There are so many things that Avatar: The Last Airbender did "for a kid's show" that it's not really fair to call it a kid's show at all. The storytelling and characters were often so mature that they transcended demographics, and one of the perfect examples of the craft that went into the original series are the episodes where it dipped its toes into the world of horror.
There are four episodes that play up many horror tropes, and any Avatar fan looking for a Halloween setlist can watch them one after another to appreciate just how well the creators could pull off a scary story when they really wanted to.
The best way to kick off a horror watch of Avatar is to start with "The Spirit World (Winter Solstice: Part 1)" which introduces the fantasy world's spookiest setting. Villagers are disappearing from a town the Gaang comes across, kidnapped by a monster that only appears at night. What really makes the horror of the episode shine is how the action takes a backseat while the terror provides the driving force, and when Aang enters the Spirit World for the first time, the powerlessness he experiences at his inability to bend ramps up the stakes like never before. And it's still not Avatar's scariest episode.
Book Two's "The Swamp" manages to cultivate the same scary ambiance of the Spirit World without entering that realm at all. When the Gaang are trapped in a mysterious swamp, each experiencing visions that play into the area's mystical presence, it's clear that the show knows how to create a spooky setting. The introduction of a swamp monster cranks the dial to 11 as the swamp itself comes alive around them, while the feeling that there is no escape adds a sense of tension to the story from start to finish.
Yet Avatar can get scarier still, and while the previous episodes may have only sampled horror elements, it is "The Painted Lady" that makes the genre's inspiration most evident. Once again there seems to be a spirit haunting a lonely village, but the twist this time is that the spirit is actually Katara defending the Fire Nation settlement from their overseers. That same sense of powerlessness is flipped on its head and used against the Fire Nation as Katara creates a mysterious fog, monstrous noises from Appa and Toph announce her presence and a little boy announces ominously "It's the Painted Lady...she's coming." The mastery of horror tropes is in full force, and yet there remains one episode perfect to cap off the night of frights.
"The Puppetmaster" is a horror story from start to finish. Starting with the Gaang around a campfire swapping ghost stories, they are approached by a spindly old woman who invites them to her inn. The town nearby suffers a plague of disappearances during each full moon, and the innkeeper is not the innocent Southern Water Tribe survivor she seems to be. She has a fascination with puppets that hints at dark abilities she only reveals later, bending the blood in the bodies of her victims to her will. From the misty settings to the almost gory sight of Hama's veins bulging from her arms, there is no better way to end a night of Halloween Avatar viewing.
The stories are sprinkled throughout the original series, and demonstrate the sheer versatility that made the show the legend it is today. Watching the episodes one after another, it is clear that no source of inspiration was off-limits for the Avatar team, and they brought the full force of familiar cultural tropes to bear no matter what they needed.
