Hey everyone, PushingUpRoses here and it’s time to get spooky, again. So in a previous
video of mine I took a look at what I considered to be the least scary episode of Are You Afraid
of the Dark; it was about a ghost that needed his jacket, he was cold, and he was fine in
the end. If you want to watch that episode first, then check out the thingie that just
popped up in the right hand corner. HOWEVER, if you want to get down to brass tacks and
listen to me discuss what I consider the SCARIEST episode, then sit your butt down and get ready
because I’m gonna talk about POOLS. What? Don’t act like you aren’t scared.
Ah, The Tale of the Dead Man’s Float, a classic. In case you didn’t know, a Deadman’s
float is a position where a swimmer is face down in the water with their limbs sprawled
and they just...float there. Lookin’ dead. Thus the name Dead man’s float. Yep.
There were several options when it came to Are You Afraid of the Dark episodes that were
considered scary, or at least memorable; Dead Man’s Float was my initial choice, but I
decided to explore other options by putting out a very professional poll on Twitter. My
mentions were a smidge cluttered but I was delighted to find that people pretty much
agreed on this episode as being one of the most frightening. Twitter is a cess-pool but
at least we can agree on children’s horror shows, and yes I did say cess-pool because
I thought it was clever, but I can see as I am reading this that my pool pun game is
rather weak. Don’t worry though, I’m sure the rest of this video will go SWIMMINGLY.
HAHAHAHA.
The other contenders for this video were the Ghastly Grinner, Laughing in the Dark, The
Super Specs, and the 13th Floor; all very good suggestions, but I wanted to refrain
from talking about clowns; look, we’ve used up our scary clown card, let’s retire it.
And when I saw it I don’t mean Stephen King’s It because that thing wasn’t really a clown.
Also, I adore this 90s goth goddess from The Ghastly Grinner *purr*. Anyway, tangent. I
thought The Super Specs could make for its own unique episode since it seemed inspired
by John Carpenter’s They Live so I passed on that, and The 13th Floor definitely stuck
with me, very influenced by The Twilight Zone, but it didn’t scare me. It more… disturbed
me.
There’s just something frightening about pools; water in general, really. Yeah, I know
we need it to live and I know 71% makes up the Earth’s surface, but when you pour a
shit ton of it in a giant hole in the floor it becomes frightening. Especially to kids,
and shows like this, Goosebumps, and Eerie, Indiana really knew how to use the common
fears of young people. Bad things happen in pools. People pee in them, they drop food
in them, and sometimes they have ghosts. It’s completely impossible but maybe there’s
a shark or an alligator in there, perhaps a bloody limb, fecal matter, it’s all in
the damn pool.
As we start the episode we are greeted by the Midnight Society, as is tradition for
the beginning and ending of every episode. One of the characters, Tucker, brings in a
potential recruit. As he is revealed, he says HI BABE and kisses Kiki, one of the other
members. She is justifiably not pleased with this non consensual act of affection and refers
to him as a puke, a highly underused insult if you ask me. Kiki: “If we don’t think
you’re a total PUKE.” Other kid: “Then you’re in.”
This guy’s name is Stig, a rather unfortunate mix of Stag and Twig. To get initiated, He
must prove himself to be a good story teller, and preferably, not act like a toilet around
the other members.
He begins his tale and we open with a flashback seen; some surfer pop music plays in the background,
indicating that this is in fact, the 1950s. I mean, I’m already scared. Eugh.
So in a scene that looks like it came straight outta jaws, we watch as a helpless kid gets
pulled under the water as he was swimming. We see the pool bro jump into the water to
save him, but the scene ends vaguely and segues into modern day. Here’s out main character,
Zeke! He looks like Thomas Dolby, and he’s doing CHEMISTRY. Weird. “SCIENCE!” Yeah,
he’s our nerdy, bumbling protagonist that doesn’t have a lot of luck with the ladies,
due to always being preoccupied with his schoolwork. Zeke: “You’re on the swim team right?”
