Hail to the Queen: The Mary Lou Prom Night Sequels

by Nelson

I always knew there were sequels to Prom Night – a standard fare 80s slasher that featured Jamie Lee Curtis, an annoyingly catchy song, and an elaborate dance routine – I just never had enough interest in the original to look into the follow-ups. I don’t know what compelled me to check out Prom Night II recently. Maybe it was random. Maybe it was fate. Actually, scratch the maybes. It was fate. I thought I loved horror. I thought I loved silly horror. How could I have known what I was missing out on? I hate to admit that it’s true, but I went all these years without Mary Lou. 

Mary Lou Maloney was a rebel without a cause. Someone who dared to challenge antiquated, rigid social norms. Someone who went to confession just to brag to the priest about her sexual escapades while scrawling her phone number in the booth. And she loved every minute of it. She’s named the 1957 Hamilton High Prom Queen on the same night that her boyfriend, Billy (played in adult form by Michael Ironside!) catches her cheating on him while simultaneously guzzling whiskey out of a flask. Sadly, her fun comes to an abrupt halt when the jilted ex sets her on fire with a misplaced stink bomb right in the middle of her crowning ceremony. So much for seeing her at the party, Richter. The queen goes up in flames because the whole “stop, drop, and roll” thing seemingly didn’t exist in the 50s and because no one, literally no one, in a packed gym does a damn thing about the burning girl onstage.

Thirty years go by, and the same kid who got away with roasting his date has grown up to become the school principal. While that may seem strange, it’s totally normal compared to the school’s decision to load up all of Mary Lou’s prom gear in a trunk and store it in the “prop closet.” I wish my school had a prop closet. Anyway, Mary Lou’s vengeful spirit is freed from her trunk tomb when Vicki Carpenter opens it in search of a dress for her senior prom because her mother refused to buy her one. Fortunately for her, the best prom dresses are always locked away in the prop closet. 

From there, the spirit of the barbecued prom queen wreaks havoc on Hamilton – hanging a girl with her stylish royal cape and tormenting Vicki with an evil rocking horse so terrifying that it is capable of driving you mad if you stare at it too long. Poor Vicki winds up being pulled into a chalkboard/swimming pool portal – allowing Mary Lou to possess her. This leads to even more crazy antics like naked locker room stalking and making out with her dad while her overly religious mother looks on and wishes that she’d just sprung for a new prom dress earlier in the movie because, if she had, her daughter never would have opened the damn prop trunk to begin with. Vicki Lou also keeps the hellish rocking horse. And lovingly caresses it. 

Vicki Lou rigs the prom queen vote in an effort to fulfill the moment of glory she was so cruelly denied back in ‘57, but she’s gunned down in the middle of the crowning ceremony by Principal Ironside. That’s right. Hamilton High’s principal opens fire on a high school senior just as she’s being named queen of the prom. Before anyone has a chance to process what they’ve just witnessed, the actual Mary Lou emerges from Vicki’s corpse and goes Carrie on the gymnasium. Ironically enough, her murderous rampage is more justified than Carrie’s. Carrie just got some blood spilled on her. Mary Lou’s boyfriend got mad and set her on fire. 

Prom Night II’s conclusion has zero regard for logic or coherency. Billy crowns and kisses Mary Lou – giving her what she was robbed of by his vengeful teenaged angst all those years ago. This…makes her happy, and she goes away. You’ve got to appreciate those evil spirits you can satisfy with a kiss. Vicki reappears in the costume trunk that started all this mess, leaving one to wonder what happened to the corpse in the gym, but, hey, it’s a happy ending…..until Billy reveals that he’s been possessed by Mary Lou and drives off with Vicki and her boyfriend in the back of his car in an ending ripped straight out of A Nightmare on Elm Street. 

The movie’s ending isn’t all that’s Elm Street-esque. Hello Mary Lou borrowed several elements from the man of everyone’s dreams – from the death by fire to the surreal, nightmarish imagery, and a possession plot that makes me giggle when I picture how the Walsh family would’ve handled Vicki’s otherworldly ordeal. 

If Prom Night II is the Nightmare on Elm Street of the series, then Prom Night III: The Last Kiss is the Freddy’s Dead. And, like Freddy’s Dead, it’s absolutely glorious. 

The movie kicks off with Mary Lou as a member of the “forced to dance on hot coals for all eternity” chain gang in Hell. This seems a little cruel and unusual, but, then again, that rocking horse had the potential to undo the fabric of reality. Anyway, thanks to her trusty nail file, Hamilton High’s favorite student escapes her ironic afterlife punishment and returns to her old stomping grounds ready to creatively murder students and faculty for the fun of it. There’s no revenge plot here. Mary Lou just likes killing people. She also wants a new boyfriend because she really just wants to be loved (and who can blame her considering her last relationship), and, after a chance hookup with a dejected senior named Alex, the gymnasium monarch becomes his ride or die – with a big emphasis on “die.” 

The Last Kiss goes hard with the comedy, and it’s all the better for it. If a science teacher being murdered by ice-cream cones isn’t must-see material for you, then I’m guessing you’re one of those people who drinks non-alcoholic beer and decaffeinated coffee. Ms. Maloney manifesting a killer ice-cream stand in the middle of Mr. Walker’s Biology lab to pay him back for giving Alex an F is enough to elevate a mere movie into Film territory, but, when she drags the school guidance counselor into a beauty shop and dumps battery acid on her head, you’ve got a genuine cinematic masterpiece on your hands. Oddly enough, a ghost girlfriend comes with perks and benefits that Sarah, Alex’s living girlfriend, can’t compete with. Not only do Alex’s grades improve, Mary Lou manages to somehow make him faster and better at football. Then she handles the team bully by throwing him a football that turns into a big corkscrew midair and leaves the kid literally screwed to the goal post. Did I mention that she’s wearing a football uniform when she does this? ‘Cause she is. 

