Gooseblog: Goosebumps #11: The Haunted Mask

Put on your best face ladies and gents, we're covering the eleventh Goosebumps book on this edition of the blog. And it considered by many to be one of the greatest books in the series. Does it live up to that acclaim? Find out with The Haunted Mask AKA Sssssssmokin!

COVER STORY

This cover is excellent. A fine example of the quality of Tim Jacobus' artwork. A weird sense of innocence and evil clashing together as you have a normal looking kid hold over this beastly green mask with the sharp teeth and the glowing yellow eyes. And just to add some more frightfulness to it, it even drools. Excellent use of lights and shadows as always. It's hard not to want to give this one a read with such an engaging piece of art.

STORY

Our protagonist for this book is Carly Beth Caldwell. She's a very well reserved kid who scares way too easily. This makes her an easy target, especially for a pair of bullies named Chuck Greene and Steve Boswell. Despite constantly being pranked by the pair, she still falls for them, case in point her taking a sandwich from them. She bites into it, only to have chomped on a giant worm. I thought that was ten books from now, or am I again being misled? Home life is also a bit strange for Carly Beth as her mother has made a plaster version of Carly Beth's head that totally wasn't made for plot convenience later.

Carly Beth then learns of her duck costume arriving. But when she goes to check on it, she gets scared by her little brother Noah in the costume. That's the second little brother Noah in this series I believe (Lefty/Righty in Let's Get Invisible!) so you're getting lazy Jovial Bob. Later at the science fair, Steve again gets Carly Beth in a panic by pretending that she's being bitten by a tarantula. At this point Carly Beth is having her fill of being the easily frightened one, and vows to get revenge. We cut to Halloween day as Carly Beth plans to go trick-or-treating with her best friend Sabrina, who is neither a witch nor a psychic. But Carly Beth doesn't just want to wear a duck costume, she needs a mask. Something scary enough to finally freak out Chuck and Steve. Good thing there's a new party store that conveniently just came into town.

After a fake out with the store being closed, Carly Beth is eventually greeted by a man in a black suit with a pencil thin mustache. So,  the store owner is John Waters apparently. She asks the man if she can buy his scariest mask. He offers her a bunch of choices, but nothing she considers scary enough for what she needs. She then finds herself in a dark, ominous room (because there's always a dark, ominous room), and there she finds a plethora of creepy, real looking masks. The one that catches her eye is a green mask with scary looking fangs. She tries to buy it, but the man won't sell it to her. She argues with him over it, but eventually he just gives up, takes her money, and gives her the mask.

She puts the mask on to scare Noah first. It works stupendously, but already things start to seem off. First, her voice changes to a more deeper, beastly voice. Then when she tries to take it off, it sticks to her skin. But with enough force, she pops it off. Pleased at how things are going, she plans out her attack on Chuck and Steve. She's not just going to jump scare them. What is this, a Blumhouse movie? Instead, she takes her plaster head and places it on a stick. With everything in place, she puts on the mask and goes trick-or-treating with Sabrina. She scares two boys that she thinks are Chuck and Steve, but instead gets chewed out by their mother. This gives Carly Beth vivid thoughts of literally chewing the mother up. Stuff's gettin' real, yo.

She meets up with Sabrina and the two go out. However, Carly Beth spends the evening focused less on getting candy, and more on scaring everybody. She throws apples at a man's house and steals a candy bag from some kids. She's gone from everyday jackassery to perfect Halloween jackassery. She finally finds Chuck and Steve. She jumps them, waving around the head on a stick. She continues to threaten them, but suddenly the head starts to talk, wailing for help. That's enough for Chuck and Steve, who drop their candy bags and run off into the night. Satisfied with her work, Carly Beth finds Sabrina and the two return to Sabrina's house to check their candy. Carly Beth tries to take the mask off, but it's stuck again! However, it's even worse as it's almost like there's not even a lining anymore. It's completely grafted on to her face.

In a total panic, Carly Beth sprints out of the house and makes her way back to the party store, only to see that it's closed. But conveniently the store owner is still there. He expected to see her again. It's here that we get our origin story. What she's wearing isn't a mask, but a real face. Real faces that he made in his lab. Because of course it's mad science. However, the masks would soon deteriorate and become ugly and evil looking. He calls them the unloved. And the only way for the unloved's curse to be broken is to counter it with a symbol of love. But if the face latches on anyone ever again, it will stay on forever. Keep that in mind, everyone.

Suddenly, all of the other unloved faces awaken and start to chase her. While she runs, she realizes that the symbol of love for her is the plaster head. After a weak (even for Stine) fakeout about the head being lost, but not really, Carly Beth finds the head and puts it on her real head. It works, managing to pull the unloved face off of her head. The other faces vanish, and everything seems to finally be back to normal.

TWIST ENDING

Carly Beth goes home and reunites with her family. It's been a long night. But before she can relax, her brother Noah shows up, with the mask over his head. So, since the storeowner said that if the mask is worn again, it's permanent, lil' Noah is screwed.

CONCLUSION

The Haunted Mask works. For a Halloween tale, it gets the setting down perfectly. As a story with a moral, it's actually one that Stine manages to pull off excellently. That of how trying to do something horrible to others just ends up making you look worse in the process. Only this time she becomes a more literal monster in the process. The book's well paced, though there is that pointless science fair bit. It could have been cut out and nothing of value would have been lost. Felt more like an excuse to pad the book out. Carly Beth is a great protagonist. She's very likable, and serves as a great avatar for the reader. I think she speaks for a lot of people who were easily bullied and easy to scare. She's definitely a better avatar than Evan, or Greg. In the end, this is a true classic for the series. It's up there with Camp Nightmare as a well executed Goosebumps book, and I think I'd be crucified if I didn't give it its deserving props. The Haunted Mask gets an A+.