Wedding bells are ringing! No, wait. I mean that WARNING bells are ringing. As it's been documented, I've been very mixed on the Living Dummy books, feeling they suffer from being too formulaic and that Slappy really hasn't developed as a compelling villain. Can Stine prove me wrong here in the 2000 era? Let's find out with Bride of the Living Dummy.
COVER STORY
I live the cover. Great dynamic posing with Slappy and Mary-Ellen about to tear into this really skull-crazed cake. Tim has definitely cutened Slappy up though since his first appearance. He's still creepy, but his impact has definitely lessened with each new installment. I like the obvious bride of Frankenstein hair on Mary-Ellen as well to make this reference a bit more obvious. My issue though is again the structure of the Series 2000 covers as a whole.
In this case, the cover is so zoomed in that so much of Tim's great detail is lost in the process.
So I made my own edit and honestly, it just makes me realize how much the original covers really made the art pop out better. I don't intend to harp on the 2000 structure much, but this was a case where it really hindered the artwork.
STORY
Our protagonist is Jillian who has a trifecta of issues. Those being her two six year old twin sisters Katie and Amanda, and their doll named Mary-Ellen, who they treat as if she was the sister they always wanted. Jillian hates the ugly doll and mocks the kids, who promise that she'll be sorry. And it seems that threat is almost fulfilled when later that night Jillian is awakened by the twins trying to give her a midnight haircut. She threatens the twins that she'll cut off Mary-Ellen's head and the two make their leave. The next day, she wakes up to the news that she has to take the twins (and Mary-Ellen) to the Little Theater for a ventriloquist show. She even gets to take her longtime friend Harrison, a large boy, with them. Jillian hears noises, which her mother assures her is just dad working on his homemade coffee table in his workshop with his saw which I assure you will in no way set up anything for later. Jillian also hates ventriloquism as she would rather be a clown, which for weird interests the protagonists have in these books is somehow less bizarre than that one kid who really loved worms.
They head to the theater and Jillian tries to remind Harrison about the two being the entertainment for a birthday party on Saturday while the twins annoy her with Mary-Ellen. Eventually the show starts with the ventriloquist, a young man named Jimmy O'James and his dummy Slappy. The performance seems to go well early on, as Slappy continues to hurl harsher and harsher insults at Jimmy to the point that Jillian notices that Jimmy's expression is more frightened than enthusiastic. After roasting Jimmy, the pair go to talk to the audience, which Amanda and Katie volunteer. This means the pair get immediately torn to shreds by Slappy, which pisses them off. Jillian says that "hey, if I got insulted, you'd love it ya hypocrites!" to which they don't respond. After the show ends, the twins vow to give Jimmy a piece of their minds and run backstage.
Jillian and Harrison chase after the twins, but can't find them. But Jillian does find a room where she hears arguing. What appears to be Jimmy and Slappy arguing as Jimmy tries to stuff him back into the box, which leads to Slappy full on breaking Jimmy's nose with a wooden fist. Jimmy and Slappy see Jillian spying and Jimmy tries to say that it was nothing and this dummy that's clearly abusing me is totally not alive. She finds the twins, but Harrison has vanished. The twins, being a pair of unappreciative brats who whine for ice cream for the three of them (meaning the twins and Mary-Ellen). Jillian manages to drag them home, but who does she see on the couch, but Slappy! Turns out Harrison found Slappy in the trash and took him home. Slappy also takes a bite out of Jillian's hand, which makes the kids think he might be broken, so they get her dad to fix him. Jillian also sees the card with the magic spell, but only reads half of it before having to eat dinner.
That night at dinner, the twins annoy Jillian some more with Mary-Ellen, so she shoves the doll's head in a plate of macaroni and gets in trouble for it. That night, she sees Slappy move and talk on his own, but of course it's the twins. They say that Mary-Ellen's pissed over the macaroni incident and they need to warn her about something, but she's tired of all this nonsense and throws them out of her room. At school, Jillian and Harrison think of many Mary-Ellen abuse-related plans for revenge on the twins, until Jillian reminds Harrison that they have to get supplies for their clown act at the birthday party. On their way to the shop, they see Jimmy O'James who is super frazzled. When they cop to stealing Slappy, he tells them to get rid of him before it's too late and then runs away. They shrug it off and go look at some magic tricks. The kids are really into being clowns, and think maybe they should do a squirting act. Everyone loves squirting, especially four year olds.
Well, this book skidding into "oh dear" territory tout suite.
As Jillian enters her room, thinking of all the amazing clown stuff she can do for the party, she sees Slappy hunched over the lizard cage belonging to her pet lizard Petey who's disappeared. She blames the twins who claim they didn't do it. And for once, the Goosebumps parents actually scold the younger siblings. What world is this? Eventually they find Petey inside Slappy's mouth and the parents force Katie and Amanda to put Mary-Ellen in the closet until they apologize. The two are freaked out, saying that Mary-Ellen won't like that, but Jillian does so. She goes to put Slappy away too, but he bites her again.