Clorice: “Yeah, so?” Zeke: “Well, I’d like to show you something you might find
interesting?” Boner alert. He makes a feeble attempt at winning the interest of Clorice,
who is on the school’s swim team. Wait. Wait. Her name is Clorice, and she’s a swimmer,
and his name is Zeke, who is a geek. Brilliant. A+ writing.
He convinces her to meet him after school even though he can’t even seem to handle
this hoberman sphere. Actually I don’t know if this is really a Hoberman sphere, I just
wanted to sound smart. Did it work? His answer to not being able to situate it back on the
shelf is to STEAL IT. What a fuckin’ rebel. He brings to her the Gym’s old pool, thinking
that she would be impressed as a swimmer. How romantic. Nothin’ like the smell of
mold and chemicals to heighten the mood. Clorice does end up being impressed and suggests trying
to convince the school to reopen it because they have to drive an hour away for their
swimming lessons. Zeke doesn’t like the idea. Zeke: “But they’ll never…” Clorice:
“STOP. Excuses are for people who never get things done, understand?” Yes mistress.
What was the safe word again?
As they leave a weird floating shape is seen through this tape, OooOOoOOooooo… oh hey
it’s the Janitor. Sup.
Clorice manages to convince the school to clean up the pool and VOILA! Good as new!
Only took a couple of weeks too, a very realistic vision of school construction. Though the
pool looks nice, Clorice and her friend notice it still smells kind of weird, but chalk it
up to some dirty pipes. Meanwhile, an underwater presence lurks beneath the surface. It almost
goes for one of the swim team members but passes her by, as her form was pretty abysmal.
Later in science class, Clorice laments over getting a C on her exam and expresses hating
the subject. Zeke slides in, literally, and makes his move; he tells her that he could
tutor her in science, that being his thing and all. Clorice: “What’s in it for you?”
Zeke: “I get to smell your hair.”
In return, he asks for swimming lessons because he’s always been afraid of the water. I
am going to spare you the minutia but what follows is an overly dramatic story about
Zeke getting his leg caught in some pond plants. Zeke: “It’s dumb, really.”
It’s just a little melodramatic, Zeke. I get it, I got pulled under in one of those
wave pools once but it’s not something I bond over with my crush. Even Clorice isn’t
terribly impressed because when he’s done she’s like “Okay, I’m outta here.”
Despite this unnecessarily heavy dialogue, everything on the raft and forward is very
tense and would definitely be frightening to a young person. It might even be scary
for you now, especially to those who also got their feet stuck in some plants. As Clorice
is swimming, trying to show Zeke that the water is safe, something tugs her under and
you think “OH GOD IT’S THE POOL GHOST”, but nope, it’s just her annoying friend
Gretta whom I guess is jealous of her new pity fueled bond with Zeke? I don’t know,
she gets all angsty then just leaves a second later. And now that we have a proper fake
out, we can go back to the Jaws shit. You may be thinking, “it’s okay, they are
on a raft.” But bad things happen while on rafts, people, you know it! Zeke gets pulled
into the water by some unseen force; he manages to get back into the raft but whatever it
is knocks both him and Clorice into the pool. Luckily, Charlie, the janitor was there and
pulls them to safety. Zeke is like “What was that?” And Charlie is like: Charlie:
“It’s back.” Eminem: “Tell a friend!”
Charlie, of course, was the kid in the flashback, and he tells the story about how his girlfriend’s
little brother was pulled under and drowned by a spirit, then goes on to say that the
pool was built on a cemetery and all the bodies had to be moved. Charlie thinks that the workers
who moved the bodies missed this one, so maybe it’s all PO’d that it was left behind.
Three more people drowned before they closed it down, and poor Charlie was left traumatized
and probably single if we’re honest. Problem is, it’s hard to fight something you can’t
see, so using SCIENCE, Zeke pours some methyl orange in the pool in hopes of giving the
ghost a red tint. Zeke: “Methyl Orange reacts with acid. If this thing really is part acid…”
It’ll create chlorine gas and we’ll all die. *Please don’t do chemistry in the pool.