For some reason, Alex thinks the best way of handling the mounting corpses is burying them in the football field, but the whole thing blows up in his face when he makes the tragic mistake of breaking things off with his ghostly gal. The bodies are discovered, and things go rapidly downhill for the unappreciative, gaslighting chauvinist. Mary Lou even appears on television as a reporter on the local news just to inform Alex that he’s taking the blame for the murders right before he’s carted off to prison. Then, Prison Guard Mary Lou helps him escape. This movie is amazing. 

• 

• 

Everything culminates in a conclusion so insane that you’ll be thinking about it and wondering why a blowtorch is an effective weapon against the armies of Hell for the next five years. Alex agrees to join Mary Lou for all eternity, and she takes him to an evil version of Hamilton High. Sarah follows to try and set him free and get rid of her undead competition with the aforementioned Holy Blowtorch, but her efforts ultimately don’t pay off. There’s a quick victory fakeout, and the seemingly reunited couple hotwire a car and try to drive it out of the underworld, but, just as they realize that they’re trapped in 1957, Mary Lou pops up in the back seat and kills Sarah. Not everyone has what it takes to be queen. 

R.L. Stine Killed Me – The Twisted Terror of Give Yourself Goosebumps

by Nelson ft. Amanda

Give Yourself Goosebumps offered readers an experience they didn’t know they wanted but couldn’t possibly pass up: the opportunity to live a Goosebumps story! This spinoff choose-your-adventure series gave YOU, yes you, the chance to encounter purple peanut butter, beastly babysitters, and knights in screaming armor who can’t wait for you to make a bad choice! 

Amanda and I will read each book separately and report back with all the grisly, gruesome, and grimy details of our adventures.  

Give Yourself Goosebumps #6 – Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter

Premise:

Your parents went to Europe for a “business trip,” so you’re off to spend the summer with your Uncle Harvey and Aunt Fiona because getting shipped off to stay with relatives while your parents party it up in another country is a harsh but firm Goosebumps rule. Your aunt and uncle aren’t so bad, but your two cousins are nightmares spawned from the depths of Hell. Your older cousin Barney is obsessed with “pounding” you at every turn, and your younger cousin Dora is a perpetual pest who lives to tell on you for the slightest indiscretions. In a nutshell, you’re spending the summer with the classic Stine mean older sibling and annoying younger sibling at the same time. Fun!

The ball gets rolling pretty quickly in this one. Your aunt and uncle give you the obligatory “don’t go in this room!” warning about the basement before they head into town – leaving you to play Cousin Barney’s unique brand of hide and seek. He gets to pound you if he finds you! Will you break the only house rule and hide in the basement? Of course you will! The book doesn’t have time for a goody-two shoes who follows the rules. You realize that you haven’t eaten since breakfast, but, conveniently enough, there’s an old refrigerator in the basement that contains a jar of purple peanut butter and a slice of chocolate cake baked by the fine folks at Effy’s Bakery in Midvale. So what’s it gonna be, the cake or the peanut butter? 

Nelson’s Story:

I’m not really into sticking my hand into a jar of purple stuff and eating it. A spoon or a box of crackers would have been nice, but, with neither of these things available, I went for the cake. I mean, I was supposed to beware the purple peanut butter, right? Anyway, the cake tasted bad, but what can you expect from mysterious basement food you find in a mysterious basement fridge? Nothing seemed amiss at first. In fact, things seemed to be going really well for me. I backed Barney down with just one punch, scared Dora away with a shout that was much louder than I intended, and managed to hit my first ever homerun. For some reason, I no longer knew my own strength. Hmmmmm……

My homerun led to brief encounter with the police because they arrived mere moments after the baseball crashed through a window. Cops in this town have nothing to do. Oddly enough, they congratulated me and headed off – making me wonder why they bothered showing up at all. Anyway, it was pretty neat being strong, but I couldn’t deny that something was a little off after my toes burst through my shoes. Of course, the cake made me grow. What a neat idea that I’ve never encountered in a book with R.L. Stine’s name on the cover. For some reason, I decided that going back to the basement fridge and eating the jar of purple peanut butter was the best way of solving my plight. And by “I decided,” I mean that the book gave me no option. I ate the perplexingly purple peanut paste hoping that it would somehow restore me to my normal size. But guess what? It only made matters worse. I started growing uncontrollably and barely made it out the basement window before I became a modern day Goliath. 

So I was a giant, and everyone was terrified of me. For some reason, they insisted I was an alien – which I didn’t’ really appreciate all that much. Can’t people tell the difference between a gargantuan and an extraterrestrial? Buncha ignorant imbeciles. Anyway, I wound up being pursued by the cops and decided that the best place to hide out was the town circus. I got mistaken for The Amazing Strongo and was forced to hit the stage and show off my superhuman strength by picking up Dodo the elephant. I managed to pull off this amazing feat because the book asked me if I could do five pushups, and, by golly, I can! The elephant act came to an abrupt halt when someone in the crowd recognized me as “the alien,” and the chase was back on. I was desperate. There was only one thing I could do. It was time to hit up Effy’s Bakery in Midvale. 

My newfound elephant pal held off the cops while I hit the road for Midvale. I met the kindly old Effy at the bakery, and she revealed that the chocolate cake of doom was intended for a customer who wanted to grow, but they moved away and it wound up in the fridge in my aunt and uncle’s basement. Or something. Luckily for me, Effy was willing to whip up a new cake that would restore me to my original size and put this whole nightmare behind me. Unluckily for me, she made the cake in a dumpster because a super big guy like me needed a super big cake. If you need a super big cake, you’ve got to make it in a dumpster. It’s a rule. 

I ate my dumpster cake, shrank to my original size, and headed home with an honest to goodness happy ending. Of course I had to be hospitalized the next day thanks to eating out of a garbage receptacle, but at least no one thought I was an alien anymore.  

Amanda’s Story:

I chose the purple goop, which tasted like peanut butter and chocolate and was very satisfying. However, my enjoyment was short-lived. Dora found me and demanded I play with her, or she’d tell on me. I’ve never minded playing with children, but if she was going to be rude about it, it was going to be a hard no. She called her brother to get back at me, so to avoid my pounding I hid in the refrigerator. And that is where my life ended. In a refrigerator.  

