by Nelson
Reader Beware; You’re in for a Scare!
Join us as DoubtFire ventures into the terrifying world of zombies, werewolves, egg monsters, and annoying siblings that is GOOSEBUMPS.
Return of the Mummy
Here’s the thing about Goosebumps sequels: they’re closer to being reboots than actual follow-ups. We got our first taste of this with Monster Blood II. It keeps the idea of slime that makes things grow, but it drops the deaf aunt and the cat-witch who were initially responsible for the stuff in the first place. Return of the Mummy doesn’t exactly drop anything from The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, but it does erase the memories of everyone but our main character and narrator, Gabe. It also seems like a slight attempt at course correcting. The original Mummy story wasn’t really about mummies, and they don’t even show up until the final act. Return lets the titular monster take center stage, and it’s all the better for it…..even if the story bears a very strong resemblance to Are You Afraid of the Dark’s “The Tale of the Guardian’s Curse.”
So Gabe is once again headed to Egypt to hang out with his favorite uncle and his favorite cousin who make a regular business out of picking on him. Even though he saved the day in the first story, Uncle Ben and Sari have forgotten this entirely and even make fun of him for his fixation on mummies thanks to their unseen encounter with the Men in Black’s memory wiping face slaps. Uncle Ben has found himself another pyramid to explore – this one containing the lost tomb of King Tut’s little cousin, Prince Kohr-Ru – and, of course, the place is a labyrinth full of false chambers and booby traps that’s far too dangerous for twelve-year-olds if they don’t stay close to the adults. And, of course, the second he takes the two kids into the pyramid, Uncle Ben gets ahead everyone; Gabe falls into a room full of spiders, and Sari hangs back to save him while her devoted father continues forward without looking back at the two pre-teens he’s supposedly so concerned about. But, this time out, getting lost in a pyramid is just a distraction from the sinister curse of Kohr-Ru.
Return of the Mummy seemingly takes Gabe’s “Summoner” – the dried up mummy hand that saved the day “last summer” (even though the first one actually took place over the Christmas holidays….) – out of commission when it “turns cold” once he arrives in Cairo. That’s okay, though, because Uncle Ben has a brand new gift for our hero. He hit up the Jurassic Park merchandise stand and grabbed one of those nifty insects encased in an amber pendant. Unlike the one in JP, Gabe gets a scarab instead of a mosquito. We find out that scarabs can either grant you immortality or death; middle ground is not their thing. We also meet a new character and potential new mother for Sari, Nila – the “really pretty” reporter who shows up to cover the big dig and win Uncle Ben’s heart. She’s got her own amber pendant, but it’s empty – which immediately makes one wonder why she’d buy and proudly show off damaged merchandise. Or maybe the empty pendant is something that’s going to come up later? Is that foreshadowing I smell, Mr. Stine?
Another character, Dr. Fielding, shows up for the traditional “We can’t open this, it’s cursed!”/”Superstition can’t stop us!” debate. He’s also this book’s decoy bad guy. Gabe and Sari just know that he’s up to no good right up until Nila reveals herself as the real villainess. Uncle Ben gets knocked out for the millionth time in the Goosebumps Mummy Saga, and Nila tells the kids that the Prince is her brother, and she’s real excited to finally revive him using the Summoner she stole from Gabe and chanting “Let me rest in peace” five times in Egyptian. Evidently, she’s never paid any mind to what “let me rest in peace” actually means, because Prince Kohr-Ru wakes up annoyed and goes right after his sister. A struggle ensues, and Gabe accidentally breaks Nila’s pendant in the process. That’s not so great for Nila because it turns out that she transforms into a scarab every night to sleep in the amber and retain her immortality. With nothing to return to, she immediately becomes a scarab and skitters away while the mummy drops lifelessly to the floor. Uncle Ben and the kids are saved, and Gabe is once again kinda/sorta the hero even though Kohr-Ru wasn’t actually threatening them and was, in fact, going after his evil sister. But, a win is a win, and Gabe is happy to take it. Until he hits the bed and gets bitten by Scarab Nila to end the story.
I don’t bring up the TV show much in these articles, but it bears mentioning that it didn’t even bother adapting The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb and jumped straight to the sequel. That really says it all. You don’t need the original. This is essentially the same story with less adventuring and more rotting skulls and supernatural hijinks. But, even though Return is more centered around the bandaged baddie than its predecessor, the mummy still winds up being fairly underwhelming. It doesn’t actually walk until the end, and, this time out, it never even threatens the good guys. Like so many other Goosebumps characters, Prince Kohr-Ru is just fed up with his sister.
She bent and struggled to pick up shards of amber from the floor. But the pendant had shattered into a hundred tiny pieces.
“My life!” Nila wailed, staring at the smooth pieces in her palm. She raised her eyes to Sari and me. “I lived inside the pendant!” she cried. “At night, I crept inside. It kept me alive for over four thousand years! And now… now… ohhhhh…”
As her voice trailed off, Nila began to shrink.
Her head, her arms, her entire body grew tinier… tinier… until she disappeared into her clothes.
And a few seconds later, as Sari and I gaped down in horror and shock, a black scarab crawled out from under the sweatshirt and jeans.
Doubtfire 