The big day of the Henly family birthday party arrives and Jillian and Harrison are all clowned up. And to say this bombs on a Hiroshima level is an understatement. They bonk heads with each other to silence, then do bad jokes, use squirting cards that weren't filled and just plain stink up the joint. Their final act is a cream pie that's supposed to squirt whipped cream, but instead the four year old recipient gets a bunch of burning soap to the eyes. Jillian assumes it's the twins, but they have a tight alibi about not being home to screw with the props. Jillian has also given up the clown life. The squirting obsession, now that's a trickier habit to kick.
Jillian and Harrison head to Jimmy O'James' place. There's no answer, so the logical thing to do is go into a stranger's home without permission. They find Jimmy's head!- Oh wait it's just a dummy of himself that he made, along with a diary that mentions Slappy. And we get Slappy's full on origin story, which is as Goosebumps as you could get. Seems the puppet maker was actually an evil sorcerer who created evil dolls for a living. Ones that would injure, steal or just do straight up horrid stuff. Slappy was the sorcerer's most evil creation, carved out of the wood of a coffin, then possessed the dummy with his own evil, which can be awakened by the magic words. Holy crap, actual decent lore in Goosebumps. It's been a long ass time. Of course, there's holes in this lore if you consider the spell was in Mr. Wood's pocket first, but that boy's been retconned out of existence at this point. Although I believe the re-release of Night of the Living Dummy had a piece that mentioned that conveniently BOTH Slappy and Mr. Wood were made from the same coffin wood and evil sorcerer, so that fixes that, I guess. At least it works better than the Monster Blood books.
After being told by a neighbor that Jimmy fled town on a "tour" they head home. Harrison wants to do a double dummy act, and suggests maybe using Mary-Ellen. Jillian heads home to an angry mother who admonishes her for being so late since she has to take care of the twins. When Jillian gets into her room however, she sees "WHERE'S MY BRIDE?" written on her mirror. She then tries to find the piece of paper, but it's missing. Jillian is convinced Slappy's alive, likely by the twins who were messing around. She goes to attend to the twins, then hears a loud crash as Slappy has thrown plates of spaghetti on the curtains and is still writing about his bride. But of course, the parents don't believe them, which yeah, Goosebumps parents, but with both the twins and Jillian at each other's throats, it's not surprising.
Despite being grounded, Jillian can still do another birthday show with Harrison. They still go with ventriloquism, but Jillian is against using Slappy. But wouldn't you know it, as they prepare with Mary-Ellen and another dummy that Harrison brought, who's in a suitcase, but Slappy! Slappy and Mary-Ellen "argue" until Slappy pulls the ol' pea soup vomit routine on the kids. He then grabs a kid named Eddie and violently drags the child, still asking for his bride. Jillian thinks that he must mean Mary-Ellen, but nope, Slappy wants Jillian for his bride! When I expected 2000 times the horror, child brides were not in the description, Jovial Bob. As Slappy grabs Jillian and tells her she's his slave, suddenly Mary-Ellen awakens and fulls on says that she's his bride, not Jillian. How will this crazy relationship go down? Find out next time on "As The Wood Rots".
Mary-Ellen reveals that it was her that brought Slappy to life, that Slappy was asleep until the party. Mary-Ellen sabotaged everything as an act of revenge for all the stuff Jillian did and said to her earlier. It turns out that she was alive the entire book. All that talk from the twins was legit. Their rotten behavior was still them though. Slappy has had enough of this and more or less breaks the doll's neck, before returning to his bride. But suddenly Mary-Ellen tackles Slappy and the two dolls wrestle into dad's workshop. Slappy turns on the buzz saw and saws Mary-Ellen in half. But as he laughs in triumph, half of Mary-Ellen grabs the saw and saws him in half. Jillian looks at the remains of the doll and the dummy, when Slappy suddenly grabs her again, only to fall limp and still.
TWIST ENDING
CONCLUSION
As for the other characters, Jillian is a bit more likable and her situation of having annoying twin sisters is definitely one that can be pitied. Harrison is a very one-note best friend character, but he's not super annoying. The twins are brats, but the twist of them being forced to doing so by Mary-Ellen really works. Add in a pretty suspenseful conclusion and you have the best excuse for the dummy series so far. I just wish the end twist was better and not so rushed. I mean, the idea that the evil of Slappy can be possessed onto others isn't the issue, it's just that this feels like a really lame way to end this book. That and trying to justify the existence of clowns. I mean, come on. Overall, some nagging issues aside, this one was a case of holy horror matrimony. Bride of the Living Dummy gets an A-.
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