You like cameras? You like Goosebumps? You like Goosebumps books that also coincide as stories involving cameras? Well, leave it to Jovial Bob to come to your rescue. It's the fourth book of the seminal ten, Say Cheese And Die! AKA Questionable Nazi Science and R.L Stine really wants a Ford Taurus.
COVER STORY
Oh man. THIS cover. This cover is what I believe kept me away from Goosebumps initially. While Slappy was the offender for others, this one is the one that got me. A photo of a happy family of skeletons enjoying a barbecue. I don't know what it is, but it just set weird unsettling undertones in my 9-year old head. In massive hindsight however, I think this is one of Jacobus' finest works, blending a mixture of a creepy visual with an odd quaintness. The colors, so vivid and engaging, you can hardly look away. All juxtaposed with happy skeletons enjoying a day of leisure. Unafraid to let their bony selves out for the afternoon. They're here, they're devoid of eyeballs, get used to it! Also it does remind me of that cool Grateful Dead video for "Touch of Grey" where the band are skeleton puppets on stage, so I can't in good conscience find fault in this cover for that.
STORY
Greg Banks and his friends Michael, Shari and Doug, AKA "Bird" (one of Stine's many awful kid nicknames) are eternally bored in their town of Pitts Landing. You see, Pitts Landing is (as they repeat a few times), the pits, and these kids want some fun. They talk about loitering at the local store, then talk about X-Force. I knew it! The R.L in Stine's name really stands for Rob Liefeld! Eventually they just settle on breaking into the old Coffman house, which has been the squatting ground of an old vagrant known as Spidey, nicknamed as such for his long, spindly limbs. After a scary encounter with a harmless dog, they sneak into the building while Spidey's away. Within the basement, they discover a lot of frozen dinners, and a bunch of old robes and wigs. Oh my god...
Spidey's Ric Flair!
While skulking about the place, Greg ends up finding a camera hidden in a cupboard. It's clearly a Polaroid camera, but Stine's not looking to pick any legal battles with that company. He takes a picture of Michael on the stairway, but immediately after the camera flashes, the railing collapses and Michael takes a plunge to the floor below. Spidey shows up, but the kids all make it out in time. They check the photo after making enough space between them and the creepy spindly man, only to see the photo shows Michael mid-fall. That would make zero sense, since the picture was taken before. They all shrug it off as a delay in the mechanism and go their separate ways.
Greg comes home to see a 1992 Ford Taurus in the driveway, and it blows his prepubescent mind. He gushes over it in a way that sounds less like the perspective of a 12-year old, but of a man in his 40s really wanting a cool dad car like a Taurus. Maybe Stine was going to buy one and the last one got sold off the lot, so he takes his vengeance out in written form. Greg takes a picture of the car, only for the photo to show the Taurus completely totaled. Now, here's where I think Say Cheese And Die loses a bit of its edge early on. If you haven't clued in to the book's concept, it's about a camera that can predict the future. However, every future it predicts leads to unfortunate events. And instead of building up to something that would have been bigger later on like the Taurus wrecked, it's the second photo of the book. Which also begs the question of why would you keep using the camera if you get something to that level of freakishness? But Jovial Bob's gotta pad out a hundred plus pages, so we're doing it this way dammit!
So Greg becomes understandably paranoid over the photo, made no better when his dad suggests that the whole family should go out on a drive. Greg fears that his family are on the road to their demise, especially after it's revealed that dear old dad's a bit of a speed freak. This is all that excites him anymore. The flame in this marriage said cheese and died years ago. After a near-fatal brush with a truck however, the family decide that's enough fun for one night and head back home. Greg, confused yet relieved the photo didn't come true, decides to test the camera on his older brother Terry. Because that's rational. Fear that you've put your family in danger, then possibly put them in even more danger. Regardless, Terry makes a goofy face, but the photo shows him outside, running toward Greg with a frightened expression on his face.
The next day, the foursome of kids go to Bird's baseball game. Greg tries to investigate the camera with Shari, but it doesn't have any way to open it, or even a spot to put film in. Greg takes a picture of Bird (because he hasn't learned by now), which shows Bird sprawled on the ground unconscious after being smacked hard by a baseball. We get a cop out scare with Bird pretending to be injured, only for it to actually happen in the game. Not only does that photo come true, but immediately after Terry shows up with the same expression as the photo Greg took the previous night. Dad got in a car accident. Not fatal, but he is banged up and the car is wrecked just like in the photo. Greg tries to tell his parents about the photos, but they're a little preoccupied with dad's injuries to talk to him.
The next day, Greg talks to Shari about the photos, and about a dream he had where he took a picture of his family, only for it to show them as skeletons. You know, like the cover. Shari calls it a dumb dream pretty quick. So yeah, the thing on the cover doesn't even get more than a brief mention in the book. Apparently the cover was an original concept from Jacobus, so Stine shoehorned it in at the last minute. Tim would get outlines of the book and work there, and so he gave us the iconic cover art. It would have been interesting to see it in motion, but then I remember we did have a skeleton family dream in Welcome To Dead House, so it would feel like Stine's repeating himself already. So, despite all the coincidences with the camera and Greg being extremely paranoid, Shari tells Greg to bring the camera to her birthday party. Yes, apparently all the kids are morons in this book. Greg still takes it to the party, taking a picture of Shari in front of a tree. However, the photo doesn't have Shari in it, and sometime during the party she disappears! So Greg has put his friends lives, his family's lives and now his potential girlfriend's life at stake because somehow he just can't keep his finger off the button.
