Sometimes you stumble across something that is very much up your alley, hand-in-hand with several other pieces of media you may be chewing up at the time, wanting more.
I unfortunately never had a chance to read any of the books when I came across the series, but as someone who, living in Canada, already was a fan of the likes of Freaky Stories (and horror in general), I easily gravitated toward Grizzly Tales.
There were a few shining bits I remembered fondly, and they seemed to welcome me back lovingly on this revisit.
I adore the setup, taking place in a theater, where hanging out by your lonesome watching creepy films seems like a dream.
Spindleshanks is a great mute character, an adorable spider that has wonderful back and forth with the main character, the caretaker of the theater and narrator of stories.
Speaking of, Nigel Planer and his narration work are still splendid. If there is one thing I remembered the most vividly from back in the day, it was his vocal work. Wonderful.
13) Burgerskip
A jerk CEO of a fast food chain, Burgerskip, wants to expand by bulldozing the Amazon forest, which includes cutting down an ancient tree that an Amazonian tribe warn him about.
I did have a bit of a back and forth over which story would take the last place here, and it ended up all coming down to the fact that, in the end, I didn’t have much to write about Burgerskip at all. What starts off as an interesting setup, primarily one that positions the subject of comeuppance as a deserving adult instead of the usual unruly child, it never fully ends up feeling necessarily satisfying.
Coming off of the idea that there is a curse or ancient powers at play with cutting down the tree, the idea of leaves and the like sprouting from the burgers is a neat start, but the endgame leaves more to be desired, especially since it would have been nice to see the CEO have a more ‘horrifying’ conclusion involved, perhaps something akin to turning into a tree himself.
12) The New Nanny
Two horrific children that lie, and are believed by their also dipstick parents, abuse their nanny until she quits, and they go through multiple new nannies until they learn their lesson, and more.
Sad to say the first episode of the series is my least favourite from the initial season. It makes sense as a first showing, though, since it lays a lot of the groundwork for what Grizzly Tales is, primarily a lot of unruly children getting some sort of comeuppance through various means.
Here, after doing certain “pranks” that could have, in many ways, killed their nanny, they go through a few other nannies that happen to be animals. The first two of these are a snake and a spider, whom are all treated the same and pulled towards certain near-death experiences before running off. An alligator is the last one, who eats the kids and leaves them behind as reptile eggs they hatch from before the old nanny returns and the kids see her belongings are made of various animal pieces that cover the previous substitute nannies, indicating their nanny is a witch of some sort.
My primary issue with this story at first was that it really drops you into the fantastical, and while it is mostly to prove that the parents are absolute dolts that don’t pay attention to these kids lies and general awfulness, I thought it suffered from too much, too soon. Once I finished the rest of the series, though, I do feel that this story comes off the weakest.
You may be asking yourself if this is my least favourite of the first series, then how does it rank 12th and not last?
Simple. Outside of the fact that I do feel like Burgerskip had the possibility to be the most satisfying out of all the stories, this one has one thing that one doesn’t, and that’s probably the best line in the whole first series, and it’s the one that starts the story.
“There is a family living in South London that has the collective intelligence of a dead ant.”
11) Sweets
Little Thomas likes sweets and hates shopping, to the point that he is banned from multiple markets. One unruly day, he runs off from his mom and comes across a mysterious sweet shop.
Sweets really does flip it on you a bit by building towards a conclusion that doesn’t really have anything to do with the title of the episode. It does lead us there, but it itself doesn’t play an ironic part of the proceedings, so good on it for that. Instead, the build-up fully follows the fact that, while Thomas likes sweets, he hates shopping and shops.
Sweets is a pretty-straight forward story. It isn’t a waste, and it isn’t top of the line fantastic either, which is kind of a shame simply because I like the conclusion here, with our main character being encased (always good horror material) and having to watch on from a shop window. I will admit though, the shot of Thomas swirling about in the paper mâché machine is comical and kind of took me out of the ending.
As a whole it is okay, and there’s nothing bad about that at all.
10) A Tangled Web
A serial abuser of spiders, Nigel's attention one day goes to a pregnant spider that makes its home in his room.
This is it, the episode that I had the absolute hardest time fitting into a ranking here. Why? I find it frustrating to the point of infuriating.
By this point, we have had two episodes where kids get the ultimate comeuppance. Comeuppance of course meaning death. And, not to sound crass, but if there is one character that absolutely deserved some form of death payoff its Nigel. The kid is horrible, and not horrible in the sense of misbehaving, he out and out tortures and murders spiders. He can even smell a spider when it enters his room.
This is the episode I remembered the most from when I was a kid, specifically the sweet pregnant spider Ariadne that ends up being the focus of Nigel’s terror. She still comes off as sweet and undeserving as I remember. What makes the episode so frustrating is that the setup for it is all perfect, sincerely and genuinely. A dead Ariadne gives birth to ghost spiders (that wait for a gust of wind to take them to Nigel’s in a really fantastic shot) and they even enter his mouth and are shown spinning webs in his body.
