Original Air Date: October 26, 1999

Written by David Fury
Directed by Tucker Gates

Summary

The Scooby Gang is carving pumpkins, except for Buffy that is, who just sits on the bed watching them carve away. Their Halloween plans are a little up in the air, but most of them want to go to the haunted house the Alpha Delts are creating. A depressed Buffy decides to head home early, she's obviously still upset about Parker. On the way home, a demon jumps out at her and she punches it good, but it ends up only being a kid with a demon mask on. Buffy continues her walk home.

The next day at school in the cafeteria, Willow brings up magic and that her next step will be to conjure something from nothing. Oz and Buffy both warn her to be careful. Buffy suddenly spots Parker and decides to skip lunch. Willow follows her out and tries to cheer her up by saying she'll have fun at the party tonight, Buffy thinks she might have to patrol but after a quick visit with Giles, who's in a very festive mood, it turns out that she won't be patrolling. Over at Xander's basement, an upset Anya drops in. She upset because he hasn't called her at all. She wants to go out with Xander tonight, but he's already planning to go to the haunted house and invites her along. She agrees and he tells her to find a costume because everyone's dressing up. Back at the university, Buffy goes to Professor Walsh' class room to retrieve the homework for the day because she wasn't in class due to the fact that she was moping. Professor Walsh tells her that if she misses one more class she'll be kicked out of the course. Riley hands her the homework and encourages her to have fun tonight because she seems to be kind of down.

Over at the Alpha Delt frat house, the frat boys are painting a witchcraft symbol on the floor from an old book to make the place look spooky. Oz and Xander are setting up a sound system. Oz pulls out a knife to splice some wires and ends up cutting himseld. Blood pours from the cut and falls onto the painted symbol on the floor. The symbol radiates and a little plastic spider on the symbol comes to life. None of the guys are aware though. Over at Buffy's house, Joyce is resewing Buffy's little red riding hood cape. Buffy gets remorseful and relates to her mom that every time she lets a guy into her life, he ends up hurting her, and that maybe it's easier not to let anyone in to her heart. Joyce tells her that she can't close everyone off without losing something inside of her.

Halloween night has arrived and everyon's in costumes and the Alpha Delt haunted house is hoping. The gang meets up at the front entrance. Xander's dressed as James Bond, Willow's Joan of Arc, Oz is God and Buffy's little red riding hood with weapons in her basket (just in case). Suddenly everything goes wrong in the house; grapes become eyeballs and plastic spiders come alive. Everyone is running around screaming and then everything stops. Unaware of what's going on, the Scooby Gang enters the house. The place is really decked out but they wonder where everyone has gone. Buffy finds real blood on the carpet and then they're suddenly attacked by bats, which later turn into rubber bats. They all become even more freaked out when they hear a deep voice say "RELEASE ME!". Anya shows up at the house and when she can't find a door and sees some creepy thing, she heads for Giles' house. Anya tells Giles what's happened while he packs up some weapons. They then set off for the house. The gang tries to get out but the front door has disappeared. Buffy tells them to get out of the house while she gets to the top floor and saves the people upstairs.Willow refuses to leave and they get into a fight becayse Willow wants to fo a guiding spell but Buffy thinks it's too risky. Willow stalks off with Oz at her heels. Buffy searches through her basket for some weapons and starts calling Xander's name. He's standing right beside her but he's become invisible. Buffy heads off, looking for him, while Xander keeps on screaming that he's right beside her. Willow and Oz are wandering around when Oz begins to wolf out. He becomes stuck between a werewolf and a man. He runs away from Willow because he doesn't want to hurt her. He hides in a corner, fearful that he'll turn into a werewolf. Willow sits down and calls the goddess Aradia for the guiding spell. The guiding light it summoned but it begins to mulitply quickly and starts to attack Willow. Buffy hears some screaming, opens a door and drops twenty feet into a basement where hands reach up from the ground to grab her. A dead guy then begins to tell her that no matter how hard she fights, she'll always end up in the same place and there was no use in fighting anything anymore.

