Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!

Agck!  Stranger danger!

Episode 2.12 “The Playhouse”

(Dir by Tom McLoughlin, originally aired on January 28th, 1989)

Mike and Janine Carlson (played by Robert Oliveri and Lisa Jakub) are two young siblings living in the suburbs.  They don’t have much of a life.  Their mother (Belinda Metz) is neglectful and continually complains that her children are the reason why she can’t find a rich boyfriend.  Mike and Janine don’t appear to have any close friends.  Children are vanishing all over town and parents are telling their kids, “Don’t go off with strangers!” but no one seems to care enough about Mike and Janine to even check to make sure that they haven’t been kidnapped.

Mike and Janine have a playhouse, a gift that was given to them by one of their mother’s former boyfriends.  The playhouse is the only place where they feel happy.  It’s a place where they literally get anything that they wish for.  But sometimes, the door to the playhouse is locked.  When that happens, Mike and Janine have to convince someone else to go into the playhouse.  Once someone enters the playhouse, they find themselves trapped in a nightmarish world that is full of evil clowns and other circus figures.  Mike and Janine have to chant, “I hate you!  I hate you!” while the playhouse claims its victims.

Agck!  Seriously, this is a disturbing episode!  Not only are Mike and Janine terribly abused but almost all of their victims are children.  Perhaps because of the age of the people involved, this is the only episode of Friday the 13th: The Series in which no one dies.  They’re held prisoner in the playhouse and probably traumatized for life but they don’t die.  Fortunately, that means that they can be freed once Jack convinces Mike to chant, “I love you!” instead of “I hate you!”

Yep, this episode is all about the power of love but you really have to wonder if all of Mike and Janine’s problems can be solved by chanting, “I love you!”  I mean, aren’t the other kids going to remember that Mike and Janine held them prisoner in a nightmare universe?  The episode may end with the playhouse defeated by Mike and Janine are still living in that terrible suburb and their mother is still a resentful alcoholic.  Even though this episode has what would most would consider to be a happy ending — the kids are free! — it’s still incredibly dark.

This episode definitely left me feeling a bit shaken.  I hate seeing children in danger and that’s what this episode was all about.  Even things that sound kind of silly — like Mike chanting “I hate you!” while the playhouse does its thing — are actually rather disturbing when viewed.  The child actors are almost too convincing in this episode.  In the end, Jack says that all you need is love but this episode leaves you wondering if he’s correct.