Sonic's Scream Test

"Sonic's Scream Test" is the nineteenth episode of the anime series, Sonic X. It first aired on 10 August 2003 and 7 February 2004 in Japan and the United States respectively.

Appearances
Characters:
 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Amy Rose
 * Cream the Rabbit
 * Cheese
 * Christopher Thorndyke
 * Ella
 * Lindsey Thorndyke
 * Police officers
 * King Boom Boo
 * Boom

Japanese version

 * "SONIC DRIVE" - Opening theme
 * "The Shining Road" - Closing theme

English version

 * "Gotta Go Fast" - Opening theme (USA and CAN)
 * "Sonic X" - Opening theme (AUS, NZ and UK)
 * "Gotta Go Fast" (shortened) - Closing theme

Plot
The episode begins showing a castle in the middle of a lake. The camera explores the different rooms of the castle, and faint laughter can be heard. The laughing is suddenly interrupted by Sonic yawning. Chris' mother Lindsey is shooting a new movie and Sonic and friends are there, too. The movie director tells Lindsey that he would like to do the take over again. Ella appears by Chris, Amy and Tails all dressed up as a maid for a part in the movie. Lindsey redoes the take and meets over with Chris, Amy and Tails. She asks if his friends are there, not knowing that Amy and Tails were the ones she was mentioning. Tails exclaims that they were right there and Lindsey mistakes Tails as a person dressed up to look just like a fox. Tails asks if Chris told her that they were really animals, but Chris responds that his mother is clueless sometimes. Chris asks where Cream and Cheese is when the director says, "Rewind that!". On the camera screen of the scene shows two little heads poking over a bush: Cream and Cheese. The camera man says that they can just digitally edit them out. The director agrees and tells them to go to the next scene. Chris lets out a sigh of relief as he realizes that they have dodged a bullet.

Meanwhile, Sonic is exploring the interior of the castle. The filming crew are then ready to shoot the next scene. It goes into the camera's point of view as it follows Lindsey, who is running down the courtyard sidewalk. The camera hits something, which turns out to be a small statue of a Talisman on a pedestal. The camera man decides to move it out of the way but as he touches it, something starts to happen in the area of the castle were Sonic is. The camera man then changes his minds, and instead moves the camera behind the Talisman. Everything turns back to normal with Sonic, though he does show concern. As the scene gets refilmed again, the Talisman is still in the way, this time getting right in the middle of the shot. The camera man picks up the Talisman and puts it on the ground. Once again, something strange happens to Sonic, but when he looks around the room, he sees nothing.

That night, the crew does a scene in a dark corridor. As Lindsey passes a wall covered in strange symbols, the sound man says he hears a noise. Meanwhile, Sonic looks out over the courtyard from an upstairs window. The sound man says he can't find anything wrong on his end, and says they should refilm the scene again. They do, but the noise appears again. The director say decides to call it a day. In Lindsey's room, Lindsey is powdering her face when Chris arrived to say goodnight. Lindsey in turn gives him a big hug, and tells him to have sweet dreams and Chris leaves. Meanwhile, the sound man walks down the corridor with a sound detecting device, looking for the noise. Chris arrives in his room, but finds only Tails, who is on a bed reading. When he asks Tails, who is the only other person there, where everybody is, he replies that the girls (meaning Amy, Cream, and Cheese) are in Ella's room for a sleepover. Chris then asks about Sonic, and Tails says he's probably still exploring the castle and the grounds. Chris hopes Sonic doesn't get into any trouble, but as always with Sonic, trouble is not far behind.

Outside in the courtyard, Sonic is walking around and sees the pedestal that the Talisman statue had been on. He goes up to it, and then looks down and sees the Talisman that the camera man had put on the ground earlier that day. He picks it up and examines it. With the sound man, he is still walking the corridor when he finally finds the area where the noise was coming from. It was coming from the wall with the strange symbols on it. As he listens, the sound becomes clear: laughter. Behind him, a few ghosts appear, but disappear when he looks behind him. Lindsey, in her room, hears the laughter, and calls Chris' name, thinking that it was him. When it continues, she gets angry and stands up to face the door, saying that the "little joke" had gone far enough. The laughing stops, so she sits back down, and sees her reflection in the mirror. But it's not her reflection! It has her hair, shirt, and necklace, but instead of her normal face, the face is pure white, with large, circular red and yellow eyes and black pupils. Its mouth is open in a large grin, showing large, sharp black teeth. In a deep voice, it greets her. Lindsey screams.

