History Series / TheHauntingHour

** "My Old House": [[spoiler: After returning to the House that she loves so much, Alice notices her parents suffering from AdultFear and decides that she should be with them. She finally says goodbye to the house, but the house has a VillainousBreakdown and [[AndIMustScream absorbs her into its walls so she'll never leave.]]]]

* AdultFear: A few episodes portray, in the most realistic fashion possible, the reactions parents might have to their children being influenced by supernatural events. Notable examples include "The Girl in the Painting"[[note]]Becky's mother is genuinely concerned about her daughter's obsession with the eponymous piece of art, and tries to break its hold on her (which makes the CruelTwistEnding all the harsher)[[/note]], "Uncle Howee"[[note]]Jared and Cynthia's mother -- who was working late at the hospital and knew nothing of what transpired at home -- returns and finds that Cynthia is home alone; not because Jared ran off with his friends to see a movie, but because Uncle Howee, Loomis the rabbit, and Mr. Clock dragged Jared back into the TV and turned Jared into ''The Uncle Howee Show'''s newest character, a life-sized wooden marionette[[/note]], and "My Old House"[[note]]Alice runs away from her first day of school so she can go back to the house she had to move away from, which she believes is alive and doesn't want her to leave. When her parents try to find her in the old house, they can't because they didn't think to look in the closet she was in. When she sees her parents fretting over her disappearance, Alice realizes that her parents actually love her and tries to leave, but the house comes to life and sucks her in. Her parents never find her and a girl whose family moves into the old house discovers that Alice's face is now embedded in the wall![[/note]]

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent:
** ''The Most Evil Sorcerer'', in which the entire plot (except for the last scene of the evil sorceress waking up in the modern day after a jogger thinks she needs medical attention) takes place in medieval Europe and is more like a DarkFantasy than a horror story.
** Some episodes are more comedy-horror than straight horror. "Terrible Love" plays out like a supernatural, [[RomanticComedy romantic]] BlackComedy, "Best Friends Forever" and "Bad Egg" parody the sitcom story of "Kid keeps a pet in the house under wraps from his parents who forbid him from having a pet", "Uncle Howee" is more of a BlackComedy with scary elements and social commentary about how television is too often used as a babysitter, and "Near Mint Condition" is a [[TakeThat satire]] against obsessive toy collectors, 1980s nostalgia, and online auction addicts.
** "Headshot": It's ''Literature/ThePictureOfDorianGray'' set in the world of teen modeling. Much like "Terrible Love," the fears are more based in reality (in "Headshot"'s case, it's the promises of fame and glamor bringing out a person's worst qualities, how the famous often have to sacrifice what really matters to them in order to succeed only to lose everything when their star fades, and how evil lives in all mankind and only comes out if a person chooses to surround themselves with evil influences).
*** "Funhouse" is similar to "Headshot," as the traveling carnie isn't the evil one; he merely encourages Chad to vent his anger over his family. Chad's anger and frustration over his father never being around (and his mother not doing anything about it) turns Chad into a monster. Unlike "Headshot," Chad breaks the spell his anger has over him by smashing the mirror that reads, "To Get Out, You Must Face Yourself" and distorted his face.
** "The Cast": Gives more psychological scares, despite having a crazy cat lady who may or may not be a witch or have godlike powers over her cats. Lex's guilt over not telling the truth about what he did to the cat lady's house is what drives him crazy (as symbolized by the rats making a nest in his cast). It's been described as an homage to ''The Telltale Heart'' (only instead of a beating heart under the floorboards, it's rats making a nest in a boy's arm cast).
** "Goodwill Toward Men": While there is a supernatural character (the Christmas angel statue), it's more of a morality tale (akin to what ''Franchise/TheTwilightZone'' puts out) and the scares are more based in reality than fiction (Missy and her family are poor, their gardener and his family are as rich and selfish as Missy's family used to be, and Missy's family is forced to live on the streets).

