Though AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD has horror fans’ pulses racing, eagerly anticipating the season three premiere, fright fans of a younger persuasion have an equally good, far less bloody and downbeat year three premiere to thrill to the night prior. Hub’s R.L Stine-penned series THE HAUNTING HOUR returns for its third season, bringing more dark, scary and disturbing kid friendly terror to the small screen, and its opening episode is a doozy.

Let me preface this review by noting that I recently inflicted older episodes of THE HAUNTING HOUR on my kids, aged three and five and was astonished by how unsparing and serious the show is about creeping children out. This isn’t some dumbed down, teeny bopper series. These are classic, classy and often terrifying EC Comics-tinted tales of the macabre geared towards younger people. Even though my brood is used to seeing monsters around the house, and have indeed witnessed a few iconic horror pictures already, THE HAUNTING HOUR held them hard and even unsettled them a little bit. For parents who love this stuff, the show is about as top notch a gateway into terror as I’ve ever seen. And it never resorts to cheap gore or shocks to sell its often mind bending scares.

The season three opener, GRAMPIRES, is no exception. In it, the great Christopher Lloyd (BACK TO THE FUTURE, THE ADDAMS FAMILY) plays a loving Grandfather who welcomes his two darling grandchildren Mike and Cristen into his private retirement community – benignly called Sunset Estates – with more than a bit of trepidation. It turns out Sunset Estates is actually a secret coven of ancient senior citizen vampires whose tenants are exclusively undead. As the not-so-genteel old ghouls set their sights on sinking their fangs into the juicy youngsters, “Grampire” must curb his own bloodlust and fight his fellow bloodsuckers off to defend his still living brood.

What’s so fantastic about the show is that it never pulls a “Scooby Doo.” That is, the monsters are monsters, the threats are real threats and no villain has an 11th hour epiphany. The innocent don’t always come out unscathed either, and although anything but nihilistic, there’s a mild streak of moral cruelty that keeps the show serious.

Stine has made a cottage industry with ‘tween horror that actually bites back and THE HAUNTING HOUR is even eerier than his previous TV outing, GOOSEBUMPS (itself based on the long running Stine book series). GRAMPIRES is funny and absurd but the vampires – outside of Lloyd’s lovable gramps – are blood hungry savages who only take five from feeding to play bingo. You laugh sure, but you’re never sure if our heroes are going to get the geezer chomp and there’s bona fide suspense.

GRAMPIRES plays October 13th on The Hub. Make the time to sit with your creepy kids and have some shuddery fun.

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