TV Review--Are You Afraid of the Dark? Reboot: Part 1

So last night I watched the first part in a three part special of the newly rebooted Are You Afraid of the Dark? As a 90s child I LOVED the original show! It was spooky and terrifying and awesome! Yes, some episodes still freak me out to this day! Lol.

I have to say that this new version did pretty good! I tried to keep an open mind and low expectations but I'll admit, it exceeded them. The only thing that would've been perfect would be if some of the original Midnight Society members would make a popup appearance. I mean, there's still two parts to go, but I haven't seen anything that says it'll happen.

The show opens up in a way that's very reminiscent of the original one too! Spooky music, scenes through the dark forest, an abandoned row boat, a swing set moving by itself. Kudos to the TV/movie peeps on that!

The story starts with Rachel Carpenter--ironically I used to know a girl back in grade school with this name and for whatever reason I was chuckling at this! It's not everyday that a book or movie will have the EXACT same name as someone you kne-- a new girl to a small little town. She's terrorized with a nightmare in the beginning that may or may not be something more. She's your typical shy new girl who isn't sure where she fits in until she receives mysterious notes from TMS. And is then asked to come to a place in the middle of the woods at midnight where she's soon surrounded by masked people--yeah, it gets a little dark there for a second--and soon gets a bag over her head as she's lead somewhere else, another trait from the original show as you can't know where the secret spot is unless you're a member.

She learns that The Midnight Society (TMS) likes to get together to tell scary stories and she's been invited to join...if she comes up with a scary enough story. She's given a day to think of one and then meet them again in the woods. 

So Rachel thinks of what scares her most and it involves the nightmare she's been having about a little girl who goes to a carnival. A very weird and eerie carnival. Strange things happen that night at the carnival to the little girl and then the next day, it's as if nothing ever happened, yet two other kids went missing but no one remembers a carnival.

The story itself was a bit weird and lacking more information, I mean if that were an original episode from the heydays I'm not sure she'd make the club as a few weird occurrences doesn't make for a scary story just because it acts like it was all a dream.

But then of course, the weirdness comes to life in Rachel's world--which is really no spoiler if you've seen the promo commercials for it! End scene, naturally.

So for the first part I'd say it did pretty well. It was a spooky enough happenstance and there was an added bit to the real world mystery that happened that was kind of surprising! I mean, I for one can't wait to see what the next part will entail! 

One odd thing that I liked about this episode was getting an explanation for the rowboat we see in the opening credits! It's the in the "movie's" credits and was always in the original opening too. Back then, we see a whole bunch of spooky stuff to set up an atmosphere, so to speak. In this one, there were little hints towards what would be a new story, yet there were still nods to the original, like the rowboat. And we see the reason for the rowboat in the show! It's a little thing, but I totally got a kick out of it!

As I write this, I just saw the preview for the next part and holy freaking crap that one looks good! It's about to get realllllly scary I think, and yes, I did end up watching this one home alone at night. Not the best idea in reality I suppose, but luckily the first part wasn't as scary! Next week might be scarier! I scare very easily too. Lol.



Overall Rating for Part 1 4.5/5 stars