* PoorCommunicationKills: Throughout "Afraid of Clowns", Ethan's father tries to give his son TheTalk but Ethan refuses to listen. [[spoiler:Had he let his father explain it, it might've softened the blow about him becoming a clown once he hit puberty.]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/haunting_5106.png]]''R. L. Stine's The Haunting Hour: The Series'' was a horror series airing on ''The Hub'' (now called Creator/DiscoveryFamily). Like the TV adaptation of ''Series/{{Goosebumps}}'' and the short-lived series, ''Literature/TheNightmareRoom'', it is a horror GenreAnthology series featuring a different story every week filled with [[WeirdnessMagnet kids facing off against ghosts, monsters, and other supernatural beings...]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/haunting_5106.png]]''R. L. Stine's The Haunting Hour: The Series'' was a horror series airing on ''The Hub'' (now called Discovery Family). Like the TV adaptation of ''Series/{{Goosebumps}}'' and the short-lived series, ''Literature/TheNightmareRoom'', it is a horror GenreAnthology series featuring a different story every week filled with [[WeirdnessMagnet kids facing off against ghosts, monsters, and other supernatural beings...]]

* WhenYouComingHomeDad: ''Worry Dolls'' is a unique case where the kids eventually figure out that the parents are simply trying to their best to put on the table and learn [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor the hard way]] that the [[MyBelovedSmother the opposite extreme]] can be just as bad.

** [[spoiler: Steffani]] in "Wrong Number" was a {{Jerkass}} AlphaBitch who picked on ''everyone''. Nobody feels sorry when [[spoiler: she's trapped in her own phone as a video and deleted by the girl she bullied the most.]]
** [[spoiler: Meg]] in "Dreamcatcher" was an [[AttentionWhore attention]] [[SpoiledBrat brat]] who spooked Lisa with scary story, broke her and Amelia's dreamcatchers, and left them to die in the claws of the titluar Dreamcatcher. [[spoiler: She finally gets her comeuppance when she's stuck in his web, about to be eaten]].

** [[spoiler: Chang]] the jerk bully on "The Dead Body" is mauled to death by a ghost, but considering how he proudly admits that he loves beating people up, nobody cared. Travis comes close to this trope too, but he's merely [[MindRape mind raped]] instead of outright murdered.

** Jared on "Uncle Howee," if you believe that he's only being a jerk to Cynthia because his mom forced him to babysit, which cut into his plans to see a movie with his friends, and not the theory that Jared is a bully who doesn't like his sister because she's annoying and constantly watches ''The Uncle Howee Show''.

** "Headshot" falls under this too. However, it also falls under CruelTwistEnding for some fans who thought Gracie was redeemable. Cassandra proclaims that Gracie has become [[BitchInSheepsClothing who she really is]] in the end so when [[spoiler: she becomes ugly beyond reality, not many feel sorry that her [[FacialHorror photo version of her]] has now become her permanent face.]]
** "Swarmin' Norman," too. The [[CreepyChild main character]] is relentlessly picked on by bullies, and when he discovers he has godlike powers over bugs, he uses his new power to get his revenge. Fair enough, but [[spoiler:when Norman now proclaims he could crush the bully "like a bug" whenever he wanted to, he actually ''crushes'' several bugs ''just to make that point''. The other kids seem afraid of him the next day, suggesting that they're afraid he'll sic the bugs on them too, and he becomes verbally abusive to the bugs he once loved. The bugs turn on him in response and swarm him, and it's implied that, because of what the protagonist did to the bugs, the world is going to be overrun by them.]]

* RockMeAsmodeus: "Long Live Rock and Roll (AKA Doom Metal)" involves a rock contest between the devil and a teenage garage band.

** Missy's parents in "Goodwill Toward Men". They make fun of their daughter (Missy) for showing kindness to the gardeners they hired, tell her that the hired help have no business mingling with the upper crust because it disrupts the "natural balance of things," they favor their son Henry over her (because Henry is just as selfish as his mom and dad), and, even when they're poor, cold, and starving, all they care about is contacting their former connections (lawyers, credit card companies, etc) so they can get their old lives back.

* AllJustADream: "Sick" (though this was ''possibly'' subverted when Alex sees the morning news-show hosts telling him that he wasn't dreaming at all and he's also about to die). Same thing with "I'm Not Martin," only the one thing that turned out to be true was Martin's roommate targeting him for his foot to replace the one that got removed.

** Kate the homecoming queen in "Detention." Though when she, Audrey, and Halftime discover that they're dead and their actions led to their early demise, Kate realizes how awful her behavior is and she is willing to go to Hell to spare the lives of Audrey and Halftime. Thankfully, Audrey and Halftime are having none of it and are able to talk her out of it in a legitimately touching scene.