Well, there you have it. I had a fun adventure running from cops, joining the circus, and eating cake out of the trash, but my wife wound up dying in a refrigerator before she got ten pages into her adventure. These books offered kids a harsh lesson about the unforgiving nature of the world around them. They may seem silly, but I can assure you my wife isn’t going to be trying to hide in any refrigerators anytime soon. Thanks, R.L, Stine! 

Funnily enough, Purple Peanut Butter is one of the Goosebumps titles that’s 100% confirmed to have been ghostwritten – which means that someone knew the most surefire way to imitate Stine was to write a story about eating things that make kids grow or shrink. 

R.L. Stine Killed Me – The Twisted Terror of Give Yourself Goosebumps

by Nelson ft. Amanda

Give Yourself Goosebumps offered readers an experience they didn’t know they wanted but couldn’t possibly pass up: the opportunity to live a Goosebumps story! This spinoff choose-your-adventure series gave YOU, yes you, the chance to encounter purple peanut butter, beastly babysitters, and knights in screaming armor who can’t wait for you to make a bad choice! 

Amanda and I will read each book separately and report back with all the grisly, gruesome, and grimy details of our adventures.  

Give Yourself Goosebumps #5 – Night in Werewolf Woods

Premise:

It’s summer vacation, and that means one thing: it’s time for the annual family trip to WoodsWorld – a cabin community deep, deep in the woods. Right next to Deep Woods Lake. Because we’re deep, deep in the woods. Ordinarily, this is the highlight of your year, but, for some reason, your parents decided to ruin the vacation by bringing their best friends, the Morrises, along for the trip. That means you get to hang out with undisputed king of nerds, Todd. He collects pewter figures and brings a tin box full of them everywhere he goes. You hate Todd because you aren’t a nerd. You don’t care for pewter figurines because you’re too cool for that, and you just know that all the other kids at WoodsWorld are going to hate him. They might even think you’re a nerd by association, and you can’t have that. Especially not when the big Kid’s Only Campfire is tonight! Only the coolest kids go to the Kid’s Only Campfire.

Todd falls victim to the Jess, Buck, and Sharky Murphy the minute he gets out of the car. The Murphy brothers are the bullying redheads of WoodsWorld. Guess why they call him Sharky? ‘Cause “getting into a fight with Sharky is like trying to survive a shark attack.” The other two brothers don’t have cool names. Or serve any real purpose to the story. The Murphys steal the tin of precious pewters and run off, and it’s up to you to try and get it back. You head to the big campfire just in time to for Sharky’s spooooky story about the Wolves of WoodsWorld. You’ve got to be careful when the full moon is out because the kid you thought was your friend might just be a hungry werewolf! After the story, you overhear the Murphys discussing their super cool “bury a box of pewter figures in the woods” prank. You’ve got the info you need, but it’s getting late, and there’s a full moon. Are you going to risk the impending werewolf threat and search tonight, or wait until tomorrow?! 

Nelson’s Story:

It’s a werewolf book, so I figured I better go all in and not risk Stine making fun of my cowardice before turning me into a bird. The first thing I discovered was a poem taped to a rock warning me that I only had until midnight to find the stolen figures. Did the Murphy brothers leave this for me? They didn’t exactly seem like fans of poetry, but how else would they know I was out looking for my nerdy friend’s nerdy box of nerdiness? Anyway, Todd immediately appeared and joined the search, and we wandered into a cave. We could hear horrible howling and growling and other wolf noises coming from deep inside, so we decided to make like trees and get out of there. Unfortunately, this was when I learned the horrible secret of WoodsWorld: the light of the full moon has the power to transform anyone into a werewolf…..even Todd! Or was he a werewolf the whole time? The book doesn’t say. 

I managed to tackle Todd and drive him back into the shadows before he went full-wolf on me, but the horrible howling we’d heard in the cave was getting closer and closer. What could I do? How would we survive? Thanks to correctly answering a question about The Werewolf of Fever Swamp, I realized that the best solution to being howled at is howling right back. And running. And falling into a bottomless pit while a pack of werewolves closed in on us. 

As Todd and I came to terms with an eternity of plummeting into darkness, we managed to be rescued by a friendly pterodactyl. They’re the dolphins of bottomless pits. The Jurassic hero dropped us off on a ledge and flew away, and, before we had a chance to process what just happened, we found ourselves facing a big elevator operated by a guy who started to turn into a werewolf the second we got on-board. I had one shot to press one of the two elevator buttons: STOP or GO? I figured I might as well press GO and keep up with the adventurous choices because, hey, maybe I’d get to see a T-Rex. 

This choice brought my wacky adventure to a pretty satisfactory conclusion. The book complimented my bravery in the face of unyielding horror before revealing that the button I’d pressed was a button on my alarm clock! It was alllllll a dream. My parents and I were headed to WoodsWorld that morning….without Todd! Hooray! Instead of learning a valuable lesson about how nerdy kids are people too, I got to have an awesome vacation without poor Todd and his pewter figures getting in the way. 

Amanda’s Story:

I decided to wait until the morning to look for Todd’s box, but, of course, the werewolves sent a rock through our window with a poem attached. If we didn’t look for the box tonight, it’d be too late. 

We met up with Lauren Woods. Her parents own WoodsWorld – which means that WoodsWorld is in the woods and owned by the Woods family. Neat. It didn’t take long for Lauren to stumble over some piles of freshly dug dirt. We realized that someone recently buried something, so we dug up two boxes that looked a lot like Todd’s. They weren’t his, but they did seem interesting. One was labeled “SUPER-STRENGTH BOX” and the other “SMARTS BOX.” Before we had a chance to look inside, a werewolf burst through a wall of bushes, and I only had time to open one. Super-strength seemed helpful in this case. 

The box was full of “ordinary-looking Oat O’s cereal.” I ate a handful and developed some serious muscle mass that ripped my shirt. I was able to lift the werewolf with one finger and send him flying somewhere far away into the woods. Unfortunately, a troll showed up, and I no longer trust trolls. So, there’s no way this was going to be a good thing.

