Bratz - The horror of "Skeletons in the closet"
They traumatised us and I commend them for it!
Hello, Girlie! The spooky season is in full swing and what better way to kick it off than with my favourite horror show - Bratz! I want to talk about an episode that doesn't get much recognition for being creepy, but it is one of the most disturbing in the Bratz show. Today, we're talking about season 1, episode 12 of Bratz - Skeletons In The Closet.
Trigger warning: mentions of murder, depictions of skeletons
Major spoilers for the episode ahead!
The intro
From the moment this episode starts it is creepy. Cloe's horoscope specifically says that someone close to her is hiding a deep dark secret and that they will stop at nothing to bring her down. This alone wouldn't be so scary. But then it goes on to say that the person in question is worse than being in a body bag. Bratz literally implied Cloe being put in a body bag.
Cue Jade coming in with a box full of personal belongings of Heather Stone. She used to be Burdine's intern at Your Thing magazine, before disappearing without a trace. According to Burdine's statement, Heather picked up all of her stuff and left, yet in this box is her wallet, stuffed toy, and some less important stuff. There was also a missing poster for Heather. On her picture, someone had drawn pink demon horns. It's assumed it was Burdine.
Meanwhile, the Tweevils have been tasked with cleaning out the entire Your Thing office. Burdine leaves while they're cleaning, but before she does, she threatens them, saying "If you miss so much as a square inch, so help me, I'll get rid of you!". They don't take it seriously until they accidentally find a bunch of bones in the office closet.
They run to the Bratz office, for some reason, and tell the girls about the bones and Burdine's threat. Couple that with the box of personal belongings and missing poster Jade has found, and now both sides have an inkling that Burdine has killed Heather Stone and is out for blood again.
To confirm their suspicions, Sasha and Yasmin ask Burdine what happened to Heather. She responds with: "I got rid of her... I terminated her, liquidated her, finished her but good. Oh, you should have heard her begging for mercy. And I'd do it again!". They all go to the Your Thing office to warn the Tweevils. Burdine is already in there, monologuing to herself about destroying the Bratz. It is confirmed. They, too, are on her hit list. The dire mood is highlighted by this amazing shot shown below.
The sleepover
Cloe is terrified. They all are, yet she's the only one brave enough to voice it. Because of it, they have a sleepover. They've arranged sleeping bags on the floor of her room in a circle. I assume it's the best way to have eyes on the entire room in case Burdine strikes tonight.
They start to panic, imagining Burdine breaking into the house and the weapons she might use to kill them. This results in a montage of Burdine holding an array of weapons. The scenes start flashing faster and faster as the girls get more and more scared.
As a child, this was one of the scariest parts of this episode. The murder went from being implied to being almost depicted on screen. Burdine was indeed shown using the weapons. While this show can usually involve disturbing cut-away scenes, they're mostly underlined with humour. The ones in this episode have pure terror instead.
The nightmares
This is where the murder fully gets shown on screen. The Bratz each have a nightmare in which Burdine kills them.
Cloe's is the most viral. You might have seen it floating around as a meme. She's alone at the Bratz office when Burdine comes to apologise for being evil and to gift her a new hairspray. The spray first makes Cloe's hair fall off. A few seconds later, her skin is gone too. Her head is now a skull with two eyeballs, as she screams in terror. This nightmare is the campiest and the most Bratz-like, in my opinion.
Jade dreams of interning at Your Thing. Burdine intentionally overburdens her with tasks. This time she's tasked with carrying a heavy box to "the basement". Once there, she finds out that the box holds the skeletons of the Tweevils. They come to life and say that Burdine is gonna work her until she destroys her too. Jade turns around to see the reanimated skeleton of Heather Stone as well. The nightmare ends with Burdine smashing Heather's skeleton with a bat.
Sasha's was always the scariest nightmare for me because of how much she screams in agony. She is in a club, being made to dance against her will. Burdine has her connected to puppet strings and is controlling her. Sasha's screaming that she wants to stop because "it hurts". Burdine says that she'll never stop, she'll dance even on her own grave. Mere seconds after, Sasha yelps and collapses from exhaustion.
Yasmin gets called by Burdine who impersonates The Emergency Pet Rescue Network and tells her to save a cat stuck in a tree. Yasmin runs and climbs the tree to save the cat. However, it slowly moves farther away from her, until it's floating in mid air. Turns out that it's a mechanical cat controlled by Burdine who's sitting on the branch above. We cut to the cat, who's now fully made of metal and has an eye popping out. Burdine then cuts off the branch on which Yasmin is sitting. She falls, with the branch landing on top of her.
The dolls
Earlier in the episode, Burdine gets a package delivered which she is very excited about. She stabs it, killer-style, with a knife to open it. Turns out that she's ordered a set of Bratz voodoo dolls. When the real Bratz go into the Your Thing office later in the episode, they find the dolls with a bunch of needles put through them.
This is one more element that takes Burdine from mean to obsessive and psychotic in this episode. This could be passed off as "she didn't know they would work, she was getting her aggression out in an extremely weird way". However, near the end of the episode, she's surprised to see the Bratz. She says that they're supposed to be "...writhing in pain, unable to walk or crawl" because she spent a lot of money on those dolls.
Cloe ends up ordering some dolls of Burdine and the Tweevils in the end (again, creepy). The girls clearly say that it's just for stress relief and start poking them. We cut to the Your Thing office and see the three of them yelping and writhing in pain, underscored by needle-poking noises.
Wrapping it up
Of course, it turns out that Burdine has never killed anyone and that Heather is alive. However, Burdine did ruin her reputation so she could not work in the fashion magazine industry again. As for the bones, they are for Burdine's dog.
The Bratz TV show has always been great for kids' horror. The Paris movie, this episode, the séance during the slumber party episodes, that one Bratz Kidz movie that everyone talks about as being the creepiest shit ever,... They all use this bizarre world so effectively to create a genuinely disturbing experience for the kids watching.
Some of the stuff shown in Skeletons in the closet goes too far, in my opinion. We did not need to see Bratz literally dying. Nevertheless, as a fan of spooky media and horror, I have loved this episode since I was six or so. Very little children's media is genuinely scary by adult standards, so I'm kinda happy that this episode exists. Maybe it's the nostalgia talking, I don't know.
Thanks for stopping by the Fort today! What did you think of this episode? What are your favourite moments from the Bratz TV show? Let the spooky vibes continue in the comments! Until next time, happy Halloween!
Dorian
The blog’s header and the drawing featured atop this post were made by @ambybun on Instagram
The DVD cover featured on the drawing was made by me