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The Dead Body
Season 1, Episode 4
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Air date December 25, 2010
Written by Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas
Directed by James Head
Episode Guide
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A Creature Was Stirring
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Nightmare Inn

The Dead Body is the fourth episode of R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour: The Series. It is based on the short story of the same from Nightmare Hour.

Summary[]

Will meets a new boy named Jake Skinner, who helps him fight back against some bullies, but Will soon learns that Jake isn't exactly a new student...or a living one.

Plot[]

With the school dance coming up, Will wants to ask Anna to the dance, but every time he tries, two bullies named Travis and Chang humiliate him in front of her. Will meets a new kid, Jake Skinner, who offers to get rid of the bullies for him. They make a deal that Jake will get rid of them, and when he needs it, Will will pay him back. To do this, Jake pretends to be a dead body in front of Travis and Chang in the woods during a school nature walk, and sits up screaming, causing the bullies to panic and run away. Jake believes this isn't enough, so he "kicks it up a notch." Will asks Anna to the dance but discovers that what Jake did gave Travis and Chang panic attacks.

The Elderly Janitor hears Will mention Jake Skinner to Anna and comments that Jake Skinner died in 1961. Will finds an engraved photo frame memorial in the school trophy case from the 1960’s realizing he befriended a dead person. Will confronts Jake saying he is done and wants no more part in getting back at Travis and Chang. Jake refuses saying he is “Having so much fun.” Seeking answers he questions The Elderly Janitor about how Jake died in 1961, it is revealed it was a prank gone wrong. The day of the dance, Will calls for Jake who responds by yelling repeatedly "You owe me." Will heard music, saw a photo of President John F. Kennedy and found out that he was back to the day the Jake died in the gym. He watched the event reoccur as bullies lock Jake inside the storage area; throwing firecrackers inside setting it alight then run off.

Will opened the cage that Jake was stuck in but couldn't find him. Then Jake appeared outside grinning as Will continued to say. “I saved you we’re even now right?” Jake still grinning left the room. As Will blinded by smoke turns to leave a bookcase that was on fire landed on making him die in 1961. Will woke up and found he was back to 2011 seeing a photo of President Barack Obama. He went outside the room to meet Anna but Anna was ignoring him (so he thought). Jake came up and introduced himself and asked Anna if she wanted to dance. Will tried talking to Anna and apologizes for being late but she walked right through him, literally. The episode ended with Jake saying "Now we're even." He trades lives with him but not bodies and ends up having Jake alive and Will dead.

Cast[]

Music[]

  • Going Through Changes - Army of Me

- Played at the beginning of the episode & the end credits

  • Gone - Ben Jenkins

- Plays when Jake & Anna start slow dancing

Differences from the story[]

  • In the story, Travis acts more like a false friend to Will, as opposed to the cruel bully he is in the episode.
  • In the story, Jake is Will's uncle, who he teamed up with to play the dead body prank on Travis.
  • The prank was originally Will's idea, not Jake's.
  • The story ends with Will discovering from his mom that Uncle Jake passed away last night, meaning he really was a zombie. However, he tells her Jake really was a good friend.
  • There is no Anna in the story.

Trivia[]

  • This is the first episode to based on one of R.L. Stine's stories.
  • Brendan Meyer and Matt Angel would later respectively play Nathan and Dr. Mangle in the Season 2 premiere two-parter "Creature Feature".
  • Matt Angel is the son of Dam Angel, one of the show's showrunners/writers.
  • The events of this story continue in the season 3 episode, "Dead Bodies." (originally titled "The Dead Body, Part 2"). The short story had no sequel.
  • This was the first regular length episode to be made, while A Creature Was Stirring was the first to air. Thus, the DVD and most streaming platforms have this before that one.
  • The episode has a few similarities with an Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode, "The Tale of Locker 22." In both stories, a bullied kid travels back in time to save the ghost of a kid who died in an explosion at school in the 1960s, with both ending with the ghost kid becoming human again.
    • There's also some similarities with the Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode, "The Tale of the Long Ago Locket," which is often seen as a gender-flip of "The Tale of Locker 22." Both feature a character befriending someone from the past and going back in time to save them from being killed, all the while gaining the courage to confess his feelings to his crush.

Image Gallery[]

Video(s)[]

Haunting_Hour,_The_Dead_Body_Subita

Haunting Hour, The Dead Body Subita

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