All of this is great, and you wonder where it will all go until… it ends with Nigel just not opening his mouth anymore because when he does spiders fall out. To an extent, I get it. Nigel ends up being continuously haunted by the same animal he had so horrifically treated, but it ends up being all so disappointing given his actions and, again, how genuinely sweet they make Ariadne the spider in this. You can’t help but feel that this kid, who went from ‘possibly annoying’ to an absolute psychopath in the span of the opening 30 seconds or so, deserved more.
So therein lies the issue, a brilliant and fantastic setup that ends up deflating you in the end if you, like me, just really, really feel the character deserved a harsher punishment.
9) Death By Chocolate
Serena Slurp loves two things; chocolate and mentally tormenting her sister, Ellie, but one treat she keeps to herself may be her undoing.
Boy howdy, even though what we build to ends up on the fantastical side, the opening of this definitely makes you not want to have chocolate out of deep-seated fear. Ugh.
This is a pleasant little tale. Not, pleasant pleasant, you know what I mean, but it is a story that does continue a decent run the first series had after the initial episode, though, to be fair, it doesn’t quite reach the enjoyable heights of the two stories that came before it.
More in line with The Spaghetti Man, I was curious as to where the story would end up going and, honestly, felt silly not putting the idea of the fly swatter and the opening together but hey, it was early when I was working. While the changes Serena goes through are fully up to personal taste in terms of whether it works for you or not, the payoff is pretty funny.
Speaking of the payoff, sister Ellie is the real MVP of this episode and the reason it ranks as high as it does. It’s easy to feel bad for her not just because Serena is so awful, but because they were able to work in enough character bits in the ten minutes that do a good job in establishing her, primarily the fact that, when presented with the new fly swatter her mom bought, treats it like a sword and dresses in household items to be a samurai. It’s a cute touch that really captures childhood imagination, and ended up being one of my favourite details from the series as a whole.
And if Ellie wasn’t enough to like this episode, the final interaction between her and her mother is brilliant, a hilarious touch on how a child may worry and view certain things only for it to amount to nothing at all.
8) The History Lesson
As someone who is too lazy to study, a major test plunges ELizabeth into despair until she is visited by a ghost child who has hung around for over 100 years, telling Elizabeth she will gladly help in her dilemma.
I can see how some people may not like this one as a whole when it comes to the general feel of the rest of the series, but I adored this. Not all stories need to be scary or have a nerve-wracking twist, some of them just need to be enjoyable, and this one ends up being just that.
To be fair, I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it for a good chunk of its runtime but, like many other stories here, what pushes it over is the ending. It really got me. Was it a surprising ending? No, but the way it is unraveled is helped by Nigel Planer’s incredible work in the last few lines of the story. He just absolutely goes for it, delivering the last few lines with such frothing, insane glee. I wouldn’t be surprised if, upon an eventual rewatch, I realize that I enjoyed this as much as I did simply for his work, it’s that good at making the kicker so funny.
7) The Princess’s Clothes
Felicity has been endlessly spoiled by her father, and her mother's attempts to get her some new clothes that aren't up to Felicity's standards may end up leading her to some much needed humility.
Even though, to be completely honest, I don’t have a whole lot to write about this entry, I did enjoy it quite a bit. What helps, in my opinion, is that it feels slightly different than the other stories we have seen up to this point.
Yes, we have elements of what could constitute a ‘horror’ story, namely a witch, but The Princess’s Clothes instead comes off more akin to an old-fashioned fairy tale than anything, the story of an individual confronted with something more mystical than scary that changes their ways. It’s a cute story with an ending that falls in line with its fairy tale-esque aspects and, in turn, comes together really well.
Also, the fathers in these stories are awful. Useless.
6) Dr Moribundus
Lorelei Lee has a habit of playing sick to get out of school until her mother, who constantly believes her, seeks help from a doctor who fixes her for good.
Dr. Moribundus really feels like a great hit right in the middle of the kinds of stories we ended up getting in this first run of the show, being, for the most part, relatively grounded until it ends with a kicker that is a tad more fantastical than some of the others.
This episode, on rewatch, does fall into a more humorous subsection, since so much of the "special doctor's" work is pretty hilariously ludicrous, though I do have to say it's nice to see the showmakers realize how good they had it from an episode coming up that they kept a key character design that pops up here, except with more facial hair. It may not hang in your subconscious the way some of the upcoming episodes do, but Dr. Moribundus is a lot of fun, and it makes sense they would go a little wacky considering the great punchline to Lorelei's little scenario.
5) The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping
Summer vacation brings some friends together to go exploring with their dog, leading them to an apple orchard where they get more than they bargain for.
A story that fully takes advantage of what you have come to expect from a lot of these stories. The kids have instances where they aren’t nice, but they are nowhere near being awful. In fact, the group of kids being generally well-behaved and funny and nice is what really pushes this story and its tension. You don’t know where the conflict is going to come from, and at no point does this story position itself as one where someone generally gets what they deserve for being so bad.
