of its various wires and pipes from "My Old House" is a grand sight to behold.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: For a show geared towards families, there sure is an awful lot of brutal child death, monstrous imagery, grisly fates, gothic symbolism, and suggestive themes.
• The Woobie:
  • Alice from "My Old House" is a young girl without any friends, no social life, very little happiness, and actually believes that her parents do not love her due to not understanding her close connection to her house. It appears that the house is her only friend in the world since she's the only one aware of its sentience. Unfortunately, she and her family are moving because they can no longer afford to keep living in the sentient house. Upset that she's lost her closest friend in the world and disconnected with her loving parents, Alice runs away to go back to her old home and live in it forever just because she thinks her house is the only one who understands her. She eventually sees that her parents do love her since they're desperately searching for her to come back to them, worried over her safety. Seeing the error of her ways, Alice states her sad farewell to the living building to make amends with her traumatized parents. However, it turns out that the only person she thought was her friend was really Evil All Along and kills her (or something worse) so she can never leave and return to her parents. Alice's corpse is now a permanent part of the villainous building's walls, all because she made an error in judgement.
  • Sam from "Argh V" is a responsible, capable, studious young woman who desperately wants to go to college to escape her Amazingly Embarrassing Parents, who are always looking for their next grand adventure. Their next grand adventure happens to be an old, creepy RV that begins to exhibit weird behaviours that only Sam notices, including but not limited to: attempting to roll over her and crush her after she inadvertently insults it and showing her images of a crash. Upon doing some research with her friend, she discovers that the last family who owned the RV died in a horrific crash on the highway. When she attempts to get rid of the RV to protect her parents, it just comes right back. The RV is either possessed or sentient, it's never specified and very unhappy with her for trying to get rid of it! The next day, her parents decide to take a trip in it, despite her concerns, which they previously ignored. In an attempt to protect them, and as a result of some heavy guilt-tripping on the part of her parents, she decides to go with them. They narrowly avoid getting into a head on collision with a truck while on the road, and shortly after, they pick up a family consisting of a father, a mother and two kids, who just so happen to have the same last name as the family Sam read about, who died. We soon find out that it is the same family, Sam and her parents didn't survive the crash, and now they're trapped in the RV forever. The episode ends with Sam's horror-stricken face as she realizes the situation and silently breaks down, and the sound of the two kids singing as the RV drives into the fog.
  • Logan from "Toy Train" is simply a curious kid trying to connect with his emotionally distant father Hank, but getting brushed aside at every chance he gets. The episode hints that his father's been closed off to him for a while now and all he wants is his dad to let him into his life. At some points, he actually questions if his dad even loves him at all. He joins his dad on a trip to his family's farm in an effort to get closer to him, but his dad just shoots down all his questions and tells him to stop acting like a child. Things begin to look up for the kid when he plays with a mysterious model train set and befriends a strange neighborhood boy named Henry, but it starts to get insane when he and his father are haunted by ghosts from Hank's past. It's soon revealed that history is in danger of repeating itself and Logan's life is at risk when he's stuck on the train tracks like his father was as a child, and is about to be hit by a speeding train if his father fails to let go of his personal guilt in order to save his boy. Thankfully, he does. Logan barely survives this ordeal and at long last forms a closer bond with his father. Despite everything, this kid has had a pretty rough experience.

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