Episode XXXV: Jack and the Haunted House

"Episode XXXV: Jack and the Haunted House" is the thirty-fifth episode in third season of Samurai Jack. In this episode Jack encounters a haunted house in his travels and must free the family trapped inside from the evil force that is tormenting them.

Plot
While traveling alone one night, Jack encounters a young girl sobbing to herself. She runs away as soon as she notices Jack, and he follows her to return the teddy bear she dropped (which clearly resembles the creature from Episode XXXIII). His pursuit leads to an old, dilapidated house of Japanese design. He decides to take a side entrance, rather than the front door the girl used, and sees the silhouette of a woman sitting next to a fire through the door. As soon as he tries to open it, a swarm of moths flutter past him, startling Jack. The next moment, there is no sign of the woman or the fire.

Upon entering, Jack experiences several visions showing vague images of the people who originally lived there and a mysterious evil that attacks them. He finds a candle and lights it in order to search the house. The entire house appears dilapidated, abandoned, and dirty. He finds certain items, such as a model ships the family's son was building. Every time he discovers such an item, Jack experiences another flashback. The episode resembles a horror movie at this point, with creepy visuals and very discomforting sound effects being played.

Jack searches the house until he finally finds the girl. He suggests leaving the house and heads back to the room he came in through, but is baffled when he notices all doors and windows in that room have vanished. After returning to the room in which he found the girl, he is shocked to see the same thing has happened there. He and the girl decide to spend the night inside this house, stating they both feel strangely tired.

Jack's sleep is troubled by further nightmarish visions of the shadowy monster and its attacks on the house's inhabitants. When he awakens, Jack notices that the girl is gone. While looking around the room, he faintly hears music and notices a well-lit room behind a doorway. He enters it and sees the girl calmly sitting at a table with three other family members (the mother, father, and brother as seen in Jack's visions) in a well-kept room. Jack angrily shouts his disbelief, that it must be an illusion of some sort, and draws his sword. The father convinces Jack to calm down, sit, and drink tea with them. The small talk completely distracts Jack when they mention the tea is from a region he is familiar with. The girl, however, looks concerned.

When the father asks his son, Toby to say something, the boy reacts by eerily rolling his eyes up into his skull. Jack sees this, But the father (who is sweeting uncomfortably) Asks Toby to tell Jack about his studies. However, Toby's eye's reach into his skull, He then starts to drool and hunch backwards. Even The father claims they must not be feeling well, The girl, weary of this, Apologises to Jack. Soon after, the mother and father do the same thing That Toby does. Jack is brought to his senses and watches in horror a stream of shadowy matter erupt from their mouths. Suddenly, Jack experiences a single flashback revealing the fate of each family member. The room morphs into the ruinous structure it really is, while the shadowy matter accumulates into a demonic beast.

The monster attacks Jack and finally seizes him by using tentacles that come out of the floor. It then sends Jack's consciousness into an alternate reality, where there is no environment, only himself, the monster, and the family members. They are all tied down, likely to visualize their mind being captive while the monster uses their bodies.

Jack somehow levitates his sword using tremendous willpower and cuts away his bonds, then fights and eventually defeats the monster. They erupt back into reality, where the night seems to end as Jack comes to. Jack tells the girl he saw her family, but couldn't save them. Just then, they hear the father's voice as he calls out to his daughter: all the family members are alive and safe. Satisfied, Jack leaves them in their hug and continues with his quest.

Credits

 * Written by
 * Chris Reccardi
 * Aaron Springer


 * Directed by
 * Randy Myers
 * Genndy Tartakovsky


 * Storyboard Directed by
 * Chris Reccardi
 * Aaron Springer


 * Voices
 * Phil LaMarr as Samurai Jack
 * Lauren Tom as Kuni / Yamiko
 * Clyde Kusatsu as Father


 * Casting by
 * Collette Sunderman

Horror Effect
This episode is remarkably different from other episodes in 3 ways: drawing style, creepiness, and the antagonist itself.

Drawing Style
Most episodes feature simplistically colored characters and foreground objects on a mixture of backgrounds that are sometimes just as cartoonishly colored and sometimes highly detailed, as if painted. This episode however employs the "fancy" coloring on all backgrounds and many of the foreground objects. The entire episode looks graphically superior to the other ones. This makes the abandoned state of the house very visible and adds to the immersive effect of the horror graphics. It also makes the living characters stand out from the rest of the house, as if to symbolize that nothing living belongs there. Finally, it also makes the house itself looks strange and unfamiliar to the viewer.

In addition, Jack's flashbacks and presence in the alternate reality have their own, unique drawing style, primarily a minimalist style. Everything is drawn with black smears on a gloomy white background, with abrupt animations and lots of flickering. Noise is constantly heard during these scenes. The strangeness of these graphics adds to the horror factor.

Creepiness
This episode has a noticeable lack of background music. Instead, there is only silence and frequent, seemingly source-less and highly discomforting "ghost noise". Jack is visibly unsettled and anxious. Everything he does seems to trigger something "creepy", such as when he knocks over a metal jar that then rolls up to the foot of a statue, making loud noise in an otherwise dead-silent room. Even the gentle music during the family illusion turns unsettling when it suddenly repeats like a broken record then winds down entirely. The candle and moonlight are the only sources of light inside the house, giving everything an unusual appearance. The coloring of many backgrounds resembles paintbrush strokes, somehow creating an impression of age, wear, ruin and abandonment.

Antagonist
The demon itself is quite unique compare to most other enemies Jack has faced, including Aku. Its form and the way it's animated is unsettling enough, but the nature of the entity is even worse. It has no comical moments like most other villains, including Aku. It stays hidden for most of the episode, so the viewer has absolutely no idea what unseen force is working against Jack. It consumes people's souls, and after doing it to the little girl's family, it keeps her alive solely for the purpose of using her as bait to lure in more victims. It's also likely that they're not the demon's first and only victims. It's also one of the very few antagonists Jack has faced that doesn't serve or have any relation to Aku. Worst of all, it's never revealed essentially what this demonic spirit is or where it comes from. It's just... there.

This is without doubt the most unsettling episode of the series.