Horseland - Housesitting

Have you heard of a show called Horseland? If you haven't, I'll be glad to tell you all about it. Horseland is about a few pre-teens named Sarah, Molly, Alma, Chloe, Zoey and Bailey who have their own horses and go through some life situations.

I've been revisiting this show since Christmas day cause of one character I like the most, Sarah Whitney.

However, today you're going to hear about a lost episode I've seen recently. This episode traumatized me to the point I wasn't able to sleep for a night.

I was at home watching The Fox & The Hound on VHS. During the bear fight scene, my dad knocked on my door and then he entered. He told me that he knew about my interests in Horseland, and handed me a DVD. It was a DVD of the complete series. I thanked my dad for the gift and he closed the door on his way out.

I took a look at the DVD and apparently there was something I hadn't noticed before. Near the bottom right was a blue circle that said, "Disc 1 Includes A Never Before Seen Episode!"

I got interested in seeing this bonus episode so I inserted Disc 1 into my PlayStation 4 and sat back.

The DVD opening was overall normal including the previews that played.

So far, this DVD seemed normal as it cut straight to the menu. I selected Play and sat through the first few episodes of Disc 1. All of them were really good, except for this episode though.

Just like on some other lost episode DVD's, this next episode had a warning.

"This episode of Horseland was made by a man named Keith Thirtyacre before he was fired from Cookie Jar Entertainment in 2007 due to the horrifying nature you're about to see. It is strictly advised that children should not view this. Viewer discretion is advised."

"Here we go again!" I muttered.

The intro came on and it was completely normal. It then showed what would happen in today's episode. It looked like Sarah was watching over a house for a few days but someone has broken into the house.

The title of the episode was "Housesitting".

The episode started with Sarah and her horse Scarlet doing some training. As soon as their training was finished, Sarah took Scarlet back to her stall. Meanwhile, Molly was having a discussion with Chloe and Zoey about she and her family going on vacation for spring break.

Just then, Sarah greeted the 3 people with a friendly hello. She then told Molly that she heard what she said and had been dreaming about housesitting for a friend of hers.

"Housesit? What's that mean?" Molly asked.

Suddenly, Will came by and said, "Housesitting is where you stay at and look after a house while its owner is away. One of my friends housesitted before and they got paid 200 dollars."

"Oh, I see. Of course you can house sit, but first I'll need to talk to my dad to see if it's okay." Molly said while talking to Sarah.

Sarah then went over to Scarlet's horse stall and gave her some carrots and water. During the process, Molly walked over to Sarah and said, "My dad responded, he approves of you looking after the house."

"Sweet, when are you guys leaving?" Sarah asked.

"Tomorrow afternoon, see you then." Molly replied.

A time card appeared and it said, "The Next Day". Sarah was on a bus presumably on her way to Molly's house. She eventually arrived at her place and saw Molly and her family packing.

"Hello Mr. Washington." Sarah said. And just for some information, Washington is the last name of Molly.

"Ah Sarah, good to see you. Welcome, welcome!" Mr. Washington (Sarah's dad) said.

"So will I be getting paid for the days I look after your house sir?" Sarah asked.

"Yes indeed, I'll pay you 130 dollars for the stay, but that will be when we return home." Mr. Washington replied.

"Very well then. Would you show me around the house before you leave?" Sarah asked.

"Allow me to do that!" Molly replied.

Molly gave Sarah a tour of the house and showed her some rooms like the kitchen, the bathroom and the living room. She also told Sarah that she'll be sleeping in her bedroom for the stay.

At that moment, Molly's dad walked in and told that there's a room Sarah hadn't seen yet. Apparently it was a room with a computer surveillance system.

"We hooked this up 2 years ago just so we can make sure the house is safe from intruders." Mr. Washington said.

"But, what if someone does break in, does it have an alarm?" Sarah asked.

"Don't panic, if there's an emergency, you can call me or Molly at any time!" Mr. Washington replied.

It then went back to the farm where Shep, Teeny, Angora and the horses were. They were having a discussion about Sarah watching over a friends house for the week.

"Do you think Sarah will be okay?" Scarlet asked.

"Scarlet, I'm sure she'll be alright. Overall, it's just one week and everything will be normal again." Shep said.

After their conversation, it cut back to Sarah who was watching some TV in the living room. Apparently, something I noticed was that it was dark outside, meaning that night had come.

Sarah then turned off the TV and said, "I could use a shower!"

She got up, headed upstairs and into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Sarah put her hand through the shower water to check it's temperature. Before Sarah could take her clothes off, the house phone suddenly rang. So she headed back downstairs and went to answer it.

When she picked up the phone, Molly proceeded to tell Sarah that there have been some reports of burglars sneaking into peoples' homes so it probably would be best for Sarah to lock the doors.

Sarah told Molly that everything will be alright and she would start locking doors when she could.

After their conversation, Sarah went back to her shower. Soon after, she proceeded to lock the doors of the house and head to bed.

Another time card popped up and it read "2 Hours Later". Sarah was already fast asleep. However, the sound of wood breaking was heard in the distance. This woke Sarah and she proceeded to get a flashlight that was in Molly's room.

