Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Scaredy Cats’ On Netflix, A Kids’ Series About A Girl Learning To Use Her New Witchy Powers For Good

It’s October, which means “spooky season” has begun in earnest. Netflix’s October slate of shows is filled with Halloween scarefests for all ages, including the decidedly kid-oriented series Scaredy Cats. Want to see some 12-year-old kids turn into cats, fly on brooms and generally try to figure out the whole “good witch” thing? Read on to find out more.

SCAREDY CATS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: As a baby sleeps in her bassinet, a breeze comes through the window and leaves a box that says “Property of Willow Ward.” A voice whispers, “Good luck, baby Willa.”

The Gist: Twelve years later, in the town of Winding Way, Willa Ward (Sophia Reid-Gantzert) is celebrating her 12th birthday. Her father, Neil (Michael Teigen), gives her a special gift: The box with her mother Willow’s name on it, that she left for Willa before she passed. Inside is a necklace with a cat-head amulet.

When she puts it on, it lets out a particular magical energy which gets the attention of Wanda (Carolyn Taylor) and Wilma (Lauren McGibbon), two evildoing witches who have been searching for the amulet for over a decade. They need the amulet to consolidate their power, so they dispatch their talking pet rat Claw (Ryan Beil) to get it.

In the meantime, Willa is having a birthday sleepover with her best friends Scout (Ava Augustin) and Lucy (Daphne Hoskins), complete with bags of Neil’s amazing candy (he owns the town candy store). When they find a talking rat in the attic, with the necklace in his claws, they of course scream, but when they grab brooms, the amulet lifts the brooms up; eventually, one of them gets under Willa and flies her out the attic window. When they tell their story to Neil the next morning, he chalks it up to too much candy before going to sleep.

But other people know about the amulet, like Willa’s teacher Ms. Juniper (Zibby Allen). But Willa just can’t figure out what the significance of the amulet is.

Wilma and Wanda aren’t giving up; they cook up a plan to invite Willa to a tea party to tell her about her mother, whom they knew back in the day. Willa brings Scout and Lucy; the witches try to lull the girls with (ugh) candy and chocolate, but Willa just wants to know about her mom. At that, the witches start to chase after the girls in order to corner Willa into handing them the amulet (it can’t be taken from her).

As the girls go through the creepy mansion, Willa finds a “hiding potion” that they take; it turns all three girls into cats. It eventually helps them get away — though the witches turn them back into girls first — Willa knows that they’ll see Wanda and Wilma again. When she gets home, she finds a note from her mother explaining exactly what the amulet is all about, especially the fact that Willa can only be a witch if she “believes in magic.”

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Even though it’s more witchy than ghostly, Scaredy Cats gives off a similar feel as the new Apple version of Ghostwriter.

Our Take: During the first few minutes of Scaredy Cats, created by Anna McRoberts and Robert Vince, we really thought we were in for 45 minutes of silly kid scariness. It just felt that all the performances, especially by the actors playing Wilma and Wanda. We figured the review would be along the lines of, “Well, this is something that the kiddies might like, but parents might want to scroll TikTok while it’s on.”

But, darn it if the show didn’t hook us in, even with it’s over-the-top kids’ show acting and silly situations. There’s two reasons why this works: One is that the scary visual effects actually are done with care and precision. The witches’ house and their spells actually look creepy-scary and not cheap; the talking pets and the transformed cats look well-integrated into the action.

The second is the performance of Reid-Gantzert as Willa. It’s a smart performance, slotted right in between precocious and silly, where she mostly acts like a real kid as she tries to figure out how to use these witchy powers her mom wrote about.

But as the story gets more involved, the goofiness of the characters get a bit more refined; even Willa’s candy purveyor dad Neil gets slightly less silly as the episode goes along. What we want to know is what he knew about his wife/Willa’s mom. Is he just playing coy to protect Willa? Or does he truly have no idea? And what exactly is Wilma and Wanda’s relationship to Willa’s mom?

We’re not expecting things to get super-dark, but it does help the viewing experience to know that there’s some dark-ish underpinnings to the story. Whether they get explored in any meaningful way is yet to be seen.

What Age Group Is This For?: Scaredy Cats is rated TV-G, but we’re not sure if the scares are going to be suitable to the really young crowd; kids 8 and up will likely enjoy this show the most.

Parting Shot: After Willa reads the note from her mother, the note flies out of her hand and becomes a map; she’ll need that to find her mother’s spell book.

Sleeper Star: While Michael Teigen is seriously goofy as Neil Ward, he also fills the role with the love and warmth that a single dad who runs a candy store should have.

Most Pilot-y Line: The cemetery worker who says, “Hey, stop!” to the witches as they look for the amulet by digging up a grave says his line with the conviction of a key grip who was recruited to say the line when the original actor called in sick.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Scaredy Cats is a goofy show that’s definitely kid oriented. But the story is interesting enough, and the VFX are good enough, that it should keep parents engaged while their kids watch.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Scaredy Cats On Netflix