He let us know that he was the Master of the Boxes, and that I was now his slave. I tried to hit him with a branch, but he turned me back to my normal size and ordered me back to my cabin. Todd begged me not to leave them, but the troll started mocking him and being silly by changing sizes and jumping around. Little did he know that I was only pretending to head back to the cabin. I’d secretly stuffed the off-brand Cheerios in my ears, so I couldn’t hear my troll master’s orders. I managed to trap him in a box by taking advantage of his size-changing. 

Then, the Murphys appeared, and I offered them some of my cereal. They were super excited to accept the cereal since it was “free.” I don’t think I’d be too willing to take someone’s random Night Cheerios, but I too enjoy free stuff. They packed on their muscle, and Sharky hoisted Todd up in the air. I told the bullies that they could have Todd and the super cereal. Sharky put Todd down as I handed over the box, and the three of us got out there. 

From a distance, we could hear the troll asking the Murphy’s where they buried Todd’s pewter figures. He wanted to be the master of Todd’s box, too. Jeez. It turned out that the Murphy’s didn’t bury the pewter figures. They’d stashed them in a tree! The troll shrank the brothers and made his way up the tree to get Todd’s tin, but we managed to shake the box loose before he could get it. Todd grabbed the box, and we ran back to our cabin…knowing full well that troll would be coming for us. 

After the disappointing Dr. Eeek affair, Night in Werewolf Woods was absolutely reinvigorating. The fact that a story promising lycanthropic lunacy managed to work in underground dinosaurs and a troll who loves boxes is a testament to how much fun these books can be. And we both made it through the whole thing without being transformed into anything. That’s a big win.  

R.L. Stine Killed Me – The Twisted Terror of Give Yourself Goosebumps

by Nelson ft. Amanda

Give Yourself Goosebumps offered readers an experience they didn’t know they wanted but couldn’t possibly pass up: the opportunity to live a Goosebumps story! This spinoff choose-your-adventure series gave YOU, yes you, the chance to encounter purple peanut butter, beastly babysitters, and knights in screaming armor who can’t wait for you to make a bad choice! 

Amanda and I will read each book separately and report back with all the grisly, gruesome, and grimy details of our adventures.  

Give Yourself Goosebumps #4 – The Deadly Experiments of Dr. Eeek

Premise:

Your mom is a scientist – which immediately raises all sorts of red flags because we all know what kinds of kooky things can happen when scientists show up in R.L. Stine books. She could be turning herself into a plant or engineering giant fish in a bizarre plot to end world hunger. Unfortunately, you’ve got no idea what your mother does. All you know is that she’s just started a new job at Eeek Laboratories, and you and your best friend Sam are there to meet her because she promised to take you guys to the movies. Even though a receptionist with weird eyebrows asks you to take a seat in the waiting room, you and Sam can’t bear the wait and decide to check the place out as soon as the only adult in the room leaves. Of course, you can’t go exploring on an empty stomach. While making a quick stop at the snack machine, a chimpanzee shows up and insists that you pick out his favorite candy bar. Then he eats it. So much for your quick snack. After feeding the chimp, he motions for you to follow him. But will you?! 

Nelson’s Story:

How could I not follow a friendly monkey? He led Sam and I to a lab where we met one of Dr. Eeek’s assistants, Professor Yzark. After formally introducing me to Oscar, the candy bar munching chimp, Yzark was eager to show us the super cool experiments everyone was working on and led us to a windowed room full of chimps solving puzzles and playing video games and doing all sorts of impressive things. He offered to let us go in and check it out, but this seemed like a horrible idea that would lead to awful consequences. I wasn’t about to risk turning into a chimpanzee after last week’s adventure as a vampire bat. So I made up an excuse to get us out of there. Surprisingly enough, Yzark was totally fine with this. As a matter of fact, it was for the best because my mom actually *just* called with instructions for us to take Oscar home and wait for “someone” to come pick him up. I guess the trip to the movies was a clever façade.

Back at the house, Oscar threw pineapple yogurt all over the walls and swung from our chandeliers. Yeah. We’ve got chandeliers. When your mom is a scientist, luxuries like pineapple yogurt and living room chandeliers are commonplace. Sam and I chased the chimp around the house until we were interrupted by a knock at the door. I was greeted by a shirtless teenager with “sun streaked brown hair and a broad, tanned chest.” Oscar eagerly leapt into his arms, and the duo hopped in a jeep and sped off. As they left, I managed to catch a glimpse of a vanity license plate with one simple word that explained everything while explaining nothing at all: T A R Z A N.

Amanda’s Story:

My story was very similar to Nelson’s. I chose to go in the room with the chimpanzees while at the same time hoping they wouldn’t rip my face off. As soon as Sam and I entered, Oscar locked us in. The chimps quit playing video games and reading and stared at us. Then we saw Oscar in the other room put on a lab coat and give the professor a treat for being a good boy. The professor then got into a cage for his nap time. Then, I just happened to notice that there were other cages with people in them too, but I somehow didn’t notice that before. I’m not a very observant kid. I never heard from or saw my mom again. I have been doomed to have my brain studied by chimpanzees, but at least I can look forward to getting a treat every now and again. 

Sadly enough, neither one of us managed to get much of a story this time around. I gave it another go and realized that the crucial decision of the book is whether or not you want to follow Oscar or go back to the waiting room. Following Oscar results in one of the two insta-endings Amanda and I got – depending on whether or not you agree to go in the room with the chimps. I considered going back and trying to score a longer story for this week’s article, but that’d be cheating, and we don’t believe in cheating at DoubtFire…..even if Stine kinda/sorta jipped us this time around. These books usually shame you for making the “safe” choice. To quote a legendary salesman of propane and propane accessories: Dirty pool, mister. Dirty pool. 

R.L. Stine Killed Me – The Twisted Terror of Give Yourself Goosebumps

by Nelson ft. Amanda

Give Yourself Goosebumps offered readers an experience they didn’t know they wanted but couldn’t possibly pass up: the opportunity to live a Goosebumps story! This spinoff choose-your-adventure series gave YOU, yes you, the chance to encounter purple peanut butter, beastly babysitters, and knights in screaming armor who can’t wait for you to make a bad choice! 