There is still a lesson to learn here, since in the end the kids are responsible for what happens to them in a more realistic (and avoidable) way, but that makes the eventual ending feel so cruel and unfair in the best possible way. Not to mention the inclusion of a monster of a person that hits home the seriousness of the situation in the form of a sequence you can tell went differently from the book.
It all comes together with an absolutely crazy ending stinger that pushes the horror of it all to a whole other level. It’s one story that has a good chance of staying with you after the fact.
4) The Spaghetti Man
An absolutely horror show of a picky eater, Timothy continually acts out until he draws the attention of The Spaghetti Man, an invisible being that is said to deal with children like Timothy.
The second episode really kicks things into gear with what I think many people were expecting in the series, more so than The New Nanny.
The Spaghetti Man gets right to it in its portrayal of a misbehaving child and the setup of its creature that seems tailor made to get young children to actually eat. There are a lot of good horror elements here that are quite effective, from the focus on the latch of the front door opening and being followed by silence and the fact that your monster is primarily a shadow (shadows are always a positive to use). The payoff to it all is also horrific in a wonderful way, really upping someone getting their ‘just desserts’ in a story like this. Even something that may come off as silly, such as The Spaghetti Man coming with the scent of flour in the air, works here in setting the atmosphere.
Is there anything that doesn’t work? Well, there is the unfortunate decision to have The Spaghetti Man speak near the end of the segment, with an Italian accent to boot. It doesn’t ruin what came before, but it did definitely catch me off guard and came off a lot more comical than anything. I can’t blame it though, since they probably felt the unseen fate of the kids probably needed a bit of lightness to it. Networks. Tsk tsk.
3) The Barber of Civil
Peregrine and Tanya go out of their way to be the rudest children in their school and soon cross paths with a mysterious barber that shows up in town.
Oh. Oh yes. Here we go!
To be a tad spoiler-y (sorry), the top two stories that resonated with me in this season were ones that, for me, captured the spirit of the season and nostalgia fantastically. Barber of Civil, however, feels like the pure distillation of these types of stories in their best possible form.
Kids that misbehave through normal, everyday ways? Check.
A mysterious stranger that arrives and has an odd occupation that comes with similarly odd details? Check.
The payoff being laid out in a way you may not fully have expected and tying in perfectly to its story? Check.
I love everything about this story. The design of the barber himself is absolutely genius, coming off as a generally normal design that is easily twisted when necessary into being genuinely unnerving and uncomfortable. Seriously, the sequence where we get a couple of full screen shots of his head as he hovers over one of the kids reflected in his eyes, explaining what he does, is so off-putting and terrifying that it alone could elevate this whole episode if it were of lesser quality.
Though I hadn’t watched the rest of the series (but will eventually do so), this one is on top of the ladder in terms of the good ol’ storytelling of ‘bad person/child get what they deserve.’ Just an absolutely wonderful handful of minutes that works from beginning to end.
2) Grandmother’s Footsteps
Trying his best to sleep, Jolyon is frightened by shadows outside of his window and his grandmother tells him a story to ease his mind.
I loved everything about this. Another good example with storytelling where, even though you can probably guess what the ending will be 30 seconds in, everything else around it is so much fun. The entire segment comes off as the kind of story a child would tell at a sleepover, right down to a very tongue-in-cheek reveal at the end.
There is a layer of humor here as well that really worked for me, from the fact that the story grandmother tells is beat for beat what is happening, the ongoing joke with Jolyon jumping the gun in terms of the ghost showing up in the story, and “Grandma took out her left eye, and polished it.”
It may not be spooky or necessarily grizzly, but it’s a story that left me with a fuzzy feeling inside, reminding me of the general fun of the Halloween season.
1) The Wooden Hill
Jack's mother tells him she will read him a story, but his favourite book is in a room all the way up the dark stairs.
Whenever it comes to any anthology series, I try to watch them in order of release. Somehow, I had missed The Wooden Hill and had to come back to it after finishing the rest. During this time, I genuinely held on to the belief that Grandmother’s Footsteps would be in first place.
Well, ten minutes later, here we are. So, what was it that ended up ranking this higher than the others for me?
The Wooden Hill really exemplifies a lot of my feelings and nostalgic memories towards my growing love of horror as a kid. There’s something fun and exciting about being scared, seeing things in the shadows that obviously aren’t there, the rush of a good story told well.
The ten minutes here beautifully captured all of that for me and, whether intentional or not, came off as a beautifully crafted, loving ode to that wonder you have in childhood.
Not to mention, there are some great things here in general, with a good use of colour and some wonderful imagery going along with the story that plays on imagination, my favourite being a moment where Jack climbs the stairs and they’re shown as bones.
All of it comes together with a sweet punchline once he returns to his mother with book in hand, really hammering home my feelings towards the episode itself.