She then headed downstairs to see what the noise was about. The noises came from the kitchen. When Sarah aimed her flashlight at the thing making noises, it was no burglar! It looked more like a strange creature, and it's form looked entirely similar to a monster like alien.

For some reason, when the monster was revealed, a sound effect from The Shining which was the one where we see Jack Torrance frozen played, and that scared me due to it being unexpected.

Sarah wanted to gasp, but decided not to, as she thought it could trigger the monster to recognize her.

She quietly made her way while going up the stairs. She went to the room with the security cameras and looked at the kitchen. The creature looked like a tall black silhouette with teeth.

Sarah then went back to Molly's room while moving slowly. When she got back to the bedroom, she locked the door, grabbed her cellphone and got into the closet.

Apparently, she was going to call Molly about something strange happening in the house.

Molly was also asleep until her cell phone which wasn't introduced until Season 3 began ringing.

"Hello?" Molly said in a tired tone.

Sarah's voice was in a tone like she was going to cry. She said, "Molly, listen to me. While I locked the doors to the house like you said, a creature somehow got in."

Mr. Washington would wake up and recognize this. He asked who Molly was talking to and Molly said that it was Sarah. She allowed her dad to talk to Sarah and asked what was going on.

Sarah told the same thing to Molly's dad and he suggested that she call the police. Sarah said okay and hung up at that point.

After that, she rang up the police. Sarah described the situation to the police on the phone. The operator told Sarah to stay on the line, and also said that it'd be best to hide in the closet till the cops arrived.

Sarah was worried that it'd take forever for the cops to arrive at Molly's place. What happened next was rather disturbing as hell.

As Sarah stared at the walls of the closet, she heard the sound of something enter through the door. She looked through the peephole of the closet and saw the same creature.

During this scene, the operator was asking if Sarah was okay.

"It's in the bedroom, please hurry!" Sarah said in a sorrowful whisper tone.

"I need you to relax and calm down. Do you have any weaponry on you?" The operator asked.

"No!" Sarah said, still whispering.

For some reason, the operator stopped speaking as I could hear what sounded like the phone had been hung up. Sarah got terrifyingly worried and tried redialing the number but they wouldn't answer like they knew Sarah was going to die and the police would be too late to save her.

In fact, I was also able to hear the message that plays when a number has been disconnected. The message said, "We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording an error, please check the number and try your call again.

Just then, the creature knew what sounds Sarah was making and ran automatically to the closet door.

It then showed a POV of Sarah trying to get away from the creature. She eventually got out of the room by smacking the creature on the eye. Before Sarah reached the stairs, she suddenly fell down on the floor.

One thing for sure, the creature would catch up to Sarah and kill her. And I was right. The creature came out of Molly's room and began to run towards Sarah. The monster was making a demonic roar while approaching Sarah.

The screen cut to black with Sarah screaming in agony as she gets struck by the creature, and there was also the sound of bones being broken off, blood splattering and flesh being ripped off.

I was shocked by this scene, knowing that Sarah would never be saved.

It stayed like this for about 7 seconds before showing Horseland again during the daytime. Chloe and Zoey were having a discussion about how their spring break is going during their time at Horseland.

"Guys, quick, there's something on the news! Hurry!" Bailey shouted.

Alma, Chloe, Zoey and Will went over to the house to see what was going on.

On the TV, a news reporter said, "We are currently receiving word that a mysterious creature broke into the Washington residence last night and murdered 12-year-old Sarah Whitney, who was proclaimed by Molly Washington to be housesitting. We'll have more information on this shortly."

Alma gasped when she heard that Sarah had been murdered.

"Oh no, this is terrible." Alma said in a sorrowful tone.

"Do you think maybe she got taken to the hospital?" Will asked.

"Unfortunately, no." Molly said, walking in. "The creature ate her up like a turkey on thanksgiving or Christmas."

Meanwhile, it showed the barn where the horses and the other animals looked rather sad. "I really am going to miss Sarah." Scarlet said.

"Me too. I think housesitting at night isn't what people should do." Teeny said.

Before the episode ended, it zoomed out of the barn as I can hear Shep say a quote that was actually from Stephen King. He said, "Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."

"Or do they?" Scarlet said, before the screen cut to black.

It then cut to the credits, but with a big change. Rather than being the instrumental version of the Horseland theme song, it was instead For The Damaged Coda by Blonde Redhead for some reason.

At that point, I got up to take the disc out. I had some thoughts on smashing the disc that had the missing episode on it, but there was a whole lot of other episodes on that DVD so I spared it's life.

Later that night, I couldn't sleep which was hard to do. So I got on my laptop and wrote an email to the series creator Andy Heyward about what I had just witnessed.

The next day, I got a response from him which said that Keith Thirtyacre made the episode after he lost one of his friends to a housesitting incident a long time ago.

I did eventually get some sleep the next night, but I was having some nightmares about being with Sarah Whitney and getting killed by the creature.

I still enjoy Horseland to this day and always will. Just note that it's best to stay away from lost episodes.

The End.