Amanda and I will read each book separately and report back with all the grisly, gruesome, and grimy details of our adventures.  

Give Yourself Goosebumps #3 – Trapped in Bat Wing Hall

Premise:

You’ve moved to a new town and a new school, and no one in your class likes you or even notices you. It’s a shame, too, because “you know you’re cool,” and, by golly, you are! This town is full of a bunch of snobby kids. Just when you’re ready to commit to a life of splendid isolation, you meet Nick – your neighbor who lives in a house that you’re absolutely sure was abandoned when you moved in. That’s not odd or suspicious at all, and there’s no sense in thinking about it too much because Nick invites you to join the Horror Club! 

The club meets every Friday night in Bat Wing Hall – a creepy old mansion once owned by a creepy old guy named Professor Krupnik – where they tell spine-chilling stories and play spooky games. Unfortunately, you show up on game night and find yourself roped into a competition called “The Hunt.” It sounds sinister, but it’s really just a scavenger hunt for scary stuff. One of the club members warns you to get out while you still can, but you disregard her because you’re a strangely judgmental kid who thinks she’s gross when you see her chewing on her hair. The club splits into two teams, and it’s up to YOU which one to join…Red or Blue? 

Nelson’s Story:

Of course I picked blue. It’s Cobra Commander’s favorite color. This put me on a team with a “beautiful girl with long blond hair and green eyes” named Lara. She must be some kind of looker for Stine to pull out an adjective like “beautiful” when “pretty” is his usual go-to word for attractive girls. I didn’t get a chance to get to know Lara, though, because the team immediately directed me to a cemetery on the property and insisted that I had to do my scavenging there since I was the new kid in the club. 

I discovered Professor Krupnik’s crypt. There was a big stone ring that I needed to turn to get inside, but there was a warning chiseled on it: “Who turns the stone will grow bat bones.” I knew exactly where this was going, but it was too late to turn back. I went inside and found absolutely nothing. At all. Just bats. I left to find the rest of my team only to find that they’d all gone home and abandoned me. They probably realized what an overly critical creep I was. 

I went home, went to bed, and woke up as a bat. I knew it. You got me, R.L. Stine. You turned me into an animal. A bat, at that. Great. 

I flew back to the crypt in search of a cure – passing up any opportunity to try and ask people for help because I’ve read enough Goosebumps books to know that it won’t turn out well for me. Back in the crypt, my super cool bat senses spotted a crack in the floor with another inscription: “Who enters here will be –.” The last part of the writing is missing, but, hey, it probably said “transformed back into a judgy twelve-year-old.” I dove in and began plummeting helplessly through darkness. I was a kid again, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. Being able to fly is a handy way to avoid falling to your death, after all. 

I landed on a big patch of moss in a swampy area and followed a path that led me to a big building….the Monster Library!! Inside, I was greeted by shelf after shelf packed full of monstrous books like Dracula, Frankenstein, and….Godzilla! Before I got the chance to take in the news that Godzilla was apparently based on a novel, an eight-foot-tall, two-headed literary scholar walked up to me. After a brief conversation, he offered to help me find my way home, but only after I finished reading him every book in the library! That’ll take….FOREVER!!!!

But at least I’ll get a chance to read that Godzilla book.

Amanda’s Story:

I chose red even though I seemed to dislike the whole team. I even made a mental note that one of my teammates stank. Still, I wasn’t ready to abandon the people who invited me into their club. 

Once the Blue Team left, my team started ripping off their faces to reveal they were really monsters in kid costumes. They told me I had to participate in the scavenger hunt and find a huge list of stuff before midnight or I’d turn into a monster myself. 

I decided to look upstairs first, but I ended up stuck in a force field until 1 minute after midnight. I never got to find out what sort of monster I turned into which was a little disappointing, but not quite as disappointing as my adventure being cut short thanks to a totally random force field.

That’s just the nature of these books. I got a fun adventure full of twists, turns, and the revelation that monsters just love reading, but Amanda managed to find herself in one of the series’ notorious, completely unfair abrupt endings. The Horror Club is the worst club ever. 

R.L. Stine Killed Me – The Twisted Terror of Give Yourself Goosebumps

by Nelson ft. Amanda

Give Yourself Goosebumps offered readers an experience they didn’t know they wanted but couldn’t possibly pass up: the opportunity to live a Goosebumps story! This spinoff choose-your-adventure series gave YOU, yes you, the chance to encounter purple peanut butter, beastly babysitters, and knights in screaming armor who can’t wait for you to make a bad choice! 

Amanda and I will read each book separately and report back with all the grisly, gruesome, and grimy details of our adventures.  

Give Yourself Goosebumps #2 – Tick Tock, You’re Dead

Premise:

Your family decides to spend Christmas vacation in New York City! Unfortunately, your family is absolutely awful. Mom and Dad’s idea of a good time consists of hanging out in the Museum of Natural History, and your little brother Denny’s favorite phrase is “You’re not the boss of me!” He says this a lot because your parents insist on asking you to keep an eye on him even though Denny couldn’t give the slightest bit of a damn about anything you say.

You’re forced to chase your little brother through the museum. In the process, you meet Dr. Peebles and his super amazing time travel experiment. He mistakes you for a volunteer, slaps a weird looking stopwatch – the “chronometer” around your neck, and tells you to get ready for some super amazing adventures through time! Just when you’re about to play Marty McFly to Peeble’s Doc Brown, Denny shows up, jumps in the time machine, and disappears. Now you’ve got to go after him before he “disappears into timelessness forever!” But did Denny travel to the past or the future?

Nelson’s Story:

The back of the book mentioned something about dealing with dinosaurs, and that was more than enough to make my decision for me. I went to the future. I’m not going to risk R.L. Stine putting me in his kooky version of Jurassic Park.

