25 years ago, on a warm July afternoon in 1992, a man by the name of Robert Lawrence Stine let loose his bizarre creation. A creation that would become a pop culture phenomenon, still remembered by 90s babies as their gateway drug into the horror genre. And now, a quarter century later I, as an adult who did not actually read these books as a kid, will now review them for your enjoyment. Why? Because it's the popular thing right now, and because I feel it's time for redemption. Reader beware, you're in for... well, maybe not a scare, but maybe some good humor? It's time we take the bizarre ride that is R.L Stine's Goosebumps here in the Gooseblog. The goal is to cover all 62 of the original Goosebumps books and give them the analysis that Stine never intended them to have because this is the internet.
So first thing's first, what is Goosebumps, and who is R.L Stine? Robert Lawrence Stine was born on October 8th, 1943. Stine grew up in what was perhaps the perfect era of horror as the 1950s was a boom of B-horror films, science fiction, horror pulp like Tales From the Crypt, and, of course, The Twilight Zone. From the age of nine, Stine found an interest in writing stories after finding a typewriter in the attic of his house. Through the 70s and early 80s, Stine found success in the medium through kids joke books and choose your own adventure stories. However, he would find his calling in horror novels, starting with 1986's Blind Date. Eventually it would lead to Stine's first horror book series Fear Street. Stine even worked on the 1989 Nickelodeon puppet series Eureeka's Castle as one of the writers (under the name of Jovial Bob Stine).
With his name being more well known in horror, Stine was asked by Scholastic to write a series of horror books for kids. At first Stine didn't have an official name for the product, but after seeing an advertisement for a horror themed event called Goosebumps Week on television, Stine got his idea. Goosebumps launched in July of 1992 with its first three books, Welcome to Dead House, Stay out of the Basement, and Monster Blood. At first, Stine was only brought in to write only a few books, not expecting much out of the series.
However, things quickly changed as word of mouth spread and kids started to buy the books more and more. In a pre-internet age, nobody would have ever expected something like this to come out of a kids book series, but due to being easy reading for kids and their exciting covers (most of which were done by New Jersey artist Tim Jacobus), the goosebumps series was off and running. Ultimately resulting in a book series that is still running (after a near-decade hiatus), a television series, and a hit movie. Goosebumps managed to indelibly keep itself relevant in pop culture, and with it now being 25 years since the franchise started, and 90s nostalgia being the it item right now, it's more in vogue than ever. And that brings us to book #1, our focus of this inaugural article, Welcome to Dead House AKA Pilot.
While I wouldn't call it a scary cover, the cover for Welcome to Dead House is a great first work for artist Tim Jacobus. You get to see the quality of his artwork on display. The blues and purples of the night sky draping over the old house while an ominous orange and red glow billows out the front door, and some creepy looking stranger looks outside ominously. The tagline of "It will Just Kill You" is kind of weak, but I'll give Stine some leeway as this is the first book. Good alternate title would been "Be it ever so frightful, there's no place like home".
With his name being more well known in horror, Stine was asked by Scholastic to write a series of horror books for kids. At first Stine didn't have an official name for the product, but after seeing an advertisement for a horror themed event called Goosebumps Week on television, Stine got his idea. Goosebumps launched in July of 1992 with its first three books, Welcome to Dead House, Stay out of the Basement, and Monster Blood. At first, Stine was only brought in to write only a few books, not expecting much out of the series.
However, things quickly changed as word of mouth spread and kids started to buy the books more and more. In a pre-internet age, nobody would have ever expected something like this to come out of a kids book series, but due to being easy reading for kids and their exciting covers (most of which were done by New Jersey artist Tim Jacobus), the goosebumps series was off and running. Ultimately resulting in a book series that is still running (after a near-decade hiatus), a television series, and a hit movie. Goosebumps managed to indelibly keep itself relevant in pop culture, and with it now being 25 years since the franchise started, and 90s nostalgia being the it item right now, it's more in vogue than ever. And that brings us to book #1, our focus of this inaugural article, Welcome to Dead House AKA Pilot.
COVER STORY
While I wouldn't call it a scary cover, the cover for Welcome to Dead House is a great first work for artist Tim Jacobus. You get to see the quality of his artwork on display. The blues and purples of the night sky draping over the old house while an ominous orange and red glow billows out the front door, and some creepy looking stranger looks outside ominously. The tagline of "It will Just Kill You" is kind of weak, but I'll give Stine some leeway as this is the first book. Good alternate title would been "Be it ever so frightful, there's no place like home".
STORY
Our protagonists are 12-year old Amanda and her brother Josh. Their family are in the middle of checking out their new house in the "clearly not ominous sounding" Dark Falls, shown their new abode by their realtor named Mr. "Straight Outta" Compton Dawes. Amanda's snarky, while Josh is a whining brat about everything, constantly trying to coax his parents to just take them back to their old place. But since they got this place for free from a dead uncle, and dad hated his old job, they're staying. Yes, Goosebumps, this massive book series that spawned hundreds of books, starts with "an uncle we don't know left us his house in his will." I'm in for hell, aren't I?
Regardless, Josh stays outside with Petey, their little terrier and the rest of the family go inside. Amanda is won over by her spacious new room when she thinks she's seen some blonde kid staring at her from her doorway. Look at you, not even here a day and you already have stalkers. Lucky! After an incident where Josh and Petey vanish, the family and Dawes search for them, eventually finding them at the local graveyard as Petey is in a panic.
