The last time we covered Deep Trouble, it gave us a mediocre at best story about saving a mermaid from the evils of greedy mankind. This time, can Stine up the ante and actually make a scary story, or will he continue to tread water? It's Deep Trouble II AKA Sea For Yourself.
COVER STORY
I like this cover. Not particularly scary, but after the last cover, anything is a welcome change of pace. An excellent great use of underwater blues, as well as the greens and reds of the corals. The sunken ship on the ground in the background is a nice touch, and of course, the big fish starting at your from the front of the cover. It's some really nice work overall that, while not as intensely scary as a hammerhead shark like the last cover, still manages to convey the concept of the horrors of the ocean floor.
STORY
It's been a year since Billy Deep found a mermaid while he and his sister Sheena were spending the summer with their uncle Dr. D. And now he' back and just as self-absorbed and self-monologue spewing as ever. As he's swimming in the water, he gets attacked by an octopus! Oh wait, he was imagining Sheena as an octopus. Billy then grabs a fake shark fin and tries to scare Sheena, only to see an actual giant fin. Something resembling a shark chases the two kids back to the Cassandra, Dr. D's boat. They tell him about it, but he's skeptical since there shouldn't be any sharks where they're located. He then realizes that it must be a minnow.
Now, minnows are near-microscopic fish, only about an inch long. How could it be as big as a shark? As Dr. D ponders, Billy sees a bottle filled with plankton, which he takes to feed the goldfish. But he ends up screaming at the sight of a human head in the fish bowl. Oh wait, it's the head of a doll as Sheena got him back for the earlier prank gone wrong. Regardless, he feeds the goldfish. Later, as the kids swim, they see more giant yellow fish eating some plankton in the water, when Sheena gets attacked by a gigantic jellyfish. Billy goes inside the jellyfish to save her, but eventually the creature lets it go when it sees another giant jellyfish and starts to fight with it. Or have sex with it, either is possible.
The kids make it back to the Cassandra, but can't find Dr. D. Instead, they find a gigantic sea snail. And underneath it is Dr. D, being smothered under the snail slime. After they save Dr. D, they hear more loud booming noises and the ship starts to rock back and forth. They soon discover that it's Billy's goldfish, only now they're gigantic too. As the three of them try to process this, suddenly three men sneak up on them. The three men are Dr. Ritter and his two assistants Mel Mason and Adam Brown. Billy blurts out about seeing the giant sea life, and Dr. Ritter advances on them. See, he doesn't want anyone else to know about what's going on with the giant fish. You see, Dr. Ritter hasn't been doing much... EXCEPT PLAYING GOD! He's injected growth hormones into the plankton beds, which causes the sea life that ingests it to grow. He hopes this will be an answer to world hunger.
Dr. Ritter's goons throw the three of them in the cabin and tie them up. They try to escape, but Ritter easily catches them, and has them thrown overboard. But they end up rescued by giant seagulls. The birds attack Ritter and his goons while the Deeps escape on a lifeboat. The trio end up stuck in the middle of the ocean throughout the night. The next day, the boat finally crashes on solid land. Stranded on a deserted island, the three try to fish for food. Only to be attacked by a giant enemy crab. Instead of attacking its weak point for massive damage, the three of them climb a tree, only for the branch to break. But it turns out the Crab just got bored and goes back to the ocean.
The lifeboat starts to float out to sea, but the three Deeps use dolphins to get back to it. However, this also conveniently brings them back to Dr. Ritter. What happened to the assistants? Guessing the birds probably ate them, since we don't get any explanation on that end. He grabs a bottle containing some of his plankton and tells the three Deeps that if a human were to eat the plankton, they'll permanently turn into a fish. He forces Billy to drink it, but it doesn't seem to work. Dr. D manages to escape and grab Dr. Ritter, but Ritter escapes. Realizing he doesn't want to go to jail, he downs a bottle of plankton and starts turning into a fish.
TWIST ENDING
So, if it worked on Dr. Ritter, then why was Billy unaffected? Billy reveals that it was iced tea all along. See, he had planned a prank on Sheena and filled a bottle of plankton with delicious iced tea. And conveniently this all just worked out. Sheena apparently thought ahead too and put iced tea in one of the bottles to also prank Billy, and proceeds to gulps down the contents of the bottle. Billy and Dr. D look in horror as Sheena may have just gulped the wrong bottle down.
CONCLUSION
Deep Trouble II is actually a pretty decent sequel. It still boils down to the same evils of man concept that the first book provided, but manages to make things more interesting with the giant fish mystery. I actually enjoyed some of the action sequences like the jellyfish and crab attacks. Billy and Sheena were annoying early on, but do get a bit more likable as the book progresses. it feels like Stine trying to rectify the complaints about the first book not being scary, so we get a lot more scenes with giant monsters. And all of it is actually pretty engaging. Hell, I can see why the Deep Trouble episode of Goosebumps is loosely based on this book, and not the original, though the first book would be cheaper to produce, and that show loved to work on the cheap. Part of me does wish however that we didn't just have it boil down to mad science, and the twist feels like one we've done so many times before. Goosebumps sequels are some of my least favorite of Stine works, but I'd say this one was far more easier a sit than certain ones (Monster Blood III). Deep Trouble II gets a B-.
No comments:
Post a Comment