Hey everyone, PushingUpRoses here and welcome to another intriguing
episode featuring R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour.
Now, let me ask you a question; when is the right time to teach your kids about, hang on,
let me check my notes here… Alien Cannibalism. Aliens talking: “I must feed.” “I’m next!”
You might be thinking that I am exaggerating, because where does this fit in with the genre
of young adult horror? I must be overselling it, right? No, I assure you, this episode gets
gruesome. As a reminder, the Haunting Hour was intended for a slightly older age group,
preteens and teens, than Stine’s Goosebumps series, which was targeted more towards kids 7
and up. Typically, these shows use characters that are closer in age to their demographic,
so in Goosebumps you’ll see characters slightly older than 7 and up, and in The Haunting Hour
you see more teenagers, and the stories in this show are much more mature and gruesome,
though in this particular episode, called Alien Candy, I struggled with the tone because the
main characters were young, and it kept waffling back and forth between being really disturbing,
and really corny. I’ve covered children’s horror that has walked that line, stories that have
teetered into being too macabre, and there have been visuals in this series that have been much
more unsettling, but this episode took the cake for me. Without hyperbole, I can honestly say that
my jaw dropped at some of these scenes, and I was left with a very squicked out feeling. So let’s
talk about it; where does Alien Candy fall on the children’s horror spectrum? Kids: “ahhhhhh!”
We start our tale at a middle school, where an announcement is being made that the cafeteria will
be serving their ever-popular chicken nuggets. Walt and his friend Tim are alien enthusiasts;
they go to sci-fi conventions, they read conspiracy theories,
and Walt even brings his book on aliens to lunch time. He’s so dedicated he dyed
his normally red hair brown so he could be Han Solo for Halloween. Walt is EXTREMELY animated
and talks like a 30 year old critic. Tim: “How’s that book anyways??” Walt: “It’s good, except for
the hokey cover and cliche looking alien.” Okay, but I can clearly see you are only one page in.
As they leave, school bully DWAYNE makes fun of
Walt’s book. Dwayne: “The Quest for Alien Contact?”
HUH, what a totally normal and inconspicuous closeup of these teenagers reacting to the title
of the book. I am sure it means absolutely nothing and doesn’t give ANYTHING away prematurely.
A small kerfuffle takes place and Walt knocks over the lunch lady’s food cart. Oh no, so many frozen,
precooked nugs wasted. “Five pounds of my home made nuggets.” Oh. The kids are sorry,
but they are instructed to take out the trash to the dumpster after school all week. She’s REALLY
intense about it, lunch lady’s got some moxie. “All week.” Oh no, 7 days, what is this torture…
As Walt is fumbling with the garbage bags, the totally normal and not suspicious 8th graders
follow him. “He’s small. Only a 6th grader.” “His intellect is what counts.” See? Completely
standard teenager chit-chat, nothin’ weird here. They introduce themselves as Greg and Bonnie,
and invite Walt to a secret sci-fi club where they discuss all things Extraterrestrial. They
appeal to Walt’s interests by saying that Bonnie’s Dad works on a secret project involving aliens,
and this convinces him to join. They show him their secret meet up spot and some kind of
weird glowing stone. In order for Walt to meet and communicate with an alien, they tell him he needs
to eat supplements that look like radioactive jelly beans. Bonnie: “It’s not really candy, it’s
a special supplement formulated by a...government lab.”Everything about this screams drugs but okay,
why not. Later that night Tim pays a visit to Walt’s house and asks him why he’s acting so
weird. Even though he’s not supposed to tell anyone, Walt indulges him about the secret
club that promises alien contact, and Tim begs to join. Bonnie and Greg are pissed and say Tim is
not suitable for the club, period. Walt: “I’ll tell him you said no…” (Sad piano plays)
Tim is mad but Walt still wants to join the club,
downing the glowing jelly beans and feeling more and more out of it as he does.
Later that night, Bonnie and Greg break into Walt’s house. They freeze him to his
bed with the strange stone, take some vitals which they get from his foot, then Greg says.