The mixture works and we finally get to see our culprit. (Clorice screams) So this guy
is dead!... I … I think. Holy shit, this episode isn’t messing around; this is a
pretty intense costume. The red coloring makes it look bloody, the beard growing out of the
decaying skull is pretty disgusting, I can see why this episode stuck with so many people.
Though, Zeke’s lackluster response kind of ruins it for me. I’m not sure if the
actor forgot to react or scream or what, but he’s just kind of like, “Oh. My shirt,
crap. Poor Charlie goes into shock, and now that the ghost is visible he decides to hop
out of the water and pop in through the drain pipe. This may explain why drains scare me;
who KNOWS what the hell is gonna crawl or ooze out of those things. In this case it
seems to be the ooze from the Ghostbusters. Yanosh: “Why am I drippings with goo?”
Clorice recalls from a school experiment that when you mix manganite with water, it will
cause an explosion, but Zeke smacks a tub of it out of her hands and informs her to
wear gloves. Safety first, people. They go after it and end up in the pool, again, but
Charlie comes to JUST in time to redeem himself and save Zeke. Clorice DOUSES this fool with
the manganite; SO MUCH of it that I was sure the entire building would explode. He dissolves
into the pool with dramatic puff of smoke. Guess he was too cool for pool. Yeah. Deal
with it.
Well, that was nice.
And of course, the nerd gets the girl. I love how as their floating in the pool, he basically
tells her to go for a swim so he can read his science book. Zeke: “You wanna go for
a swim?” Clorice: “Sure!” What the hell was that? You’re holding my book wrong,
please leave.
The moral of the story is always pay attention during Chemistry. It’s poetry in motion,
this kid looks like thomas dolby, as deep as any ocean, he’s working on some chemistry…
she killed this thing with SCIENCE! “SCIENCE!”
The midnight society enjoyed Stig’s story, but still find him smelly, so they won’t
be initiating him quite yet. They do invite him to come back and tell more stories to
see if he has what it takes, and kiki bluntly tells him to take a shower. The end!
After rewatching this episode, it’s easy to see why so many people found it scary.
I think it’s interesting how our fears evolve from adolescence to adulthood; when I saw
the ghost take form I didn’t quite understand the fear I may have felt as a child because
the things I’m most afraid of in adulthood aren’t tangible; things like the unknown,
my mortality, my self worth, that weird tapping noise in the attic; I was more fearful prior
to see the ghost because monsters just aren’t a real fear for me anymore, versus a child’s
fear. Things like gross looking skulls, scary ooze seeping out of drains; visuals and the
appearance of something that isn’t real was the most frightening to me. When I was
young I can recall going to a store with my mom around Halloween time and being grossed
out by all of the advertisements, the signs, the masks. Now I’m all like, “Shit I have
to pay my quarterlies.” Are You Afraid of the Dark was always very good at making fears
you would have in childhood come to life and that’s why it was so effective. It might
not be scary to us as adults, but the show is a great example of how to write horror
for young adults. Though I’m pretty sure the most disturbing thing about this show
is the intro. There’s this weird clown doll, a lonely canoe… this fuckin’ fan… it
reminds me when I didn’t have AC in hot, humid Chicago. Now that is scary.
The Dead Man’s Float, I’d give it an 8/10 on the spooky meter. If you have an episode
of Are You Afraid of the Dark that you’d love to see me cover, then let me know in
the comments. Until then, stay creepy.
Hey everyone, thank you so much for watching my break down on Dead Man’s float; If you’re
interested in more videos on children’s horror than consider checking out my channel;
I linked two videos in the description; the one on the LEAST scary episode of Are You
Afraid of the Dark, and one on a very weird episode of Goosebumps. I’d also like to
take this time to tell you about my Patreon campaign; I know this may come as a shock
to you but I sort of need to make money to live, and becoming a patron helps me do just
that. You can get rewards! Like postcards and other weird crap! Thanks again and I’ll
see you in the next one.