Television Review: 'R. L. Stine's The Haunting Hour'

The adorable Bailee Madison in Really You, a memorable two-part episode of The Haunting Hour.

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R. L. Stine's The Haunting Hour (2010-2014) is one of the best anthology series in the horror/weird tales genre to debut this decade. This modest, unpretentious show lasted for four years on The Hub Channel. The half-hour segments (19 minutes without commercial breaks) are aimed at kids from about 9-14, but don’t let that fool you. Some of the episodes have a Twilight Zone-level of sophistication, and overall, the well-written stories display a lot of imagination. These are not the same-old, same-old tales of werewolves, vampires and ghosts.

Like most kids’ shows, the episodes of The Haunting Hour strive to teach a moral, usually with a “twist” at the end; these vary in quality and cleverness. R.L. Stine, best known for the Goosebumps books and 90s series, doesn’t seem to have much to do with this series beyond lending his name; he gets credit on each episode for “concept” while the writing is done by other people. Note, these tales are generally darker than the Goosebumps episodes and more in line with Stine’s other great series, The Nightmare Room (2001).

The series starts off strongly with a two-part episode called Really You, about a bratty little girl named Lily who can never have enough pink-and-lavender, girlie-girl consumer goods. As Daddy’s little princess, Lily is excited about her latest acquisition, a "Really You" custom-made, life-sized doll that looks just like the real Lily. The doll, however, has a mind of her own, and dreams of switching places with the real Lily, whom she terrorizes with psychological tactics instead of actual physical attacks.

Other great episodes include the eerie Scarecrow, based on a T.S. Eliot poem; Lovecraft’s Woods, a memorably creepy time-loop tale; and Scary Mary, a two-parter that provides a bizarre variation on the “Bloody Mary” folktale that’s been a staple of little girls' sleepovers for decades. These are only a few examples; there are too many other great episodes to list.

Although this series is obviously low-budget (certain sets are continually re-used), the production values are pretty good considering. The cast of tween and teen actors includes many stand-outs, especially the adorable Bailee Madison, who appears in four episodes, and Joey King, who appears in two. Both are now regularly working adult actresses.

The only downside to The Haunting Hour is that some people may be turned off by the datedness of the earlier episodes, where you'll see flip-phones, "emo" girls and boys, Goths, and other artifacts of the early part of this decade. Time seems to move so fast now that I actually started to feel nostalgic about the fashions and fads of 2010 when re-watching a few of these episodes.

Some episodes of The Haunting Hour can be found on Daily Motion, if you want to check them out. Unfortunately, the DVD and streaming options don’t include all of the 76 episodes, but you can find a limited disc set and limited streaming on Amazon that include about 30-50 episodes. I give this series a hard 8/10.