Overall Rating: 8.05 Matt: 8.1 Eric: 8.0 Writer: David Fury Director: Tucker Gates Cast : Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers, Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris, Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg, Seth Green as Oz, Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles. Main guest stars : Adam Kaufman as Parker Abrams, Emma Caulfield as Anya, Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers, Marc Blucas as Riley, Lindsay Crouse as Maggie Walsh, Marc Rose as Josh, Sulo Williams as Chaz, Walter Emanuel Jones as Edward, Adam Bitterman as Gachnar. Original broadcast date : October 26, 1999 My one-line description: First the 18th century lady, then the Little Red Riding Hood… Buffy likes playing with fire on Halloween night, doesn’t she? In his basement, Xander is inspecting a jack o’lantern carved, apparently, to his likeness (mmm, could use a bit more nose). The Scoobies are discussing their plans to go to the Alpha-Delta house’s Halloween party, but two people feel rather left out – Xander, because being a non-student, he wasn’t told of the party, and Buffy because she’s still moping about the whole Parker issue. Claiming sleepiness, she leaves early. On the way home, she attacks a demon… actually a kid wearing a demon mask. The next day, Willow talks with Buffy about her concerns with moving to the next – and potentially dangerous – lever of magic. Oz arrives, catching the end of the conversation, and also expresses his concern. As they head to the cafeteria, he tells Buffy that his werewolf persona has put him in touch with much more darkness than he likes, and that he’s worried about Willow using powers she can’t control. The conversation ends abruptly when Buffy spots Parker laughing with some friends, and turns around to walk away. Willow catches up to her and tells her not to let Parker get to her. But Buffy isn’t in the mood to deal with it, and doesn’t even want to go to the party. The Slayer heads to Giles’ place, presumably to make plans for patrolling, but instead she’s treated to a hilarious image of her Watcher wearing a fringed sombrero and a poncho. He’s in a cheerful Halloween mood, which confuses her even more – she thought he didn’t like the holiday. He explains that he never really had time to get into it at Sunnydale High, then reminds her that she doesn’t have to patrol that night, and should have fun at the party instead (bummer!). At the Fraternity house, students are decorating the place for the party. As they talk about needing to get Oz for the sound system, one boy, Chaz, displays a symbol he found in an old book. He intends to paint it on the old wooden floor (ominous music, please). Xander is visited in his basement by Anya, who once again wants to know where their relationship is headed. She admits that she didn’t really want to get over him, and he, in turn, admits that he’s not unhappy to see her. He invites her to the Halloween party – along with Willow, Oz and Buffy, of course – and suggests she get a scary costume. Buffy goes to get her assignments from Professor Walsh, and gets an expected but very harsh lecture about missing class – the teacher tells her that she’ out if she misses one more. Handing Buffy her assignments, Riley, the teacher’s assistant, tells her she should work harder, but also suggests she go to the Halloween party all the same. Back at the Frat house, Oz and Xander are hooking up the sound system, just as Chaz and friends are finishing up painting the occult symbol on the floor. Lo and behold, Oz cuts himself while trimming a speaker wire, and spills a drop of blood on the floor, right where the symbol is. No big deal – except that, unnoticed by anyone, a little plastic spider on the floor morphs into a real tarantula… At the Summers home, Joyce is touching up the Little Red Riding Hood costume Buffy wore for trick or treating when she was 12. This brings back memories of her father, and Buffy deplores he didn’t like spending time with her enough to stay around. Thinking of Parker, she comments that when you open your heart to someone, they bail on you. But Joyce reminds her that she has her, Giles and her friends. At the dorm, Willow – dressed up as Joan of Arc – is on the phone with Oz, making plans to make sure Buffy has fun that evening. She suggests that if Parker shows up, they axe-murder him, since "That’s Halloweeny". At the Frat house, the party is getting started. A blindfolded girl plunges her hand into a bowl of grapes meant to feel like eyeballs… but when she takes off the blindfold, she realizes they’re real eyeballs. She screams. The Scoobies meet up outside the