This Article Originally Ran On Blumhouse.com
Welcome to A Very Spooky… where we take a look at and review a classic TV series that is not known for horror but would, on occasion, dip its toes into the waters of terror. Today, we’re checking out Dawson’s Creek season 1, episode 11, “The Scare”…
Dawson’s Creek was, to put it mildly, the big time super show for teens in the late 90s and early 00s. The show, which I must admit I never watched, pushed Paula Cole’s song “I Don’t Want to Wait” into everyone’s brain - even Samuel L. Jackson was singing the chorus.
Being created by Kevin Williamson, the writer of Scream, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Dawson’s Creek would do a few horror themed episodes. It is, from an outside perspective, kind of surprising how much this episode goes into the horror area.
The episode starts off with Dawson and Joey laying in Dawson’s bed watching I Know What You Did Last Summer, the bit where Sarah Michelle Gellar is about to get killed. Joey, who apparently isn’t a fan of horror, switches the channel to the news just in time to hear about a serial killer, called The Lady Killer, who has taken his latest victim and appears to be headed towards the town Dawson and his peeps live in.
In what I can only guess is Dawson’s super power, the guy vanishes from the bed without Joey noticing, only to then pop up from under the bed to freak Joey out. At this point, the weirdest thing happens - the opening credits start and, at least on Hulu, it isn’t the Paula Cole song! What the shit is this! I’m rather confused.
We rejoin the Creek Crew at school the next day, which happens to be Friday the 13th. By lunch, Dawson has pulled off a few dozen pranks on his buddies to celebrate the day. Well, not all his buddies - Dawson is leaving Jen out of it this year because they just broke up. The first real touch of WB/CW teen drama comes in!
The newly single Jen gets asked out by Cliff, who kinda feels like a serial killer to me. When Jen mentions that she liked dating Dawson because he’s fun, Cliff cuts in with a terse “I’m fun!” It’s the kind of response that you get from someone who really wants you to think they’re human.
At lunch, Dawson continues to appear like the most annoying friend in the world, not even letting Pacey enjoy his french fries (with WAY too much ketchup on them) without sliding in a fake severed finger. Jen comments that she’s kinda bummed that Dawson isn’t spook pranking her, then cuts out for her next class.
In a rather unimportant scene, we see a class discussing John Carpenter, which is the most Kevin Williamson scene in the show. I mean, come on, there’s no high school class where the teacher and the kids talk John Carpenter!
Jen finds a death threat in her locker and, despite this not fitting with Dawson’s MO, she figures it’s from him. All of Dawson’s scares/pranks are pretty basic, and based on jump scares and this is definitively more sinister. Still, Jen don’t give no neverminds about no letters.
At home after school, Jen gets a call from a mysterious stranger. After a quick reference to Scream, and thinking that it is Dawson, Jen starts to get honestly freaked out. I guess Jen lives with her grandparents because she goes into a bedroom where there’s an old man sleeping or maybe in a coma? I think coma because Jen is yelling into the phone in the room and the old man isn’t waking up.
Anywho, it appears that the person on the other end of the line is inside the house - an open window and a few things knocked off a dresser next to the window are the most obvious sign. Jen carefully walks around her house in what is honestly a well done scene. While there’s nothing new to it in terms of basic horror/slasher stuff, the tension builds up well throughout it, up to the entrance of Jen’s grandma who doesn’t seem to give a crap that her granddaughter is walking through the house with a large knife and on the verge of crying.
Over at Dawson’s house, he and Joey are waiting for Pacey to show up so they can go buy some snacks for a seance at Dawson’s. There is, by the way, no mention of Dawson’s parents. Does he have parents? Where are they? There is not a single mention of them in this episode. They never show up. Weird.
Pacey shows up with a stolen car, which Joey and Dawson seem OK with, and they head to a gas station for snacks, which is a weird place to go to for snacks. These Creek kids are a kooky bunch.
At the gas station, Joey stays in the hot-wired car while Pacey and Dawson head in. Inside, the boys watch a rather nasty looking domestic squabble. The man in the squabble leaves, and the woman focuses in on Pacey. The woman offers to get the boys some wine for their seance, which she then steals. Pacey has a full on boner for this lady who we’ll learn is named Ursula.
Meanwhile the creepiest man on the planet walks up to the stolen car and starts hitting on Joey. The guy is clearly a murderer, but somehow Joey isn’t picking up on it. Dawson comes out and shoos the guy away, which Joey is kinda annoyed by. Somehow, Joey doesn’t see this guy as being creepy.
Pacey invites Ursula, you know the woman he literally just met 2 minutes ago, back to Dawson’s house for a seance. Just then, her angry boyfriend shows up being all angry. The gang drives off in a hurry as Ursula’s boyfriend tries to kill them.
