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The Tale of the Reanimator
Season 7 , Episode 7
Eplogo85
Air date April 30, 2000
Written by Kenny Davis
Directed by Adam Weissman
Episode guide
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The Tale of Highway 13
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The Tale of the Time Trap

The Tale of the Reanimator is the Seventh episode of the Seventh Season of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, as well as the Eighty-fifth episode in total.

Cast[]

Midnight Society Cast[]

Story Cast[]

Intro[]

The night begins with Vange, pointing out to Quinn a hornet's nest high up on a tree. She tries to knock it down, with a long stick. Quinn tells her to stop saying it's crazy. She tells him not to be scared, believing it's been dead for months and wants to see it up close because she's never seen one before. Andy comes by and asks what they're doing, when Vange tells him what's she trying to do, he gets frightened and runs into the clearing. Quinn tries to tell her to stop, and Megan passes by and asks to stop what?

Tucker also shows up and realizes that Vange is trying to knock down a hornet's nest, both Tucker and Megan get scared and run into the clearing. Then finally with one good poke, she knocks down the hornet's nest. Seeing it, Quinn runs off scared into the clearing, saying he warned her not to do it. Vange yells to them, that they're all chicken and believes nothing bad will happen. Vange squats down to look at it, then she can hear slight buzzing sounds. This frightens her and she runs off into the clearing and the nest begins to really buzz.

When Vange, arrives her friends are mad and Quinn tells her she better have the nest with her. Vange taunts him asking him what if she did. Quinn tells her he would make her sit on it, Vange teases him saying that he's just scared of it. Tucker breaks up their little argument and asks Quinn if he has a story for them.

Quinn says he does, and sits on the storyteller's chair. He explains that his story is about messing with things, that should never be messed with. Andy asks if he means like a hornet's nest?, Quinn says worse, he means life and death. Sometimes things are the way the are for a reason, and if we try to change them we could face serious consequences. Quinn explains that in his story, the one things the people have learned, is that if one goes looking for trouble then chances are they're going to find it.

Quinn throws in the campfire dust to make the fire more intense, while he submits his story for approval for The Midnight Society. He calls his story "The Tale of the Reanimator" and begins his story.

Story[]

Quinn tells the story, it takes place in a botanical laboratory. A young girl named Julie works there after school. She works for a man named Mr. Doyle who is a brilliant scientist and botanist. Between her breaks and waiting for customers, she is trimming a bonsai tree. When Mr. Doyle comes in, she's about to ask him why many of the plants have withered and died. Mr. Doyle says he's too busy to tell her, and goes into the laboratory to work. Julie is confused why they're keeping some dead plants, and notices slimy footprints that Mr. Doyle made on his way in.

Julie slowly follows them downstairs, and quietly spies on Mr. Doyle in his laboratory. Here he is preparing to experiment on a dead plant. Meanwhile, upstairs Julie's older brother Peter and his friend Jake have stopped by. They call out to her, and she hears them and she's worried that'll give her away. Julie then witnesses Mr. Doyle placing a couple drops of a blue liquid onto a dead plant. Then instantaneously, the plant regenerates and becomes alive and well again. Suddenly, Julie is startled when Peter calls to her again. This causes her to trip over the red alarm line. Then suddenly the alarms goes off, and the laboratory door closes shut. Mr. Doyle reacts, with shock to see who could be there. But Julie hides and then runs back upstairs scared.

When she gets upstairs, she's greeted by Jake (whom she has a crush on) and her brother (who can be real a jerk). Julie is alarmed and tries to explain to them both what she just saw happen. However, both her brother and Jake don't believe her. They think she's trying to pull an April Fools' joke. Julie tries to tell them it's not a joke, but they still won't believe her. Peter then says they came by, to inform her that their parents are going out for the evening and they're ordering pizza for supper. After they leave, she's annoyed that they didn't believe her. Also she's mad to find out Peter obviously cut the stem off her bonsai tree and screams his name.

Later that evening, Julie is just about to close up for the night. Then she hears someone knocking at the door, it's dark inside and she's getting very nervous. She hears banging and knocking all around she gets really scared. Then suddenly, leafy branches crawl in from under the door. She turns around, and bumps into a shrub monster. She screams in terror, she tries to make a break for it at the door, and runs into another one. She is so scared she gets down her knees and begs them to not hurt her and to leave her alone.

Then suddenly the words: April Fools' is heard (along with laughter), then the lights go on. Turns out it was just Peter and Jake playing a prank on her, to get back at them for trying to prank them first. Julie is furious and once again tries to tell them she wasn't trying to pull a prank. Julie offers to show them the plant, but they tell her to give it up and they leave.

Julie then goes downstairs to the laboratory to speak to Mr. Doyle, but he's isn't there. She finds a little shrine set up for his deceased wife, with a candles, her wedding veil and an old picture. Then suddenly Julie panics when she hears Mr. Doyle coming inside. She hides behind his desk, but it's too late he catches her! Mr. Doyle isn't mad at all, in fact he happy to see she's interested in his experiments. So he reveals his current one to her. He explains that he's inventing a type of super fertilizer: one which regenerates DNA. Mr. Doyle, applies the blue liquid to a plant and instantaneously it revives into a perfectly healthy plant. However, there is a flaw: the organism goes wild and becomes dependent on the liquid. Then it sheds it out in residue until it dies; unless it gets more. The plant is going wild and out of control. Then Mr. Doyle pours some water on it, and it reverts back to being dead again. Julie is amazed, noticing the shrine set up for his late wife, he asks her if it can revive "anything else". Feeling she's being too nosy or it's personal, Mr. Doyle tells her to leave for the night.