** A particularly infuriating example occurs in "Lotsa Luck" where [[spoiler: the protagonist Greg's great grandfather gets no comeuppance for landing Greg in the mess he is in and for Seamus taking Greg's soul to settle his debt as the great grandfather wished in the episode) Greg wsa a decent person and his great grandfather screwed him over without consequence]]

** "Dreamcatcher": One girl at summer camp gets jealous of her friend befriending another girl. As a result leaves their cabin to sleep by herself out of spite. When the friend gets trapped by a dream lurking monster, said girl leaves the new friend to deal with it, pretends to come help in dreamland to help only to ditch the new friend out of spite, shows up when the rescue fails to gloat a bit and leave them to die at the hands of the spider creature, [[spoiler:then trips and falls into a trap herself. Karma strikes hard when one of the girls' alarm clocks goes off, waking them up and saving them, leaving the jealous girl to get eaten by the spider creature (she couldn't wake up because she slept outside and couldn't hear the alarm).]]

** In "Headshot," Cassandra tells Lexi that "Gracie has become what she's always been, or she would have deleted that headshot long ago," meaning that, while Cassandra is the Devil (posing as a teen magazine modeling scout and photographer) who steals the souls of girls who want to be known for their beauty and turn them into ugly monsters, she didn't drive Gracie to being evil, just captured her soul in a headshot photo and encouraged her to do what she could to make it so she'd be the winner, even if it meant hurting and alienating everyone she's ever known and loved. After all, it was Gracie who disobeyed her mother, set up Dylan to get suspended for cheating on a math test, spiked Flynn's milkshake with Red Dye #3 (which makes Flynn break out in hives), and alienated Lexi (her true friend and the one who knew that Cassandra was evil and using Gracie for her own gain) by calling her a "butterface" and telling her that (paraphrased): "When good things happen, your friends are the first ones to bail."

** Molly goes through this in "Mrs. Worthington" when she discovers Nate's drawings of her suffering various tortures. She later asks him outright "Am I really that mean to you?" Happily, the end of the episode shows her beginning a HeelFaceTurn.

** Katie the homecoming queen in "Detention," though when Audrey, Halftime, and she discover that they're dead and their actions led to their early demise, she realizes how awful her behavior is and she is willing goes to Hell to spare the lives of Audrey and Halftime. Thankfully, Audrey and Halftime are having none of it and are able to talk her out of it in a legitimately touching scene.
* AmbiguousEnding: In "Flight", Jeremy and Death have a farewell to which Death replies "without a doubt". Whether this means [[WeAllDieSomeady that he'll see her when he finally dies]] or that he has a short lifespan, it's never revealed.

* AmbiguouslyJewish: It's implied in "Golem" that Jeremy's family is of Russian-Jewish heritage (or are into the mystical side of it), given how Jeremy's grandmother and a group of people from her village were the ones who created the Golem (a humanoid creature found in Jewish folklore and mysticism made of stone, dirt, or mud and brought to life by a Hebrew incantation used to protect villagers from invaders) to use against the Nazis ([[NoSwastikas no signs of swastika armbands or Nazi regalia, but, you can tell it was them, given the time period]]) during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.

** Will in "The Dead Body" is forcibly transformed into a ghost and must watch as Jake takes over his life.[[note]]this trope was averted, though, in the sequel episode "Dead Bodies," as Will was able to defeat Jake and get his body and old life back[[/note]],

* AndIMustScream: Boy oh boy, does the show love this trope.

** In the second part of "Really You", [[spoiler: the mother states how she wishes Lilly D was her daughter instead of her real one (who is now the doll at this point) and is about to throw her away. Just as she puts her in the trash bin, she notices that the doll has a mole on the back of her neck, just like her real daughter, and she realizes that no doll -- especially not an evil one -- can take her flesh-and-blood daughter's place]].

** Similarly, in "Headshot," Lexi tells [[LouisCypher Cassandra]] to undo whatever dark magic she put on Gracie to make her become a shallow AlphaBitch. Cassandra merely [[ShutUpKirk rolls her eyes]] and remarks "Gracie's become what she's ''always'' been," explaining that, like any devil, she's only able to tempt people into pursuing dangerous things--they have to make the choice to actually do them on their own, and only [[BitchInSheepsClothing already-heartless people]] take her up on her offers.

** Molly goes through this when she discovers Nate's drawings of her suffering various tortures. She later asks him outright "Am I really that mean to you?" Happily, the end of the episode shows her beginning a HeelFaceTurn.
** Same thing with Katie in "Detention," leading her to nearly go off in the hearse to Hell after Audrey and Halftime realize that they're dead and their underhanded actions led to their demise and the homecoming weekend being canceled.