“He is suitable for digestion.” Oh no. See, these were not jellybeans. Shocking,
I know. They were supplements meant to neutralize any viruses, making him safe to eat.
Though Walt is paralyzed in bed, he is still aware of what is about to happen, which is a terrifying
thought. The pair transform into their alien selves, and though it’s not EXPLICITLY shown,
the episode really makes it clear that the alien is taking a bite from Walt’s foot; it uses juicy
sound effects, strange lighting, and shows the alien chewing and swallowing one of Walt’s toes,
and my jaw damn near unhinged itself. The aliens are not the most convincing looking,
but I felt extremely perturbed seeing this kid watching himself being eaten alive. As gruesome
and upsetting as this part is, it takes a very sudden turn into the comical; Bonnie notices
that Walt is a redhead in one of his pictures, and they are ALLERGIC to redheads, no joke.
HE’S A GINGER, WE CAN’T EAT HIM, RUN!!!
The tonal whiplash is severe, I went from a mild stomach ache to laughing hysterically at
this arbitrary twist about genetic makeup. Walt wakes up believing it was just a bad nightmare.
Greg wants to kill Walt, but Bonnie insists that it would attract too much attention,
and that no one will believe his story anyway. He discovers his missing toe
while in the locker room, and Dwayne witnesses this. I like the placement of the anti-bullying
sign in the next shot, heh. But what if your bully is an ALIEN WHO ATE YOUR TOE?
Bonnie takes a moment to threaten him, and also explains that their saliva has healing abilities
and that the toe will be fine. She exposes her teeth and he makes a run for it. He’s
captured by Dwayne and shoved in a dumpster. Bonnie and Greg now set their sights on Tim,
and they instruct him not to tell Walt, as it will be a surprise when he joins the club.
Walt escapes and calls Tim, only to figure out he’s been taken by the aliens. He books it to the
secret room and they go on this wild chase that resembles the kitchen scene from Jurassic Park. I
mean, it’s REALLY close, full of diversions, close calls, and beings with scary teeth.
In a questionable move, they start throwing plastic tupperware at the
aliens. PAPER OR PLASTIC ASSHOLES? Yeah this doesn’t work. Hmmm… what can we do here… Quick
grab the paprika and make deviled eggs! Walt blinds them with cooking spray and Tim douses
them in salt, which has a melting slug effect. They promptly turn into goo. Good thing they
didn’t grab the paprika I guess. This isn’t even the weirdest part. Right after the aliens goo-ify,
the lunch lady comes in, ready to start on her world famous chicken nuggets, not even noticing
the alien parts on the counter. They get pushed into the mixer, which she DOESN’T EVEN CHECK,
and she begins her new batch. You can even see the green globs jiggling as she shovels
chicken pieces into the bowl. Oh hey, looks like they are gonna be doused in paprika after all.
I know none of this is real and the visuals are meant for added gross-out factor,
something horror for young adults does a lot, but it got to me. I have a pretty strong stomach,
but when it comes to people, or even humanoids being cooked into something, I get extremely
squeamish. The next day, Dwayne the bully exclaims the nuggets taste more flavorful today.