Eventually the family settle in to their new house in Dark Falls. Everything seems to go all right (reader beware, you're in for quaintness), but Amanda still keeps thinking she sees the blonde boy, but all she winds up witnessing are windy doors clattering, and Josh still trying to be a prankster. Then we get a random as hell dream sequence in chapter six as Amanda dreams that she and her family are skeletons.
Wait, isn't that supposed to happen three books from now?
Honestly, I don't even know where this sudden skeleton dream even stems from. I has no bearing on anything that's happened so far in the book. All we've had for scares are spooky wind, weird blonde kids and Josh being a dick. Then boom, weird nightmare where the family are all skeletal at the dinner table, eating bones while Amanda thinks she sees her friend Kathy coming over. Do the kids these days still use the term "Big Lipped Alligator Moment?" Because I think that's one of them. Regardless, she still thinks she's seeing a blonde kid, which Josh jokes might be a ghost in the curtain. That was a cardboard cutout of Ted Danson Josh, I'll thank you to stop making wild claims!
After some more "Did I see a kid" situations, Amanda and Josh head off to the school, where they run into a blonde haired, totally not the boy she kept seeing, kid named Ray Thurston. While meeting the other kids of Dark Falls, they soon learn that coincidentally a lot of the kids there have at one time lived in their house. And then suddenly go silent and circle Amanda, Josh, Ray and Petey, holding baseball bats.
Oh crap, they're the Baseball Furies!
But before the kids can go Abe "Knuckleball" Schwartz on their asses, Mr. Dawes shows up and the kids say that "oh, we're just inviting them to play some softball." So the kids do so, until sunlight begins to peek, and the dark falls kids call it quits. Amanda hits it off with a kid named Karen Somerset, so also says that she used to live in her house too. Spooky scary coincidences! After a few weeks, things all seem to be quaint and happy, until Petey somehow gets out of his leash and disappears. The kids look around frantically, but ultimately seem to just give up and stay home while their parents head to a special potluck being held by the rest of the town. Now, I know this book came out three years before Billy Madison, but he said it best here.
It's even gotten to the point of this story that Amanda's not even scared of the strange sounds and creepy house stuff. She's entered a malaise to the point where she just sleeps through it. But Josh, actually still having initiative to find Petey, tells Amanda that maybe he's in the cemetery like in the beginning of the book. So armed with their halogen flashlight (which Stine reminds us off plenty of times), they head out to the cemetery, only to run into Ray, who really doesn't want them to head to the cemetery in the middle of the night. They discover an ominous amphitheater of some sort, along with Petey. However, the dog is now gray and rotten looking, and doesn't recognize them. In trying to corral the dog however, Amanda discovers the names of all the kids in town on gravestones, including Ray's.
So, it turns out that yes, everyone in town is dead. Ray was the kid that was stalking Amanda in the house as he is the town watcher. And the reason that all the kids have lived in her house is because the house is the Dead House, where they lure in victims so that they can drain their blood. But, most importantly, Petey is also dead. R.L Stine killed a dog in his first book! Damn you Jovial Bob, I shall remember this! Josh ends up shining the flashlight in Ray's face, only for Ray to wind up like friggin' Toht in Raiders. Flesh and muscle melting off his face and his eyeballs falling out of their holes. This crap got dark quick.
They manage to make it back home, only to be encountered by the other dead kids. Before they can advance on them again, Mr. Dawes comes to their aid, telling Amanda and Josh that their parents are stuck in the amphitheater and need their help. However, on the way there, they come upon the grave of Compton Dawes. Yep, he's dead too. We finally get the revelation that the entire town used to be happy and thriving, and most importantly filled with living folk, until there was some sort of meltdown at the plastics factory on the outskirts of town. The yellow gas that leaked out poisoned Dark Falls, but instead of killing everyone, turned them into some sort of zombie/vampire hybrid that need blood to survive. So yeah, that whole "dead uncle" thing turns out to have been a ruse to the surprise of nobody.
Dawes advances on the kids, but Josh grabs the flashlight, only for it to then and there break on them. So Josh just frigging heaves it at Dawes' head, cracking it open. This... this book was made for children right? Melting eyes and skull caving. Reader beware indeed! They make it to the amphitheater and see their parents tied up in the middle as the whole town readies to go in for the kill. Amanda and Josh shove a conveniently placed tree out of the way, causing sunlight to fill the room and for everyone to melt, again, in seriously grim detail.
TWIST ENDING
The family, reunited, pack up their things and leave. Only to see another car come in the driveway. Another family. And Mr. Dawes is there to show them the house. But, screw them, it's every family for themselves as our protagonists skip town.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Welcome To Dead House is a weird first way to enter Goosebumps. To what I've known, the series doesn't usually go down downright disturbing levels of stuff like this, but within the end of the book we have face melting, head caving, dog murder, and the death of an entire town... of the dead, so I guess you can't feel that bad. It takes a while to build up to any form of suspense in this book as the first half or so is just "creepy sounds" and Josh constantly scaring Amanda. Then there's that weird skeleton dream, a lost dog crisis, then we're off to the races with dead dogs and zombie vampire things. Even Stine himself feels this book gets too dark. But this is much like a pilot episode. It's giving us what Goosebumps is about while not exactly getting it into its fit style of writing. I enjoyed the book enough, never felt it to be too boring, the kid characters were okay, though Josh was written to be too much of a pain in the ass for my liking. And the twist, while definitely understandable given the crap they went through, is kind of dickish. Let's just let this other family deal with this. But it's far from the strangest twist, that's for certain. Final rating for Welcome To Dead House is a B+.
No comments:
Post a Comment