Outside, Sonic looks at the Talisman. The one end of the Talisman has a crescent moon mark on it, and the other end has a sun mark on it. Back inside the castle, the crew is on a frantic search for Lindsey. Chris, Tails search outside, while Amy, Cream, Cheese and Ella search the inside. The four of them go down the hall with the strange symbols when Cheese hears something. Suddenly, the laughter from before starts. Ella finds the area where the laughter is coming from, and knocks on the wall, asking if Lindsey was there. Amy goes to get some help, but is stopped by a ghostly arm coming out of the wall.

Suddenly, more ghostly arms surround them. The four of them scream. Sonic hears them scream and goes off to find them, still holding the talisman. Chris and Tails reach them, but find that Cream and Cheese are missing. Amy hangs onto Ella's hand, which is halfway out of the strange, symbolic wall. The ghost arms disappear into the wall, The three of them pull on Ella's arm, trying to free her, but it is no use. Ella's arm is sucked into the wall. Sonic then appears, asking what had happened. Amy explains that they had been looking for Chris' mother when ghosts attacked them. Sonic says he does not believe in ghosts, but then some of the ghosts' heads poke out of the wall. Sonic kicks the wall hard, breaking it and revealing a large, purple-pink wall. Ghost arms reach out of the wall and grab at them.

Chris, Tails and Amy run, and Sonic tries to attack the hands, but they turn intangible, so his kicks are useless. Suddenly, Tails is grabbed by the ghosts and pulled into the wall. Sonic yells at the ghosts to bring him back, but they go after him next. He jumps into the air to dodge, but the hands grab him as well. They pull him towards the wall and Sonic throws the Talisman to Chris. The pieces of the outer wall start to piece themselves back together. Sonic explains that the Talisman fell off a pedestal outside and that it may have something to do with what was happening. The wall then seals him off, completing the outer wall. Amy then angrily strikes the wall repeatedly with her Piko Piko Hammer, yelling at the ghosts to give Sonic back.

The next morning, Amy and Chris find the pedestal Sonic told them about before he disappeared. Chris sees a script written on the top of the pedestal that says, "Appears under the moon. Disappears under the sun." He then hears wind, and then feels a draft coming from underneath the pedestal, and there may be a hidden passageway underneath it. Amy takes out her hammer and hits the side of the pedestal, making it move to the side and revealing stairs going down. Amy decides to go down to rescue Sonic, but Chris stops her, saying it could be dangerous. Amy says she knows, and continues to go down the stairs. Chris follows her. Going down the stairs, Amy says that she thought Chris was scared. Chris admits he is scared, and asks Amy if she is. She says,"No", but then a drop of water from the ceiling drips onto her shoulder, causing her to freak out.

The camera switches to where Sonic and the others who went missing laying on the ground unconscious, and behind them appears two small ghosts and King Boom Boo. Amy and Chris reach the bottom of the stairs, and Amy tells Chris that ghosts love it when they see people are scared, and to stay calm if they run into one. Chris says he will pretend like he doesn't notice them when the laughing starts again. They look around and see some ghosts flying towards them. They fly circles around them, and Amy grabs the Talisman and holds it up into the air. The ghosts freeze, then start flying away in a panic from the way they came.

After they are gone, Chris realizes that they must be afraid of it. Amy, feeling much braver, charges after the ghosts, with Chris running to catch up with her. They come to another room and see the ghosts go down some more stairs and through a door. With the missing, Sonic wakes up and sees King Boom Boo standing there. Amy and Chris go through the door the ghost went through, but for safety, they hold out the statue in case there are ghosts around. The room is empty and dark, except for a little light coming in from a small window. Amy starts calling Sonic's name and Sonic calls Amy and Chris's name.

They look up and see Sonic on the ceiling, with Lindsey, Ella and Tails visible behind him. Sonic tells them that there isn't much time and to listen to him. King Boom Boo speaks in Sonic's voice, and he says he's always loved Amy and to put the Talisman on the window. Amy goes to put the window when the real Sonic yells at her to not put the Talisman on the window, for that is how the ghosts get their power. Amy reaches the window, and the deep-voiced Sonic tells her to put it with the moon side facing up. Chris says it may not be a good idea, but Amy says that Sonic knows what he's doing. Amy puts the Talisman on the window and Sonic (at his normal voice), yells for her to not to do it.

The crescent moon on the Talisman glows, and in a flash of light, King Boom Boo appears with some of his ghosts. It is then revealed that it was he who pretended to be Sonic, and tricked Amy into putting the Talisman on the window. They laugh, and Amy attacks the ghosts. They disappear, making Amy go off balance. King Boom Boo then grabs her. Amy struggles and a Boom enters her body, making her pass out. King Boom Boo puts her on the ground and Chris runs up to her. Amy suddenly wakes up, her eyes now black, red and yellow and her mouth in a large grin with black, sharp teeth. She gets up, like a ragdoll, and levitates in the air as she is now possessed.