As soon as I arrived, I was faced with another big decision: Did I want to head into the mysterious looking Future City or explore a mundane and decidedly non-futuristic New York? New York seemed safer, and I caught a glimpse of some kid who looked like Denny running around, so the choice was clear. I quickly found out that I’d only been transported *one day* into the future – which is actually pretty neat, but my book counterpart was annoyed with it because I was apparently going through my angsty “I hate everything” phase. If only time travel could have solved that..

It didn’t take long for me to find my Future Family walking down the sidewalk. From there, I was helplessly embroiled in a plot right out of Back to the Future II. After watching the fam get run down by an out of control truck, I traveled back in time to try and prevent the accident while simultaneously trying to avoid bumping into my Future Family and creating a rift in the space-time continuum. Somehow I managed to pull it off and reunite with Denny in the process. I felt proud. I was cruising towards that sweet, sweet Good Ending with nary an obstacle in sight. All I needed to do was grab Denny and get back to Dr. Peebles. But, when I chose to grab the kid and go, I grabbed Future Denny AND Present Denny because Stine isn’t about to let me off that easy. Now I’ve got two bratty brothers that I’m not the boss of. Maybe I should have tried my luck with the dinosaurs….

Amanda’s Story:

I chose to travel to the past because I knew Nelson would pick the future. My options were to run towards a knight on a white horse or towards a dinosaur – depending on which way I thought my little brother had gone. I didn’t particualy care for Denny, so I in no way looked forward to finding the little asshole. As much as I’d have loved to pet a dinosaur, I doubted that would be an option in this adventure, so I went towards the knight. 

There was a castle with a drawbridge and a moat – which I enjoyed – but the spear wielding knight seemed “pretty serious.” I could either jump in the moat to escape or try and talk to the guy. I decided to be social against my better judgment. I told the knight I was from the future and searching for my little brother. He was super unhelpful and just told me I had to fight him to get into the castle. Surely, my little asshole brother hadn’t fought this guy. If I lost, I’d be fed to the King’s crocodiles! 

I convinced the knight to use clubs for a round of baseball with apples – with the result dependent on a coin toss. I won! I love winning and all, but the knight took the loss pretty hard, jumped into the moat, and fed himself to the crocodiles. Before he was fully eaten he yelled, “Beware of the Lair!” I’m worried about the whole darn place at this point. Suicide by crocodiles was enough for me. 

When I entered the castle, I heard screaming. I could either check it out or go back. I decided to see if it was Denny. I came to a room where I could go through one of two doors, the Lair or the Throne Room. Neither one sounded like a good option, but I heeded the words of the suicidal knight and avoided the Lair. Of course the king was in the Throne Room. He immediately accused me of being a spy until I spotted Denny – who was now the king’s adopted son. Reasonable enough. I knew I didn’t want to find the little shit. 

Denny and the king agreed that I should be boiled in oil. So….fried? I begged Denny to stop the madness, but he apparently hated me more than I hated him and told his new dad to boil me. I was about to be fried until my hand hit a button on the chronometer. I made it back to the lab, but without my brother. That’s for the best. Of course my parents are going to blame me for their negligence, but this one was definitely on them.

What a book. Suicidal knights, your family being “flattened like pancakes” by a drunken truck driver, and a homicidal little brother determined to boil you alive. Tick Tock, You’re Dead is an extremely appropriate title for this merciless, soulless, and murderous caper. 

R.L. Stine Killed Me – The Twisted Terror of Give Yourself Goosebumps

by Nelson ft. Amanda

Give Yourself Goosebumps offered readers an experience they didn’t know they wanted but couldn’t possibly pass up: the opportunity to live a Goosebumps story! This spinoff choose-your-adventure series gave YOU, yes you, the chance to encounter purple peanut butter, beastly babysitters, and knights in screaming armor who can’t wait for you to make a bad choice! 

Amanda and I will read each book separately and report back with all the grisly, gruesome, and grimy details of our adventures.  

Give Yourself Goosebumps #1 – Escape from the Carnival of Horrors

Premise:

In Escape from the Carnival of Horrors, you and your two bickering best friends – Patty and Brad – decide to sneak into an abandoned carnival at night because what could go wrong? Of course, you get a chance to *not* sneak into the carnival, but that makes you wimpier than Brad, and no one wants to be wimpier than Brad. 

You’re immediately caught by an imposing guy named Uncle Al – who may or may not be the same Uncle Al from Welcome to Camp Nightmare. I like to believe that he is, even if that would make him an alien since Camp Nightmare is really a training ground for missions to Earth. Regardless, one thing is absolutely certain: he’s big. He’s Al, and he’s the head Uncle in charge at the Carnival of Horrors. 

Fortunately for everyone involved, Uncle Al is excited that you’ve broken in because it’s the perfect opportunity for the place to get a test run before opening day. You, Patty, and Brad get a whole carnival to explore, and it’s up to *you* what everyone does first….the rollercoaster or the boardwalk? 

Nelson’s Story:

I opted for the rollercoaster, but I sent Patty and Brad on their way the second I got the opportunity to check out the House of Horrors. I fell off a bridge on the way and somehow managed to escape by choosing to flap my arms like wings. From there, it was onto the House of Horrors which actually turned out to be a House of Mirrors that can literally trap you in an infinite loop of page turning if you take a wrong turn. That’s pretty ruthless. Fortunately for me, I made all the right turns because I’m cool like that and would never flip ahead to make sure I’m making the right decision. From there, I fought some robots and learned the terrifying truth of the Carnival of Horrors: it’s a ghost carnival that appears in a different place every night – inviting kids to join them and trapping them forever!! 

My ONLY chance was to get out of the place before midnight. I caught up with Patty and Brad and jumped on the Halloween Express to ride the tracks to freedom and safety. As soon as the exit was in sight, a ghost ate me because the book asked if I had good reflexes, and I said yes. Clearly, R.L. Stine thought I was lying. Sure, he was right, but how did he know? Oh, and now I’m a ghost, too, because that’s what happens when you get eaten by a ghost. 