* IHaveYouNowMyPretty: [[spoiler: The CruelTwistEnding of "My Old House"]]

* InexplicablyAwesome: Uncle Howee and his strange powers. It's not known whether Uncle Howee has powers, if Cynthia's love for the show gave him powers, if he's a supernatural being of any kind, if the TV has a curse on it, or if Cynthia's imagination is behind it, but all of that is moot, as he uses his powers for good.

* GeniusLoci: The titular house in ''My Old House''

* ActorAllusion: In "Uncle Howee", the titular character asks Jared if he wants to be his friend. When Jared mumbles a "Yes", [[Creator/TomKenny Uncle Howee]] shouts [[WesternAnimatmion/SpongeBobSquarePants "I can't hear you!!!"]]

** "Poof de Fromage," "Best Friends Forever," "Bad Egg," "Terrible Love," "Uncle Howee," and "Near Mint Condition" are more comedy-horror than straight horror[[note]]with "Terrible Love" playing out more like a supernatural, [[RomanticComedy romantic]] BlackComedy, "Best Friends Forever" and "Bad Egg" parodying the sitcom story of "Kid keeps a pet in the house under wraps from his parents, who just forbid him to bring in a pet," "Le Poof de Fromage" being so ridiculous in his premise that it's just best to see it as a parody on all of R.L. Stine's alien horror stories because it just doesn't work as straight horror, "Uncle Howee," like "Terrible Love," is more of a BlackComedy with scary elements and social commentary about how television is too often used as a babysitter and what happens when the electronic babysitter (Uncle Howee and his show) replaces the flesh-and-blood one (Jared), and "Near Mint Condition is more of a huge [[TakeThat satire]] against obsessive toy collectors, 1980s nostalgia, and online auction addicts.[[/note]]

* ZettaiRyouiki: Eve in ''Intruders'' wears a Grade C during the ColdOpen.

** Inverted in "Afraid of Clowns." Chris's father repeatedly tries to tell him that [[spoiler: he'll be transforming into a clown on his thirteenth birthday]], but Chris refuses to talk about it. Presumably, he had listened, it might have softened the blow.

* FacialHorror: [[spoiler: Gracie's fate at the end of "Headshot".]]

** In "Uncle Howee," watch closely when Jared turns off the TV for the first time. Just before he does, Uncle Howee and Loomis look at him with upset expressions, proving that they're aware of what's going on.

** Also, just before Jared turns it off, you can see Uncle Howee stop talking and looking in surprise, foreshadowing what is to come.

* GoryDiscretionShot: Most of the deaths that occur are usually not fully seen. Justified, as this show aired on a family-friendly network and some of the violence had to be toned down to PG levels (which makes it more disturbing than just showing the gore and horror outright).

* IWantMyMommy: PlayedForDrama in "Bad Feng Shui." Jessica, upon realizing that it was her own selfishness and cruelty toward her mother that summoned the snake demon which kidnapped her, breaks down in tears and starts scremaing for her: "I NEED MY MOM!" Thankfully, she's able (with her mother's help) to defeat the demon.

* TheTalk: [[spoiler: Subverted]] in "Afraid of Clowns." Chris's father tries to have a conversation with his son about how, on his thirteenth birthday, his body might start going through some changes. [[spoiler: It's eventually revealed that Chris's father didn't mean puberty--he meant that Chris would be turning into a clown on that day.]]

** Jeffrey's parents in "The Walls" [[spoiler: are revealed to have known about the monster living in their son's walls the whole time, but they kept it a secret and tried to gaslight him so they wouldn't have to share all their good luck coming from the monster with him.]]

* GenderFlip: "Pumpkinhead" changes the male protagnist to a girl.

* AdaptationalHeroism: In "The Most Evil Sorceror", Ned is a decent person who merely gets too obessed with wanting to do magic, while in the original story he was a prankster who kept that nature even in the end.

** Farmer Palmer is still alive in the short story, but in "Return of the Pumpkinheads" he was stated to have been KilledOffscreen.

** David from ''My Imaginary Friend'' is an interesting example as [[spoiler: he turns out to be not even real to begin with, and then Sean gets rid of him, having grown past the need for imgainary friends. In the story, Sean was the imaginary one and he doesn't go away.]]