Julie is worried, she phones Peter at home and tries to tells him the serum really works, and she thinks that Mr. Doyle plans on using it resurrect his wife. Peter and Jake reluctantly follow her to the cemetery for her to show them. She tries to explain, that Mr. Doyle's wife died over a year ago. Therefore he's been working on a resurrection serum to reanimate her. Mr. Doyle is seen standing right near his wife's grave, and Peter is shocked believing she got him to play along. Then suddenly Mr. Doyle leaves, Peter thinks her April Fools' joke is a bust, but she still tries to convince him it's real. In fact, she has stolen a vial of the liquid and shows it to him. She tries telling him it really works and will bring stuff back from the dead.

Peter, thinking it's a joke, so he grabs the vial and looks for a grave to wake someone up to prove it. He then comes across a grave that says "Ian Kazex, May he be forgiven!", Julie tells him to stop and even Jake is fed up now, telling him not to do it. Peter is too psyched, knowing it must be a bad person and spills the liquid all over the grave. Then just after they run back home, the ground on the gravestone begins smoking.

When they get home, Julie is tense and she is panicking. She is pacing back and forth trying to get herself to relax and to believe it only works on plants, and not people. Then suddenly she hears a noise outside and gets very nervous, she asks Peter if Jake is outside. But it turns out he's been inside the whole time. Peter then tells her not to bug them, until the pizza guy arrives.

Julie then calms down a little bit, unaware that something really is outside! She sees someone passing by the house, and she answers it, thinking it might be the pizza guy. Then suddenly the door is answered by reanimated zombie of Ian Kazex! The Zombie is growling and grunting and viciously reaching and grabbing anything in it's path. Julie is horrified and screams her head off calling for her brother. After slamming the door shut, Peter and Jake think the pizza is here. Julie begs him not to go outside, Peter ignores her and enters the front lawn calling out to the pizza guy. Julie tries to tell him, it's not the pizza guy, it's the zombie of the person that he spilled the serum onto. Peter turns around and tries to tell her to give it up already. Jake believes her and suddenly he looks scared too. Jake tells Peter to look behind him, Peter does and he horrified to see the zombie trying to grab him.

The three of them all run off terrified, they return to the grave, and now they both are horrified to finally realize that Julie was telling the truth all along, and they just reanimated an evil person! They ask Julie what to do. She suggests they go over and ask Mr. Doyle what to do about it. Suddenly some goo drips onto Julie's nose, The Zombie was hiding up in the tree and tries to grab her again.

The three of them run off to Mr. Doyle's house, Julie says they can't give the zombie the vial, because it's the serum that's keeping it alive. On the way, they're trying to figure out how to defeat it. When Julie noticing puddles of water outside. She then remembers Mr. Doyle used cold water to kill the plant, so they have the zombie chase them all the way's to Mr. Doyle's Laboratory. Julie taunts the Zombie waving the vial in front of it. They turn on the hose and drench it with cold water. The Zombie chokes and gags and seems to pass out, but they after a few minutes it's up on it's feet again.

Downstairs in the laboratory, Julie is trying hard to figure out what they did wrong. When Jake finds the hot box room, mentioning how the the heat in it must keep the dying plants withered. Julie then figures out it was hot water and they need heat to defeat the zombie. So Peter lures the zombie into the hot box room, taunting it with the serum vial and they close the door on them.

Then immediately the zombie begins to dry and wither away, choking back to death. Mr. Doyle, comes in asking what's going on. They open the door to show him, the remains of the rotten and dried out reanimated zombie. Peter runs off to be sick. Mr. Doyle is shocked, and realizes that it's wrong to play god and tamper with fate. Therefore he cancels the resurrection experiment.

Ending[]

Quinn ends his story, simply by saying: The End. Tucker tells him it was a good one, and Andy tells him it was good. Tucker declares their meeting closes, and puts out the campfire. Vange then decides to go throw away the hornet's nest, but Megan suddenly stop her. Megan is alarmed and asks what the buzzing sound is, Tucker says it's the sound of the fire extinguishing. Megan says it's bees and she runs off scared, then everyone else is also scared and runs off. Tucker is heard saying that they've run to where the nest is, so everyone is seen screaming and running away in the opposite direction. Vange is heard apologizing profusely.

  • Quinn's last story.
  • Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's short story "Herbert West - Reanimator".
  • Emma Taylor-Isherwood, who portrayed Julie, previously appeared in the show before. She previously appeared in the episode "The Tale of Oblivion" as Shelley.
  • Michael Yarmush, who portrayed Peter, previously appeared in the original series. He first appeared in the episode "The Tale of the Manaha" as Jonah. Also, he co-starred in that episode with David Deveau portraying Eddy.
  • Michael Yarmush also starred as Dave Warren in the Goosebumps episode Awesome Ants.
  • Michael Yarmush was also famous for being the first person to do the voice of Arthur in the children's television Arthur.
  • Vanessa Lengies and Michael Yarmush co-starred together, in the children's comedy show Radio Active as Sarah Leigh and Ethan St. John.
  • Philip Eddolls (Jake) was also in the Goosebumps episode Attack of the Jack O Lanterns as Shane.
  • This is the 2nd episode to be set on April Fools Day, after The Tale of the Super Specs.
  • This is the 2nd episode of season 7 to have characters named Jake and Juiie, the first being The Tale of the Lunar Locusts. This is also the 3rd episode of the season overall to have a character named Julie, the others being Lunar Locusts and The Tale of the Stone Maiden.

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