She says that they should stop interfering with their plans and starts to chase Chris with her Piko Piko hammer. Chris yells for Sonic to help him, but the only way is to get Sonic out of his prison. As Amy corners Chris, she gets ready to deliver a final blow when she stops, as if in fear. Behind him is the Talisman and he finally understands what the message on the pedestal meant. He picks up the Talisman, flips it over so the sun side is facing up and puts it back on the window sill. Sun-like light comes from tiles in the ceiling and Sonic is freed. He rushes over to Amy and gives a chop to her neck. Amy falls unconscious in his arms and the Boom leaves her body, turning her back to normal. Amy wakes up and hugs Sonic happily and the smaller ghosts attack them. Sonic attacks back, defeating some of the ghosts. He then charges at King Boom Boo. Some ghosts get ready to attack Amy, but she hits them into a wall instead.

Three more corner her and fuse together into a larger ghost. Amy gets in a fighting stance, and hits the ghost, causing it to crash into the opposite wall. Meanwhile, Chris wakes his mother up, who has also been freed, as well as Ella, Tails, Cream and Cheese. She gets up and asks how she was in that take. Clearly, she does not understand what's happening. Sonic tells Chris to get out while he deals with the ghosts. Tails throws Sonic a Ring, giving Sonic the power to use his Spin Attack on King Boom Boo. Chris grabs the Talisman, then he and the others leave as Sonic slams into King Boom Boo, slamming him into the wall. He then leaves to go catch up to his friends. When he does, he finds that they have not even made it halfway up the stairs. Suddenly, King Boom Boo bursts out of the wall and starts eating up the staircase. Sonic picks Lindsey up and starts running up the stairs towards the exit.

They all get outside and Amy hits the pedestal back into place. Chris puts the Talisman back on the pedestal, but instead of the sun side, it ended on the moon side, yet Sonic does not mind. Lindsey exclaims that that was fun, but she did not know it was a fantasy film that they were filming. Then the director, camera man and a police officer run up to them. When the director says that she had him worried, Lindsey asks why. The police explains that nobody has ever escaped from the ghosts before. Chris then says to the police officer "Who are they? Where did they all come from? The officer replies to Chris stating that there is a rumor that the place they are at sits on an ancient burial ground and that the original owner built the castle there. When he heard about the legend about ghosts living there, he laughed and said that they were nonsense. The man disappeared after the first night he stayed there, never to be seen again. The final thing the viewers see is two ghosts in one of the upper-story windows laughing.

Regional differences

 * The moon side of the Talisman had a star with the crescent which was removed in the American dub since it would cause outrage from the Islam/Muslim community.
 * Lindsey's ghostly reflection in the mirror originally said "Chris..." in a squeaky child's voice.
 * Just before Amy and Chris go back into the castle to rescue their friends, an 18-second scene of the police arriving and talking with the movie crew was cut from the dub.
 * After Amy screamed when a water droplet falls to her head, there was originally a 7-second scene where Amy was telling Chris that she would like to have her own apartment someday. This was removed from the dub.
 * After King Boom Boo was freed, he said "I love you, Amy!" in the Japanese version, and "Thank you, Amy!" in the English version.
 * The dub cuts out a shot where Sonic karate-chops the possessed Amy in the neck to get Boo out of her body.
 * Originally, at the end of the episode, the policeman told Sonic and his friends that he was told of the ghosts in the castle by his grandfather.
 * The following scenes have been cut/edited:

Trivia

 * The Australian DVD gives the name of this episode as "Scream Test".
 * In the film Lindsey is shooting, she is playing opposite a character named Brett; this may be a reference to Rhett Butler, the leading man in the novel and movie Gone with the Wind.
 * The movie clip that Cream and Cheese accidentally showed up in is played twice: once in the normal flow of events, and again when the director asks to rewind the clip. The first time it is played, Cream and Cheese do not appear, although the space where they are supposed to be is clearly shown; instead, there are several trees in the background. The second time, Cream and Cheese appear behind the bushes and the background is a blue sky. Also, Lindsey has visible tears the first time the clip is played, but not the second.
 * This episode brings back the hourglass (named the Talisman) that appeared in Sonic Adventure 2, which also played a pivotal point in the fight against King Boom Boo.
 * This is the third episode that Dr. Eggman does not appear in.
 * The Talisman was facing moon-side up when the cameraman first moved it, so although Chris says he messed up when he put it back, he may not have made a mistake after all.