Verdict
Summary
The second season to the rebooted Are You Afraid of the Dark, Curse of the Shadows is a fairly lightweight spooky supernatural thriller, and it stretches itself fairly thin over the course of six episodes, but if you’re into urban legend-styled horror with kid protagonists, it should fit the bill, at least until the next season of Stranger Things comes around.
Plot:
A group of kids in a secret “midnight” society become cursed by an evil Shadowman apparition, and must find out how to break the curse.
Review:
The Midnight Society lives! A group of intelligent and likable high school kids have taken the mantle of the previous Midnight Society members that preceded them, and they perpetuate their tradition by telling scary stories to each other in the woods. One of the members – a kid named Connor (Parker Queenan) – disappears in the woods one night after he disturbs the dwelling place of an evil apparition known as the Shadowman. The rest of the group, led by Luke (Bryce Gheisar), scramble to figure out what happened to Connor before he ends up as a missing person, and they soon discover that the Shadowman is tied to an old curse from about 30 years previous in town, related to the lighthouse keeper and his daughter, who was killed in an accident. Turns out that the girl went to the same high school as the current Midnight Society kids, and her death rocked the town, but also prompted her grieving father to use a spell from an ancient and evil book to try to bring her back, but somehow ended up conjuring up the dreaded Shadowman instead. Now that the Midnight Society is on to the case, they enlist the help of a local magician named Sardo (Ryan Beil) to assist them in finding the old spell book and reversing the curse. But their task will be extremely difficult as the Shadowman comes after them and figures out how to work within the light, its only weakness …
The second season to the rebooted Are You Afraid of the Dark, Curse of the Shadows is a fairly lightweight spooky supernatural thriller, and it stretches itself fairly thin over the course of six episodes, but if you’re into urban legend-styled horror with kid protagonists, it should fit the bill, at least until the next season of Stranger Things comes around. A little too “Nickelodeon” for my taste with squeaky clean looking kid actors, the episodes careen in and out of danger with repetitious scenes of the Shadowman chasing the kids and then getting bested by them over and over, it feels like they could have shaved two episodes off and ended up with the same results, but quicker. Still, I do have a soft spot for real Goonie adventures, so it’s worth a look even for a jaded horror fan such as myself. Here’s hoping for a season three. Four of the six episodes were directed by Jeff Wadlow (Cry Wolf, Kick Ass 2).
The DVD for Are You Afraid of the Dark? Curse of the Shadows was recently released, but there are no special features on the single disc.