Cops arrive, trying to find Shari. Greg tries to tell a cop about his magic camera, but the cop doesn't believe him because this is Goosebumps and the adults never believe the kids. Though granted, magic camera does seem far fetched. Greg comes back home to see his room a mess, and it doesn't take too long to realize that it must have been Spidey looking for the camera. Greg talks with Michael and Bird about what to do with the camera, only to be accosted by a pair of bullies named Joey and Mickey. Unlike Monster Blood, these bullies don't completely kick the crap out of Greg and his crew. We do get a scuffle with the camera which takes another photo. After they evade the bullies, they scope the picture, which shows Greg and Shari cowering at the presence of Spidey. A frustrated Greg finally has enough of this nonsense and starts tearing the pictures of the missing Shari. Through some form of unexplained magic, Shari calls Greg two hours later, no clue of where she was and how she got there.
She goes with Greg to the Coffman house to put the camera back where it belongs. However, they end up being caught by Spidey. It's here where we learn the backstory of the camera and of Spidey, whose real name is Dr. Fritz Fredericks. He and his partner created the camera as a means to predict the future. Part of me wants to believe this is some form of Nazi science. Using a future camera to predict a good outcome for the fuhrer. I mean, it's plausible enough. He is envisioned as old, and the camera has been around for decades, so you never know...
"You're just saying that because his name sounds German, aren't you?"
"No... maybe.... sure."
"Racist."
"Shut up!"
Fritz tried to steal the camera for his own selfish means, but his partner turned out to be Papa Shango. He used black magic and cursed the camera to only predict evil outcomes. It's caused damage for years and only Spidey knows how to take care of it. Greg and Shari are like "Dude, we totally get it. You gotta take shoulder the burden of the camera. You gotta carry that weight. So here you go, it's all yours. It's been real, but we gotta go read X-Force." But Fritz cuts them off at the pass, telling them that they can't leave now that they know his secret. Another struggle with the camera causes it to flash in Fritz's face, making him freak out. The kids run, but notice Fritz isn't chasing them. They look at the photo, which shows Fritz on the ground, dead of fright. The two look and see that this is indeed the case as Fritz's lifeless corpse lays before them. The kids tell the police that they came in the Coffman house to get out of the convenient storm that's happening, and wouldn't you know it, there's a dead body here too. Greg and Shari get off scot-free despite technically murdering a man. Godspeed Fritz, may you be playing god in Heaven while Petey barks around you. I haven't forgotten, Bob!
TWIST ENDING
After the dust has settled, the two bullies from earlier sneak into the Coffman house and take pictures of each other, and wait to see what develops. Yeah, that's all we got. Stine really wanted to get this one out ASAP, didn't he?
CONCLUSION
Say Cheese And Die! is an example of a great cover being able to wash away a mediocre story. It's not a terrible book, and its pacing is just fine. It does give you some creepy concepts, but nothing that comes out of it leaves you with much of an impact. The fact that the skeleton cover is a last minute addition really flattens it. That could have made for a better dream sequence if Stine had time to give it detail. Like I said, there's something that actually comes off as a disturbing concept when you think about it. You taking a picture of your family in a happy moment, only for the picture to come out of them as dead. The foreboding feelings that would come out of that are immense. But, being thrown as a last second thing really flattened its impact.
I repeat the sentiments of others that say that Greg constantly snapping photos long after the one of the wrecked Taurus really kills the suspense of the book. Granted, it worked to give us a suspenseful scene of the family drive, but at the expense of any ambiguity the camera would have going forward. We know that every picture taken is going to lead to a disastrous result. There was no need for a foursome of characters either as Bird and Michael blend together, and Shari should feel like a smarter character, but gets written somehow stupider than Greg by the halfway point of the story. She knows that Greg's afraid of the thing, but she still acts like an ass to him, whining that she wants the camera at her party. This whole book is just a carousel of dumb kids. Twirling, twirling, twirling towards idiocy.
In the end, the book does feel a bit thoughtless in its concept, coming off more like Stine's attempt to blend the Twilight Zone episode "A Most Unusual Camera" with Steven King's The Dead Zone. The former being a story of a group of criminals coming into the possession of a camera that predicts the future, and the latter being a story where a man gets the power of future sight after a car accident, most of his visions winding up being deadly. Unfortunately, this mixture doesn't churn out a Reese's cup of quality storytelling. But you know, all that Dead Zone talk, I could forgive the book if all the characters were played by Christopher Walken.
Have your people call my people, Jovial Bob. Let's do lunch. Say Cheese And Die! gets a C+.
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