Ever get that feeling of deja vu? Like you've read something before? By the end of this review, I think you'll agree with me that this book seems pretty familiar. It's Revenge Of The Lawn Gnomes AKA Night Of The Living Dummy III.
COVER STORY
This cover is pretty decent. It's not a scary cover by any means, but for selling the concept of evil lawn gnomes, I guess it works fine enough with the cheap looking lawn ornaments surrounding the two sinister looking gnomes. It definitely stands out as a memorable cover. Fun fact: Tim Jacobus originally drew the left gnome with his finger in his nose, but was told by Scholastic that it would be too gross, so he just had the finger over the face instead. oh, and something something nice trees.
STORY
Joe Burton is our protagonist for this one, flanked by his younger sister Mindy. He's the only brown-haired kid in a family of blondes. Wanna explain something, mom? But this Goosebumps adventure doesn't involve Maury Povich, it instead has to do with Joe's dad. It turns out that Joe's dad is a gardening nut. He doesn't just have a green thumb, but all his fingers are green. He's also in a heated feud with their next door neighbor, Mr. McCall, who is just as insane a gardener. To the point that he panics if the Burton's rottweiler Buster is in their garden sniffing around. McCall also has a son named Moose, who I would be doing a disservice if I didn't put this in the article.
Try getting THAT out of your head.
After a game of ping pong, Moose begins to strangle Joe after a game, which freaks Mindy out. But, it was all just a joke! A really disturbing joke. What is it with Stine and strangulation around this point? First Barking Ghost, now this. Is this your weird kink, Jovial Bob? No wonder the choking game was a thing. After that fun game of attempted murder, the kids see Buster in McCall's garden and try to get him out by using their dog whistle, which in no way will play any part in the story. Despite getting the dog away, they still get in trouble with Mr. McCall, who just also happens to be a former army general, which makes him particularly authoritative. Makes me think of Coach Buzzcut from Beavis and Butt-Head. Mr. Burton on the other hand is...well, kind of a wuss. Hell, at one point he's on the verge of a panic attack when a fruit fly touches one of his tomatoes. After the three go on a spraying expedition (to the rolling eyes of their graphic artist mother), Mr. Burton suggests the three go celebrate by going to his favorite place in the world, Lawn Lovely.
See, Dad loves his lawn ornaments (and possibly the store owner Lilah Anderson), and Lawn Lovely has a wide variety of kitschy schlock that's perfect for his lawn. Plastic flamingos, lawn deer. The more kitschy the better. But what really catches his eye on this trip are a pair of garden gnomes. Despite everyone acknowledging how creepy they are, he still brings them home. He even names them Hap and Chip (because one has a chip in his tooth). And it's here where any originality the book could have had starts to go down the drain. From fake-out scares where Joe pretends that one of the gnomes is grabbing him, to thinking he sees their expression changing, it's kind of going down the dummy beats tout suite.
The next day, Mr. McCall is pissed when he sees that some of his melons have been eaten, and blames Buster for it. Dad, who usually lets Buster roam free, decides that they have no choice but to keep the dog chained up. Joe is upset about this, but also spots what looks to be a melon seed in the mouth of one of the gnomes. The next day, the other melons have faces drawn on them with a marker, which of course leads everyone to believe that it's Joe's doing and he gets grounded for it. Later, when he gets a chance to walk Buster, he sees the gnomes change their expressions. and spots what looks to be black ink on their fingers. He tries to tell his parents about it. No, seriously, this is going beat by beat as Dummy II. Only with less threats of sending them to a psychiatrist so far. He also thinks he's hearing them whisper.
The pranks continue, this time focused on Joe's dad's garden. His prize tomatoes get stomped on. Joe tries to show him the gnomes, believing they did it, but when he brings his dad to them,they're perfectly in place with no discernible evidence to any tomater busting. Instead, Mr. Burton blames Mr. McCall, in what is easily the best part of the book. How catty their banter gets over their crops is more intriguing than anything else this book has had to offer, and that's kind of sad. Hell, the two dads literally are about to come to blows over it.
The next night, Joe sees the gnomes have vanished and goes to investigate, only to be tackled by Moose who is wondering where the gnomes have gone to as well. The kids cause such a ruckus that they get caught by their parents, who also see that the gnomes are gone! No, wait, they're right there where they always are. Gotta love that convenient foggy weather. Things then escalate the next day with Mr. McCall's truck being splattered with paint, with Moose and Joe realizing that even though they're innocent, they'll still be blamed since they were outside last night.
Eventually, they discover that, shocker, the gnomes are actually alive. The kids run from the gnomes (despite the fact that they could be easily punted), until Joe conveniently cramps up and collapses. However, the gnomes turn their attention to Mindy and grab her. But instead of doing anything sinister (yet), the gnomes say that they mean the kids no harm. That they're just mischief gnomes who like to cause trouble. It turns out that there's a whole race of gnomes that lived in the forest, until deforesting led to them being captured and sold as lawn ornaments. So they need the kids help to free their fellow gnomes. And the kids, being stupid children, agree to aid Hap and Chip. The kids head to Mrs. Anderson's house to find hundreds of gnomes in her basement. And, even bigger shocker, Hap and Chip were lying! They're mischief gnomes after all. With the three kids trapped, the gnomes discuss how they're going to screw with the kids. Particularly bringing up squishing the kids into balls and tossing them around. Whaaaat?
They see Buster coming and hope that they can get the dog to rescue them, so they try to use the dog whistle to call him over. This results in a battle with the gnomes until Joe manages to get the whistle and blow it. Instead of calling the dog over however, Joe discovers all the gnomes have gone silent and still, into a state of trance. With this being their one chance, the kids make their escape.
TWIST ENDING
CONCLUSION
When I said Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes was Night of the Living Dummy III, I wasn't lying. Save for the lack of ventriloquist dummies in favor of gnomes as the antagonists, this book is pretty beat for beat to what we saw with other Dummy books, particularly Night of the Living Dummy II. Family comes into possession of seemingly inanimate creatures, who turn out to be alive the whole time, cause trouble and get the protagonist blamed for their mischief. Hell, if this had ended with the gnomes wanting the kids as their slaves, I'd have said this book was the ultimate copypasta. And it's not like a book about evil gnomes wouldn't work, especially for a franchise like Goosebumps. But in the context of this book, there's nothing original or fresh to make this book stand out. Even the pranks feel similar to what Slappy pulled in Dummy II with paint splashing and drawing on things.
Joe is a generic Goosebumps protagonist with really nothing that sets him apart. Mindy doesn't add much to the story, and Moose feels like such a minor character that his addition really doesn't feel needed. It's a book about gardening, but Stine can't find anything that makes that an interesting thing to focus on. With the exception of the two dads throwing shade at each other's gardens. That was at least enjoyable. This one usually comes up as among the worst in the series, and I can see why. Though, while I didn't enjoy it, I can't say that it's the all-time worst. It doesn't feel as useless as something like Monster Blood III, and doesn't fall apart by the end like The Barking Ghost. If this was your first Goosebumps book, I could see you being swept in with the whole mystery, but I can't defend how blatantly similar it is to other, better(even if I wasn't keen on Dummy II) Goosebumps books. Revenge Of The Lawn Gnomes gets a D.
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