31 Days, 31 Screams: Day 2 (The Simpsons: Treehouse Of Horror)

Horror: a skeleton, a pumpkin, and two bats.

Oh, The Simpsons. What happened? What in the name of God happened to you? I used to love this show. I adored it and watched every syndicated rerun I could. Even from the later seasons that weren't as good. Then at around... 2003 or so, I just stopped. I grew out of it and have not watched a new episode in years. Of course, a treat in the early years (and presumably the later years for whoever's left watching it) are the Halloween Special episodes. They're just a big excuse for the writers to go all out in making little non-canon spooky themed vignettes, creating a 22 minute anthology episode with three smaller stories. The later ones just make fun of popular horror movies and sci-fi stuff, at least from what I understand. I actually tried to watch and comment on every single one during October 2010. I petered out at the tenth one which is a shocking coincidence since that's about when the show "went off the rails" so to speak. No, a newer one won't do. We have to go back. I could have picked 3, 4, or 5 for this because those are my favorites... but fuck it. All the way back. It's October 25th, 1990, and we're looking at the first Simpsons Halloween Special, aka Treehouse of Horror.

Our opening has Marge Simpson giving a pre-episode warning that the episode might be too scary and gory for kids and that parents should probably tuck them in early instead of getting pissed off. This strikes me as odd, given that the episode itself isn't especially violent or horrifying... but it was 1990, and people were in a goddamn moral panic over the Simpsons. Think on that. A moral panic over the fact that Bart Simpson swore sometimes. Speaking of Bart, he and Lisa are up in his treehouse which is spookily decorated, holding a flashlight up to their faces and telling scary stories. Lisa's we only hear the tail end of and it's a typical "the call is coming from inside the house" deal which Bart scoffs. It's worth noting that the early Halloween Specials used some sort of framing device to introduce the stories, but at around part 5 or 6 or so they dropped that and just led into the stories themselves. Here, the framing device is important; it's Bart who's telling the story, and his entire aim is to create the spookiest scariest story ever. So we're plunged into our first segment, "Bad Dream House". It's a standard riff on The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist, with the Simpsons moving into a new house that is haunted and does all kinds of fucked-up stuff like make the walls bleed or open up portals to other dimensions. Though we're watching a segment, keep in mind that in-universe this is all narrated by Bart. You can just picture him with that flashlight to his face saying "AND THEN THE WALLS START BLEEDING AND IT'S SUPER GROSS AND SCARY" or something to that effect. Nowhere is this quite as apparent as when the haunted house starts describing the horrible ways in which the Simpsons will die. Their eyes will burst and their intestines will boil and... some horrible stuff will happen. The funniest moment in the episode for me comes when they discover the Indian burial ground in their basement, complete with comedic headstones like Pocahontas, Crazy Horse, Not So Crazy Horse, and.... Mahatma Gandhi. In the end, the story isn't all that scary but in-universe you can tell it's trying to be. Obviously this is an animated sitcom so it's not going to actually try and horrify you, but still. It's tame. Think on that.

Bart gets a second go, and his next story is "Hungry Are The Damned." Look, it's just  the old Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man" but with a Simpsons twist. The Simpsons writers love The Twilight Zone and this is not the first or last time they will crib from it. It's notable for introducing Kang and Kodos, the aliens who will show up in like every Halloween special from now on? Other than that, I haven't got too much to say about it. The twist that the aliens don't want to eat the Simpsons, and are appalled at the thought of being suspected of such shit, is cute. With our in-universe reading, you have to wonder what Bart is thinking here. Is it a bratty take that towards know-it-all Lisa, who does end up ruining everything here? Looking back at Bad Dream House, that one also ends with the haunted house destroying itself a la Poltergeist rather than living with the Simpsons. It's a bit bleak how both of Bart's stories end with the monsters absolutely rejecting the Simpsons, but it fits in with the general themes of the show at the time. Still, deep shit from our narrator.

The last story is where it's at though, as Lisa just straight up pulls out a book and reads Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven. Or, well, James Earl Jones reads it because it's him reading it as we go into the animated re-enactment. It's perfectly in character for Lisa Simpson to pull out a piece of classic horror fiction, and perfectly in character for Bart to constantly be bitching about how it isn't scary. "You know what would have been scarier than nothing? ANYTHING!" he yells, upon a reveal that nothing is actually at the chamber door. The Raven segment is the best of the lot, in no small part due to fucking James Earl Jones narrating it, but it's here that we find our key. Lisa remarks that people in 1845 must have been more easily scared, and Bart retorts that it's like the original Friday the 13th, which is "tame by today's standards". I reserve judgment, given that I have not SEEN Friday the 13th. I intend to for this project, but two images stick out in my mind, both involving violent throat trauma. I dunno what the hell Bart was talking about from 1990, but as of now I have to disagree. In fact, the thing that's tame by today's standards is this Halloween Special; even by part 4 or 5 they had horrific violent shit like the scene with the fog that turns you inside-out. To say nothing of the later installments which just kill Simpsons characters en masse. Nobody even DIES in this special! We have a piece of recursive media here; it condemns Poe for being tame, while unaware that a mere quarter-century will render it toothless. Still, it's funny and fun and worth a watch because it's the Simpsons, for god's sakes. We may need to delve into some actual horror to see what still remains within the dark deep; something that's kept its fangs intact.

I know just the thing.