By Robert Scucci
| Published
If you grew up watching SNICK in the ‘90s, then you probably also remember having nightmares every week after watching Are You Afraid of the Dark before going to bed. Serving as an excellent primer for children to get into the horror genre, Are You Afraid of the Dark places focus on the macabre through its storytelling and anthology framework that’s reminiscent of The Twilight Zone, but tailored for a much younger audience.
Firing up the series for the first time in decades, I wondered if the creepy little leprechaun hiding in the attic during the show’s intro still scared the bejesus out of me, and it most certainly did. Well, it didn’t scare me as an adult, but it quickly reminded me of how terrified I was when I was first exposed to the series at the age of six or seven.
What started out as a search for nostalgia fodder turned out to be a rewarding trip down memory lane, as Are You Afraid of the Dark is terrifying but campy, and well-written but not too complex when you consider the series’ original intended audience.
A Simple But Effective Narrative Framework
Are You Afraid of the Dark boasts a simple narrative framework centering on the Midnight Society– a group of teenagers who gather around a campfire once a week with the intention of scaring the hell out of each other. Each member of the Midnight Society has their own unique personality and style of storytelling, and each week one of them submits a story “for the approval of the Midnight Society” before whisking the audience away to whatever creepy place the narrative will take them. Throughout each story, we’re met with interjections from the storytelling circle as a means to break tension, and remind the young audience at home that they’re just hearing made up stories.
Having been a fan of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark book series, it’s easy to compare Are You Afraid of the Dark to Alvin Schwartz’s work because both intellectual properties use public domain fairy tales and urban legends to drive their storytelling, but with a unique twist. And out of respect for its audience, Are You Afraid of the Dark ends most stories on a positive note, unlike Shchwartz’s books, which featured some of the most horrifying illustrations that a kid could get access to at their elementary school library.
Bonding Over Being Frightened
While the Midnight Society’s fashion, mannerisms, and colloquial phrasing has definitely aged out in Are You Afraid of the Dark, their bonding over scary stories holds up and reminds us all that sometimes the best way to pass the time is to sit around a campfire and spin a yarn that will help you overcome your fears, or, at the very least, bravely explore them.
A notable instance of this early in the run can be found in Season 1’s “The Tale of Laughing in the Dark,” which involves Kristin (Rachel Blanchard) overcoming hear fear of clowns while reluctantly sitting through Betty Ann’s (Rain Pare-Coull) story about Zeebo the Clown, only to be scared by Eric (Jacob Tierney), who ambushes her while wearing a clown mask upon the story’s conclusion, causing her to run off with the rest of the gang while Midnight Society leader Gary (Ross Hull) extinguishes the communal blaze with his signature red bucket so he could catch up with them.
Having revisited Are You Afraid of the Dark for the first time as an adult, I’ve got to say I’m impressed with how well the horror anthology series holds up, and it’s no surprise that horror is still my preferred genre to this day. If you have kids who are are curious about horror, and want to give them an a la carte introduction to the genre, or if you’re just feeling nostalgic for the times when all you needed was Saturday night, pizza, and way too much caffeine while hanging out with your friends and watching the tube, then Are You Afraid of the Dark is waiting for you on Paramount+.
