How The Original Are You Afraid Of Dark? Signed Off In Genuinely Scary Style
Turn off the lights.
“I’ve been saving this story for a long time,” The Midnight Society member Sam (JoAnna Garcia) declares during Are You Afraid of the Dark’s final gathering. It’s not hard to see why co-creator D.J. MacHale waited 65 episodes to recount “The Tale of the Night Shift.” Whereas the Nickelodeon anthology was largely designed to tentatively ease the younger generation into the horror world, its denouement was a go-for-broke affair with the capacity to put both kids and big kids off from ever entering a hospital ward again.
First airing 30 years ago this month, the bloodsucking yarn begins one evening at United Hospital, and specifically the chaotic children’s ward where overworked student Amanda (Emmanuelle Chriqui) is about to start her volunteering shift. “When do you sleep?” enquires Nurse Laurette (Jennifer Engels) after hearing about a schedule that would daunt even the most fervent “rise and grind” tech bros.
A lack of shut-eye, though, proves to be the least of Amanda’s problems on this occasion. Firstly, she’s ambushed by a persistent classmate scheduled to have his tonsils removed the following day. Colin (Oren Sofer) is presented as a harmless love interest, the kind of wisecracking, candy corn-popping goof you’re supposed to root for to get the girl. Yet his behavior through a 2026 lens would no doubt be regarded as highly toxic. “I’m not giving up on you until you give in,” comes the threatening response as Amanda politely rejects his advances. Another red flag occurs when, as pursuing her down the corridors in the quest for a first date, he refers to himself as a “nice guy.”
Colin is not the only presence Amanda has to fend off, though. While looking for the broken-legged boy last seen wheeling his chair to the morgue, the pair stumble across a closet scattered with blood storage bags “shredded like a dog got them.” And the plot thickens when they find young janitor Felix (Jorgito Vargas, Jr.) presumably lying dead on a mortuary slab.
The Vampire in one of his many female forms.
As the distinctive puncture marks on his neck suggest, though, Felix hasn’t yet met his maker. In fact, in the following scene, he’s chasing Amanda and Colin up the stairs with the intention of sinking his new-fangled fangs into their skin. Yes, as Are You Afraid of the Dark’s final first victim, the teen was first zombified and now quickly mutating into a vampire. “There are no doctors, no patients, nothing left,” he reveals much to the duo’s horror.
In a remarkably quick babyface turn, however, Felix becomes an ally, teaming up with the high schoolers to help bring down the demonic force roaming the hospital while simultaneously offering a nice bit of exposition. Turns out the janitor had signed for a package which, instead of the water pump expected, contained a coffin-bound vampire. And the only way to stop his reign of terror is to distract him long enough to burn his resting place.
The Vampire in his terrifying true form.
That’s easier said than done considering the coffin weighs a ton and he’s able to manifest himself as a blonde temptress (Irene Contogiorgis), nine-year-old girl (Elisha Cuthbert, who coincidentally would later join the 1999 revival’s main cast), and a softly spoken volunteer named Margot (Elisabeth Rosen). The latter’s reveal is a twist worthy of a M. Night Shyamalan chiller, while what happens next is more akin to Freddy Krueger than a kids teatime favorite.
Indeed, while we see glimpses of The Vampire’s true self throughout, it’s only during the rooftop finale where his green, reptilian-like face takes center stage. Props to the make-up team for making what was, judging by the dodgy CGI, clearly a little go a long way; their nightmarish efforts putting many franchise-spawning movie monsters to shame. Andrea Apergis, who’d previously played the baddie in “The Room for Rent,” also makes the most of his limited screentime, spouting one-liners like, while dangling Amanda from the roof’s edge, “I should drop you and lick up what's left” with an impassioned zeal.
The rest of the cast are equally impressive. It’s little surprise many of the young actors went onto greater things, with Vargas, Jr. later becoming a Power Ranger and Chriqui playing Eric’s love interest Sloan in Entourage. But no doubt wanting to go out with a bang, the behind-the-scenes team are at the top of the game, too, from the shadowy cinematography which hints at menace behind every corner to the Easter egg-filled screenplay which rewards long-time viewers (see the references to season one finale “The Tale of the Pinball Wizard” and Zeebo the Clown).
Self-appointed nice guy Colin and the girl he eventually wears down.
Of course, while “The Tale of the Night Shift” pushes Are You Afraid of the Dark into full-on horror harder than ever before, it was never going to bump off its kids. Colin gets to play the hero by summoning enough strength to throw the coffin into the incinerator; The Vampire bursts into flames and falls maniacally to his demise; and everyone briefly forced into a catatonic state return to normal with only Felix, presumably due to being the first prey, retaining any memories of the night from hell. You could argue, however, that Amanda’s subsequent agreement to a more conventional second date isn’t the entirely happy ending the show purports.
The show’s belief that self-appointed nice guys should always win spills over into the “real world” when storyteller Sam tells the Colin-esque Gary that contrary to her earlier brush-off, she’s now willing to give him a chance. But then no-one ever watched Are You Afraid of the Dark for its nuanced gender dynamics. “The Tale of the Night Shift,” which cleverly concludes with a burning campfire to symbolize the Midnight Society’s eternal spirit, achieved the show’s ultimate goal: sending a generation of kids to bed with enough fuel to power at least one full-blown nightmare.
