Psychologists say that we should confront our fears to overcome them. So this Halloween, let’s get over our fears of some of the scariest episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? We remember pulling up the bedspread over our eyes as we watched these episodes and then going to sleep with the lights on. But we still waited eagerly for the next episode and secretly hoped that it would be scarier. Fear is fascinating; let’s indulge in it one more time.
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The Tale of the Frozen Ghost (Season 2, Episode 7)
“I’m cold.” As if these two words were not chilling enough, there was the eerie sight of a small boy standing under a tree in the dead of the night. Weren’t you afraid of looking out of the window afterwards?
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The Tale of the Midnight Madness (Season 2, Episode 2)
Dr. Vink assures that his movies will run to packed houses and revive a dying theater. What he didn’t reveal is that his villain, the demon-vampire Nosferatu, will step out of the screen and into the theater. Nosferatu’s blood-shot eyes look menacing, but his thin, long fingers terrified us more. We could almost feel an icy grip around our necks!
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The Tale of the Lonely Ghost (Season 1, Episode 3)
Well, the tale of a deaf, young girl who is lonely and is looking for a friend does not sound scary till she starts appearing behind the heroine in mirrors and traps her inside the mirror, so she can escape. The sight of “HELP ME” scrawled backwards on the walls is equally creepy. Ghosts are terrifying enough, but even scarier are little-girl ghosts!
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The Tale of the Ghastly Grinner (Season 4, Episode 5)
Are clowns supposed to scare you? No. But we are talking here are about Are You Afraid of the Dark? So here is this comic book clown who gets a life and terrorizes people with this maniacal ways, menacing grin, and blue gooey drool. We wonder if he would have been less scary if he did not have that grin on his clown face.
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The Tale of Laughing in the Dark (Season 1, Episode 2)
What is it with clowns and horror shows? Clowns are supposed to be funny, but trust a horror-show maker to turn the idea on its head. So here is another scary clown on Are You Afraid of the Dark? Zeebo the Clown haunts a funhouse and scares little Josh. His wheezing voice sounds chilling in the dark, and he gave us the creeps by just puffing away on his cigar.
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The Tale of the Doll Maker (Season 3, Episode 5)
Again, another symbol of innocence gets an evil makeover on Are You Afraid of the Dark? Susan, the girl-turned-into-a-doll on this episode, was not harming anybody, but the mere sight of her ghastly-pale porcelain face had us looking warily at our dolls on the shelves. And then there was that scene where Susan breaks off her arms to prove to her friend that she was no longer a human being! Didn’t you look away and cry out, “Stop!”
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The Tale of the Dead Man’s Float (Season 5, Episode 1)
It is not uncommon for evil beings to lurk in the watery depths of swimming pools, especially those that are constructed over graveyards. But can anything be more terrifying than the ghoulish demon that emerges out of the waters in this episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? It is still nightmare-fodder.
The scariest episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? played upon our imagination and gave sinister twists to everyday objects. Although it was a show for kids, adults too tuned in. It seems horror is hypnotizing. You were scared; in fact, you were so scared that you wanted to move your doll collection out into the shed and refused to have anything to do with swimming pools ever. But you still waited for the next episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?