This town is messed up. I mean, our main characters are guilty of grand theft auto, couples are almost coming to fisticuffs in gas stations, and all the parents seem to have vanished.
At Jen’s, Cliff shows up for the date, and man is Jen’s grandma excited. She lists off Cliff’s accomplishments, including his being the star quarterback and a regular at the local church. All of this makes me pretty sure he’s a murderer. Cliff then surprises Jen with what they’ll be doing on their date - going to Dawson’s seance! Again, in a moment that suggests Cliff doesn’t understand human beings, he seems to miss the thought that Jen may not want their first date to be spent at her ex’s house.
With the whole gang gathered at Dawson’s, the seance is ready to begin. Dawson sends Joey to get the “seance book” which leads her to another patented Dawson jump scare. At the same time, Ursula finds herself being victim to a few of Dawson’s pranks as well, and she’s all about it.
Within five seconds, the concept of a seance is done away with. Instead, the evening turns into the telling of stories. Dawson starts by explaining to everyone what the Lady Killer does - he starts with notes, then moves to phone calls, then kills his intended victim. Jen doesn’t buy it, still believing that Dawson is messing with her.
Cliff, the guy most likely to collect roadkill, tells a pretty nasty story about a snake slithering down a baby’s throat. Everyone agrees that his story isn’t scary, just disgusting.
Ursula tells her own scary story about a crazy woman who kills people with a knife she keeps in her purse. She gives a creepy smile, and the power in Dawson’s house goes out. Everyone screams, creating a perfect moment for a commercial break.
When we come back from the commercials, everything is still dark. Dawson, who may or may not have the decomposing bodies of his parents in the attic, breaks everyone up into twos so they can split up and get murdered. Jen and Cliff are sent to get flashlights, Joey and Pacey are off to find candles (which seems redundant if you’re getting flashlights) and Dawson and Ursula head off to the fuse box outside.
As they look for candles, Joey and Pacey almost get hit with a plastic swinging ax. This is the last straw for Joey! At the same time, Jen and Cliff get the flashlights and find a message written in what appears to be blood.
This is the last straw for Jen!
Outside, Dawson is full on freaked by Ursula who is, to be fair, kinda freaky. Dawson admits to Ursula that he set the lights to go out at 11, but he can’t figure out why they won’t come back on. As they talk and work on the fuse box, someone watches them from the bushes. Who could it be!?!?!?!?
Unable to get the lights on, Dawson and Ursula head inside where they find out that Joey is missing! Not two seconds later, Dawson finds her… dead. As a shadowed figure walks up Dawson screams. The shadowed figure is… PACEY!!!!! Pacey is a killer, not Cliff! A huge shocking twist in the series!
Or just a prank. Being tired of Dawson’s pranks, the gang all decided to prank him. Most of the planning was Jen’s, who pushes Dawson to admit that he left her the note and called her. Dawson once again swears that it wasn’t him. Jen, for reasons unknown, becomes more upset that Dawson isn’t pranking her because of their breakup than she is that there is a stranger stalking her.
Right around this time, Ursula’s angry boyfriend shows up, terrorizing the Creek Crew. When he gets into the house by breaking a window on a door, Joey goes berserk and beats the guy with a frying pan. I mean she really lays into the guy. He’s on the ground and she’s straddling him, going to town. Joey gets in seven or eight good shots before Ursula pulls her off.
The whole guy breaking in and Joey beating the crap out of him kind of puts an end to the seance. Cliff finally comes clean and tells Jen that he was the one on the phone. Cliff’s reasoning, being similar to a psychopath, was that if Jen liked the kind of stuff Dawson did, she would like something even more horrifying. For whatever reason, Jen doesn’t come to the same conclusion as me, and she seems to like Cliff more now.
The episode ends as it began, with Joey and Dawson laying in Dawson’s bed watching TV. The news comes on to reveal that the Lady Killer had been caught in whatever the hell town the show takes place in. More to it, he was the creepy guy that hit on Joey at the gas station!
Aside from the phone call scene with Jen, the only scares in the episode are jump scares. That scene plays out like a well done Scream rip-off and while it makes a reference to the classic slasher, it doesn’t overplay it with making fun of Scream. When the lights go out in the Dawson home, the mood is set well for building tension, but the show doesn’t do that great of a job doing it. The sequence feels rushed, and the ending of it, with Joey smashing the guy with the frying pan but there being no noticeable damage to him, then Ursula and her man leaving instead of ANYONE calling the cops on the guy who just broke in threatening to harm the people in the house was odd. How does Dawson explain the broken window to his parents? WHERE THE HELL ARE HIS PARENTS?
Still, the show has a hell of a cast and each of them is well beyond the acting talent you normally find on a teen drama. Obviously, Michelle Williams, who plays Jen, is the most recognized for her acting skills, but James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, and Joshua Jackson are real solid as well.