Amanda’s Story:

I went with the rollercoaster as well, and I kept going until my part of the coaster broke off. I found myself alone in a tunnel which was a nice break from those “friends.” I decided to get out of my seat and find my way out, but I was hit with burning slime. Luckily, a nice enough red eyed dwarf offered to guide me out of the tunnel. I decided to go with him, as it would be rude not to. Who cares if he looks “evil?” The dwarf took off running, and I chose to follow him. Thank goodness book me can run. 

The dwarf directed me to two doors before vanishing in a puff of smoke. One door promised “Danger,” while the other offered up “Big Danger.” Oh, the options. I picked Danger because Big Danger is just too much. I wound up on the dreaded Doom Slide. I’ve never read One Day at Horrorland, so I had to chance it and choose my slide number at random. Somehow, I survived and reunited with my friends, but this wasn’t such a great thing. We’d been sewn together and transformed into Siamese triplets for the Freak Show. As someone who loves her alone time, this was an absolutely terrifying ending.

Well, there you have it. I managed to become a ghost, and my poor wife wound up in a Freak Show permanently attached to Patty and Brad forever and ever. These books offer “over 20 different scary endings,” and I think it’s pretty safe to say that Amanda wound up getting the scariest one of all. Being a ghost isn’t all that bad, but a Siamese triplet is sheer nightmare fuel. 

Saturdays in the Cemetery with Stine

by Nelson

Reader Beware; You’re in for a Scare!

DoubtFire ventures into the terrifying world of zombies, werewolves, egg monsters, and annoying siblings that is GOOSEBUMPS. 

Goosebumps #62 – Monster Blood IV

Well, here we are – the final book of the original series. Monster Blood IV is a perfect way to wrap things up. Slappy may be Goosebumps’ signature villain, but the signature saga award goes to the gruesome goo. Evan Ross and Andy – Don’t Call Her Andrea – are the most frequently recurring duo in the series. They’re the prototypical boy/girl non-sibling duo that the vast majority of the stories utilize. Weirdly enough, Andy doesn’t get a last name. Ever. Even Cousin Kermit, who doesn’t show up until Monster Blood III, gets a last name. 

Anyway, Monster Blood IV isn’t a very highly regarded title, so I went into it with low expectations. Those expectations were blown away. You’ve got to be drinking some amazingly refreshing blue raspberry Haterade to have a problem with this book. Either that or you hate Gremlins, and hating Gremlins is an issue in and of itself that should be addressed as soon as possible. How anyone can make it through over sixty Goosebumps titles and decide to cry foul when Stine offers up a story about hairy, blue blobs that multiply when they get wet is beyond me. No one becomes a giant in this one. How is that not a win? 

Of course, every Monster Blood sequel suffers from the same thing: the characters all have a vague, at best, memory of what happened in the previous book. Conan “The Barbarian” Barber should be terrified of Evan after his favorite target became a giant and stuck him in a tree, but he’s still stretching Evan’s sweater sleeve and yanking him around by the ear in Part IV. The boy definitely earns his Bully Card. As usual, Mr. and Mrs. Ross are out of town. Evan is supposed to be taking care of Kermit – but mostly just gets beaten up and blamed for things he didn’t do – and Andy manages to find a canister of Monster Blood right about the time he’s fed up and ready to take sweet revenge. The slime is blue this time around, and, once it’s out of the can, it forms itself into a little slug creature with eyes. Like the ones on the cover! It seems harmless and cute at first, but it splits into another creature when it gets wet, and that creature splits into another creature that splits into another creature. You get the picture. The slugs also get meaner as they multiply. Hairier, too – courtesy of Kermit’s hair growing formula. 

Things quickly get out of the control, and it’s not long before the furry blue meanies start attacking. First they go for the dog, and then they all converge on the three kids, covering them and seemingly dooming them to a gooey grave forever. All of a sudden, the blobs turn on one another. They’ve gotten so mean that they can’t work together, and a fight breaks out. The blue baddies destroy themselves, and the kids are saved. Before the book ends, a scientist named Professor Crane shows up asking about his “blue guys.” He explains that the whole ordeal was the result of a ten-year-long, fifty-million-dollar attempt to create an invincible underwater army. What a neat idea! Anyway, the dejected Professor tosses the empty can into Conan’s yard before riding off. Does this mean that the green Monster Blood is the result of a military experiment, too? What about Aunt Kathryn and Sarabeth? Once again, Stine leaves us with more questions than answers. Oh, and it turns out that the can Professor Crane tossed out wasn’t empty, and Conan ate some of the blue goo, and now there’s a whole bunch of Conans in the back yard. Stay gold, R.L. Stine. Stay gold. 

The blue blobs weren’t grinning anymore. Low growls came out of their scowling mouths.

“They were so cute,” Andy said softly. “But now they’re turning mean.”

Tuesdays in the Tomb with Stine

by Nelson

Reader Beware; You’re in for a Scare!

DoubtFire ventures into the terrifying world of zombies, werewolves, egg monsters, and annoying siblings that is GOOSEBUMPS.

 

Goosebumps #61 – I Live In Your Basement!

There’s not another Goosebumps book like I Live in Your Basement!, and I absolutely love it. The story unfolds like a DTV Hellraiser flick – with reality shifting from chapter to chapter and zero indication of what’s really real and what’s a dream induced by a softball bat to the head.

Marco’s mother is so overprotective that she sees pencil sharpening as a dangerous endeavor capable of blinding her beloved son – which is a nice change of pace after over sixty books chockfull of adults so careless that their Camp Crystal Lake Counselor applications were rejected with extreme prejudice. Mom’s worries turn out to be entirely justified after Marco sneaks out of the house to play softball and winds up fracturing his skull thanks to his super athletic classmate with atrociously terrible aim, Gwynnie. That happens in the first chapter, and, from there, I Live in Your Basement! becomes a no-holds-barred free-for-all. Marco wakes up with a big bandage on his head and gets a creepy phone call from a guy who introduces himself as Keith. It seems that Keith lives in the basement, and he’s real anxious for Marco to get better and take care of him. When Marco tries to tell his mother about this disconcerting discussion, she points out that there’s not a phone in the room!! What’s going on here?! 