Giles and Anya have made it to the house. Giles pulls out a chainsaw and makes a door into the house. Back in the basement, Buffy manages to scramble away from the hands and runs through a tunnel that leads back into the house but to the upstairs floor. Everyone there is cowering in corners. Willow, Oz and Xander are there as well and they're all pretty shaked up. All their fears have brought them to this room. Buffy notices the symbol on the floor and Willow reads from a book that it's the mark of Gacknar, who's a demon that feeds on fear. Giles appears in the room, chainsaw in hand, and begins to read outloud how to destroy Gacknar, he begins by saying to destroy the mark, buffy heads ocver and smashes the mark to pieces. Giles then angrily tells her that destroying the mark is not a way and Gacknar will manifest himsef immediately if the symbol is destroyed. The demon manifests itself with a big effect but it turns out only to be a couple inches tall. Willow finds it adorable, while Xander taunts it. Gacknar tries to intimidate them but Buffy laughs and squashes him with her foot.

Back at Giles' house, the group pigs out on candy while Giles smacks himself for not reading an inscription beside a small picture of Gacknar. It reads "actual size".

Summary written by Nika

Miscellaneous Info

 

Quote of the Week

Xander: Who's a little fear demon? Come on! Who's a little fear demon?!
Giles: Don't taunt the fear demon!
Xander: Why? Can he hurt me?
Giles: No, it's just tacky.

My Rating

5/5

Nika's Review

WOW! What can I say! Awesome episode! I had the best of times watching this episode! It was incredible! I definitely give a huge round of applause to the writer, Tucker Gates. This was absolutely too good to be true! I myself am a huge Halloween freak and this episode was just a dream come true for me. And haunted houses are a person a favorite! It absolutely beat out season 2's Halloween episode! The whole haunted house was deliciously creepy and the way the window closed up on the girl was cool, making it appear that the house was alive. This episode could not have been better in any way. Everything was built up so wonderfully, I loved how it showed all of their fears and how everything seemed to get so out of control and how everything led to the room in the attic. I loved at the beginning how the mark got activated with Oz's blood, because that would be really freaky if that did happen by accident. And I most definitely loved the end! It was absolutely hysterical to see that the demon was so tiny! Talk about anticlimax! I was certainly not expecting the demon to be so tiny. And his little voice just added to all of it. Xander's taunting of him was great and so was Willow's oh-so-cute reaction to the demon. I would have expected that Giles would have stopped Buffy before she destroyed the makr and she was a little rash there but it was great anyway. My only question about this episode: Oz scratches Willow... Doesn't this now mean that she'll become a werewolf? This is mostly definitely the best episode this season and I wonder if next year's Halloween episode can top this one! I can't possibly have enough praises for this episode!

Niki Bartl's Review

How much did I love this Buffy episode? So much more than last years Buffy Hallowe'en and I loved that one too! Okay, first let me tell you how freaked out I get about haunted houses. They totally wack me out, I hate them sooo much. It goes back to a traumatic experience when I was younger and that's all I'm going to say about that subject. So, if I had been stuck in that house all by myself, I would have sat down and peed all over myself. And I am totally serious. So I have so much more respect for the Scooby gang for making it out of there. I loved how Xander's fear was being invisible, and how Oz's was being wolfy when he wasn't supposed to be. I thought it was kind of like Nightmares in that retrospect. The ending to this episode was amazing. They built it up so much, and it was so freaky, I was glad I was watching it with a friend of mine. And then? This little demon who was soooo cute, especially with his tiny voice, saying evil things! I started going, "Ohhh, he's so cute!" I just have one question.... this demon hadn't manifested itself yet because it feeds on fear and it didn't have enough until Buffy punched through the sign and forced it to manifest itself. So if she hadn't forced it and it feed on more fear, would it be bigger? Or was that the actual demon size? I do wished she hadn't squished the demon though, he was sooooo cute!

Cast