Walt finds a fingertip in his nugget and the episode ends on a blood curdling scream. *ta da!*
Okay, final thoughts. As I’ve already mentioned, I found this episode really jarring because it goes
from being gruesome and intense, to slightly comical, so both my brain and my stomach was
doing flips, trying to ahem, DIGEST, this story. The teenagers playing the aliens were actually
really good - perfectly weird and off, even though you know pretty much in the first 3 minutes that
they are aliens. Finding out they were malevolent wasn’t exactly a twist or surprise, the surprise
is that they literally wanted to eat this boy, which did its job in being really scary. I’m an
adult human in her 30s and it had a great impact, especially since it was shot well; it was grisly
without showing any blood or gore, it was all done with sound effects and implication, and the fact
that Walt was watching himself get eaten alive… NOPE. That’s next level horror for me. There are
some things worse than death and this is one of them for me, this is a truly dark moment from this
series, and it was hard to grasp what age group it’d be appropriate for. The young characters
make it more relatable to a younger crowd, but the story itself is suited for teenagers,
which IS who this anthology is meant for, it’s just polarizing. It feels like a really messed
up episode of Goosebumps - though I would compare it more closely to an episode of Are You Afraid of
the Dark called the Tale of the Dark Music, which also featured a monster consuming a human being,
though it was definitely tamer than what you see in Alien Candy, and this conclusion was just
gross, which I think is a little too immature for a teenage audience. Goosebumps had a lot of
gross out moments because kids tend to like it, it’s a type of horror they can consume because
there’s always a corny element to it - gross doesn’t always equal frightening. So when the
aliens get their comeuppance at the end of this episode, I didn’t get any lingering feelings of
fear or intensity, I just got a stomach ache then promptly swore off chicken nuggets. I think an
ending that would have fit better with the series, and would be more appropriate horror in general,
is the bully getting HIS comeuppance - if you are a long time horror fan you’re probably familiar
with unsavory people, particularly abusers and harassers, getting what they deserve. Stephen King
does this a lot in his writing, and R.L. Stine does too, but in this story, two good characters
are targeted, the bully ends up fine, and the aliens are wiped away completely. Usually there
is a little more ambiguity about what happens to the main monster or villain - a lot of the time
it’s implied that the horror is still lurking somewhere out there, ready to strike again. I
think an ambiguous ending is way more effective than a more conclusive ending like this one.
If I were to rework this script, I would have written Dwayne to be the next target; it would
keep the fear of the aliens alive while giving the viewer the satisfaction of seeing a bad character
suffer for his actions. You could even have him disappear mysteriously, followed by having the two
good guys believe they did away with the aliens, ending with a small hint that they are still out
there somewhere, preying on more people. Ending with a gross out moment is a little cheap if
you ask me, especially since I think the story is okay - like I said, I was horrified at this scene,
I even thought the alien heads looked pretty good, especially in the chase scene where the
lighting could be played with to make them look more monster-like, casting shadows in just the
right places to trick your imagination, but I wanted that fear to be a little more consistent.
It almost had a slapstick feel to it. I realize that the structure of this episode does heavily
rely on the conclusion of the aliens being eaten; they wanted to feed on humans but they ended up
being the Alien Candy in the end. It’s cohesive, I just don’t think it’s a very creative story.
This isn’t to say I don’t think you should watch it, it really is bonkers and effective, I just
have no idea where something like this fits within young adult horror. It’s too messed up to be for a
younger crowd, and it’s a little too immature to be taken seriously by a teenage or older
crowd. Though I do give it props for succeeding in making me feel extremely uncomfortable, so I
guess this episode gets the “Most Squicks” award. I do like seeing some boundaries being pushed when
it comes to horror, but can we not cook alien goo into chicken nuggets? Thanks. Interestingly there
is another episode from this anthology that features human consumption called The Mascot,
and it was also pretty disturbing, but the victims were still all in one piece. I just do
not want to imagine watching someone biting off my toe. If there is an episode of The Haunting
Hour you would love to see me cover, please leave a suggestion in the comments. In fact,
the reason I covered this one is because someone made a very compelling argument for it on Twitter,
so I am very interested in all of your burning hot children’s horror takes. Until then, stay spooky.
Hey everyone, thanks again for watching my video on The Haunting Hour - I have more
to offer if you are interested, but first I want to thank my patrons for supporting me
and this channel, otherwise who knows if I would have ever made a video about alien cannibalism?
It’s all thanks to them. If you are interested in supporting this channel, consider checking
out my campaign, and if not, likes, shares, and feedback are free and always welcome.
If you are interested in more commentary on the Haunting Hour anthology, then I have a suggestion
on the left where I discuss an episode about turning children into pumpkins, very intriguing
indeed. On the right I have an episode about even more oddities, the cult classic show Beyond
Belief starring Jonathan Frakes. Thanks again, and as always, I’ll see you in the next one.