Things only get weirder. Keith keeps up with his cryptic communications, and Marco can’t resist the urge to share every detail with his mother – who, of course, doesn’t believe him and suspects that he’s having complications from his head injury. He goes back to school and learns that he has no memory of the weeks he spent in the hospital recovering from his ill-fated foray into sports. The family physician, Dr. Bailey, recommends a routine brain removal and inspection to get to the bottom of the amnesia and hallucinations, and Mom is completely on board for this totally standard procedure. As if that wasn’t enough, Marco even gets chased home from school by a bat-wielding Gwynnie! She stops by his house later and explains that she was only running after Marco with a bat in her hand to apologize. What a hilarious misunderstanding. He tries to confide in her about Kooky Keith and his weird “I live in the basement, take care of me!” messages, but she thinks he’s just trying to scare her. Unwilling to let our concussed crusader get away with such chicanery, Gwynnie pulls her insides out of her mouth and turns into a monstrous version of Nickelodeon’s Inside Out Boy. That’ll show him. Marco screams, loses consciousness, and wakes up in the hospital to discover that Gwynnie is actually his younger sister and not even responsible for hitting him with the bat. Before that big news can sink in, Dr. Bailey arrives and starts pulling Marco’s tongue out of his mouth as if the poor kid was Freddy Krueger’s stunt double in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Or does he?! 

I Live in Your Basement! is full of such wondrous wackiness that the whole deal with Keith is essentially a boring distraction. I didn’t care about the kid living in the basement…not when the main character is facing a “stop seeing things or our family doctor is going to take your brain out” ultimatum. We eventually find out that Marco was actually Keith the whole time, and that Keith is actually an inside out blob monster thingy who lives in the basement and got hit with a softball bat when he snuck out to play with the human kids. Or something. It’s another one of those “the main character was actually a monster/ghost/vampire/werewolf” deals that Stine throws in when he’s got a deadline. It’s an incredibly underwhelming ending to an otherwise amazingly fun book, and I hated it. But I loved the book. Funny how things work out. 

Dr. Bailey tugged hard on my tongue. It slid out of my mouth, as long as a hot dog.

I struggled to squirm away. But he held my chest down with one hand while he pulled my tongue with the other.

Pulled… pulled…

My tongue was a yard long. It drooped down the side of the bed.

Dr. Bailey reached deeper into my mouth and pulled. Pulled out more tongue. More…

Yard after yard. My tongue curled on the floor, wet and pink.

Sundays in the Cemetery with Stine

by Nelson

Reader Beware; You’re in for a Scare!

DoubtFire ventures into the terrifying world of zombies, werewolves, egg monsters, and annoying siblings that is GOOSEBUMPS. 

Goosebumps #60 – Werewolf Skin

Werewolf Skin is the book that happens after R.L. Stine spends a weekend watching The X-Files. It still follows the standard Goosebumps formula because there’s no sense in fixing what isn’t broken, but the plot revolving around werewolves who shed their skin feels like something Agent Mulder would have taken a keen interest in. 

Alex loves photography, and he’s planning to be a werewolf for Halloween. Normally these two things wouldn’t be related, but things aren’t normal in the world of Goosebumps! Alex’s parents are away on business so important that they’re forced to enroll him in a new school and send him off to live with his Uncle Colin and Aunt Marta because things like this never, ever go wrong. Especially since Colin and Marta just so happen to be professional photographers, and the town just so happens to be called Wolf Creek. What a great place for trick-or-treating in a werewolf costume! This idea horrifies his aunt and uncle so badly that they nearly have a car accident, and absolutely every kid at school, even the obligatory pair of bullies, hates Alex’s costume plans. Lycanthropy is no joke in the town of Wolf Creek. Hmmmm….

Werewolf Skin manages to make it all the way until Chapter 3 before the “kind of cute” tights-wearing girl shows up. Hannah lives next door, and Alex really digs her “real low and husky” voice. She shows him around his new school where the teachers give entire lectures on the basics of Goosebumps’ werewolf mythology. Transformations happen nightly; there’s no cure, and you’ve got to shed your skin every night and hide it away until the next night. So that’s where the title comes from! 

Uncle Colin and Aunt Marta’s number one rule is to stay away from the Marling house. The Marlings are the mean old couple next door. They hate kids, and they hate people, and Alex grows to suspect they’re werewolves after seeing animal footprints leading to the house, people climbing out of windows, and all sorts of other spooky and suspicious things. In a shocking twist that no one could possibly see coming, it turns out that the Marlings don’t even exist. Uncle Colin and Aunt Marta are the real werewolves. The whole spiel about the grouchy neighbors was just a way to keep their nosy nephew away from the abandoned house they hide their skins in. What is it with adults hiding horrifying secrets agreeing to let kids they barely know come and live with them? And why would the house next door be the ideal hiding spot?

Alex and Hannah decide that the best way of handling the situation is to steal the stashed skins and wear them for themselves. After all, Marta and Colin can’t transform without them. Surprisingly, this plan is a smashing success. You can’t be a werewolf if you can’t put your fur on, and Alex’s aunt and uncle are cured forever. Breaking the “unbreakable” curse wasn’t such a chore after all. Everyone is happy. The day is saved, and Alex got to have the best Halloween ever…. until Hannah reveals that she’s also a werewolf and bites him! 

On one hand, the cure for werewolfism is absurdly simple – especially after Alex’s teacher makes such a big deal about how hopelessly permanent the condition is. On the other hand, the whole skin shedding bit is pretty cool and definitely a whole lot less goofy than some of the other things Stine has added to horror’s most iconic creatures. I’m looking at you, Vampire Breath. I don’t want to, but I am. 

“Oh, that’s right. Halloween’s only a couple days off,” Aunt Marta said, glancing at my uncle. She turned back to me. “What do you want to be for Halloween, Alex?”

I didn’t have to think about it. I’d already decided back home.

“A werewolf,” I told her.

“NO!” she screamed.

Uncle Colin also let out a cry.

The van plowed through a stop sign. I flew off the seat and hit the door hard. And stared helplessly through the bouncing windshield—as we swerved into the path of a roaring truck.