Ah the first ever vampire tale that they did, and it's actually really good, I remember loving it when I first ever watched it as a kid. The first thing I notice about the story now though, is how it borrows a pretty hefty page from the all time classic original movie Fright Night, with a couple of kids spying on their new neighbours moving in late one night and after noticing that the couple and what appears to be their little boy never seem to go out till it's after dark, that they have mysterious crated objects delivered to them that are just big enough to possibly make them coffins, and also that folks all over their neighbourhood start becoming weak and pale as they walk about with big bandages stuck over their necks, something which nobody except the young brother and sister seems to find strange..and the whole situation appears so obvious that they assume the supernatural worst, and as it ultimately turns out they're wrong but also right, just not in the way they were expecting! I love the twist at the end so much so that I decided I wouldn't spoil it on the off-chance that anybody reading might not have seen the episode yet. I like the entire episode, I find it a fun little engaging mystery to watch even if you do know how it ends, it does a good job of misdirecting the audience. And although the buildup's a little better than the payoff I do like how it's an ambiguously dark ending and not so much a 'happy' one. There something about the tone of these earlier episodes that's verging on the surreal at times, everyone acts so oddly and everything's so on-the-nose! And my how things have changed from a fashion standpoint! The boy dresses like a girl and the girl a boy. They never explain why the boy's name is "Dayday" or why he keeps the popcorn bowl on his head so long after his big sis dumps it on him! To their credit though the two young actors were among the more fun to watch sibling duo teams to appear on the show. I find it a little outrageous just how quickly two kids are fully prepared to murder their neighbours based on nothing but a big hunch! It's a show that was so brilliant at the portraying of shady and super-suspicious and eccentric weirdos, and the pair of oddball Russian/gypsy/Italian/goth types that featured in this one were certainly no exception. They were so funny, I loved their 'classic' accents. And that surely was a nod to the movie Salem's Lot in the scene where the girl has a nightmare that the male vampire flies through her window for a bite to eat! That smiling mother of theirs was far more disturbing than any creature of the night, and rude! She practically body-slams the elderly mailman to the ground and just says "I'm late!" and gets away with it! What a stinking excuse for an actress, she was only ever in this very episode and I'd seriously place her as the very worse actress to ever appear on the show and that's saying something. She comes off as a complete grinning moron, and why was she so eager to invite two strangers who were clearly so creepy and weird into her home? It's all her fault that her two children are very soon to be dead by the episode's end.(spoiler alert!) anywho like most of them it's simple and straightforward and very satisfying, it's another great episode of a terrific series that I hold very dear to my heart, I think the particular brand of magic that it commands holds up very well indeed. It's one of the cheesiest but also for me certainly one of the best shows ever. And I'll never forget it, ever! X