house, fully costumed. Xander is dressed as James Bond (in case they get turned into their costumes again), and Oz is supposedly "God" – a "Hello, my name is God" name tag says so, anyway. Xander mentions Anya will be joining them, depressing single-and-dejected Buffy even more. As they go in, they run into camouflaged and masked soldiers, and wonder who they’re supposed to be. Maybe NATO, Xander suggests. The party is a real Halloween hit – albeit not in the way anyone had planned. Something is definitely going on upstairs; people are running down the stairs, screaming like lost souls, coming away injured or mutilated Everything at the party goes crazy as people run in all directions screaming, some ending up mutilated and injured in various ways. The gang walks into the house but sees no one downstairs. Willow walks through a fake cobweb – and Oz spots a not-so-fake tarantula on her shoulder. Then Buffy spots real blood on the floor (she would know, I guess) and suddenly a herd of bats comes swooping down on the gang. They take cover until the trouble is past, then see a lone, rubber bat on the floor. "Release me", orders a deep voice. Hmm… something is definitely not right… Outside, Anya is just arriving – dressed as a hilarious-looking pink bunny. However, she discovers the house no longer has a door; then, as she makes her way to the front, she sees a girl on the second floor screaming out of a window. Eerily, the window bricks itself over, cutting off the cries. The same thing happens to the gang, who can’t seem to find a way out – or even, for that matter, access to other parts of the house. They find Chaz hiding in a closet, but all they can get him to say is that "it’s alive". A fake skeleton turns hideously real and stabs Buffy, but she hits back and it becomes plastic again. More screaming comes from upstairs. Taking charge, the Slayer orders the Scoobies to find a way out and get Giles while she investigates what’s going on. However, Willow is suddenly not too happy about Buffy giving orders; instead of going, she wants to do a spell. Buffy gets angry and rudely answers that Willow’s spells don’t work that well. The redhead stalks off, Oz in tow. Xander tries to comfort Buffy, but quickly finds out she can’t see or hear him – and worse, she’s mad at him for abandoning her as well. Meanwhile, Anya has gone to Giles’ place and given him an overview of what’s going on. Together, they start to look for a way to help the stranded partygoers. Xander tries to get Buffy and the gang to notice him, but realizes none of them can see or hear him (wasn’t his worst nightmare being completely ignored?). Willow and Oz are making their way upstairs when Oz becomes the next lucky guy to have his worst fear come true. He starts turning into a werewolf (hey wait… where’s the full moon?) and scratches Willow, before running away from her in order to protect her. He hides in a bathtub, repeating to himself "You’re not gonna change, you’re not gonna change". Xander looks at himself in the mirror, satisfied that he can see himself. Oh, but wait a minute… so can that "fake" massacre-victim head nearby! Willow conjures up her guidance spell as planned, but the little light she’s created refuses to obey, instead splitting up into a multitude of smaller lights which attack her. She screams, and Buffy hears her. Trying to come to her rescue, she bursts through a door… and falls to a basement, where dead people start coming up from the ground, attacking her. Outside, Giles decides that the time has come for a more "direct" approach to get inside the house. He produces a chainsaw and cuts a door in the wall. Suddenly, the Scoobies, still trying to outrun their fears, all end up in the same room – the one with the symbol. Everything seems to have gone back to normal. Xander finds the book with the symbol, and Willow translates it – it’s the Mark of Gachnar, a demon which feeds off the fears of its victims. Giles and Anya, having sawed their way in, arrive in the room. Buffy shows Giles the book, and he starts reading aloud the ways to destroy the demon, which leads Buffy to tear up the floor in order to destroy the Mark. Oops - it doesn’t destroy the demon, it actually summons it. Gachnar appears, looking very fearsome indeed… if only he weren’t just six inches tall. After Xander cutely taunts him, Buffy squashes the demon. At Giles’ place, the gang are eating up all the candy; Xander asks Anya why on earth she’d costumed herself as a bunny, and she answers that bunnies scare her. Giles shows Buffy a caption under the picture of Gachnar he hadn’t paid attention to – "Actual size", it reads. Summary by OttsFiveByFive.