31 Days of Goosebumps: Book 38. The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena

Book 38: The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena

If there’s anything Jordan and Nicole can’t stand its never seeing snow. Finally they get their dream when their dad gets hired to travel to Alaska to photograph an abominable snowman.

After their tour guide leaves them to starve Jordan and Nicole find the snowman frozen in ice. He thaws out and chases them but they escape and tell their dad. Their dad goes into the cave and find the snowman frozen in ice again. He plans to take the snowman back to california along with his pictures.

Their friend Lauren comes over and they decide to show her the frozen snowman. While showing her they grab two “secret snowballs” they snuck in and throw them at her. Both snowballs miss and hit a tree and suddenly snow spreads EVERYWHERE.

Nicole gets frozen in ice and Jordan unleashes the snowman. The snowman grabs Nicole, she thaws out, he runs away never to be seen again and the snow melts. When their dad returns he’s upset that the snowman is missing but excited he has pictures... until he checks the photos and they’re all blank

THE BAD: The above 4 paragraphs is the entire plot line. THis is the longest goosebumps book. Yep A WHOLE LOT OF FAKE OUTS. Also all the twists in the last 6 chapters have no explanation. Like yesterday’s books... shit just happens.

THE GOOD: Another one where I don’t have much to say. I did enjoy the asshole tour guide though.

THE TV SHOW EPISODE:  NO EPISODE PRODUCED

31 Days of Goosebumps: Book 37. The Headless Ghost

Book 37: The Headless Ghost

Duane and Stephanie love haunting their town. It’s pretty easy for them to do living near  a famous haunted house. They’ve gone on the tour (ran by Otto and Edna) so much they can memorize it. One night Stephanie decides they should try to find a real life ghost. They love the story of the Headless Ghost (named Andrew) and plan to find his head.

On the tour they meet Seth who claims to have sunk in and seen a ghost previously. THey agree to sneak in the following night together. 

Seth then tells them his real name is Andrew and he wants Duanes head. He pulls off his current head and chases them. They accidentally find a secret passage and stumble into a room with Andrew’s head in it. Then Andrew (as a ghost appears) just as Seth enters. Turns out Seth was just joking.

Otto arrives and yells at Seth (revealed to be his Nephew) for scaring Duane and Stephanie.

They stop haunting the town and get involved in school activities. Then they decide to visit Otto. They have a good tour and as they leave a police officer asked them why they’re trespassing as the house has been unvisited for 3 months and Otto/Edna no longer live there.

THE BAD: What the fuckity fuck! Nothing makes sense with this story. How did Seth pull off his head? What does that ending mean? Was Otto killed or was he a ghost all along? If he was a ghost all along HOW?! This is earth-scatteringly sloppy writing!

THE GOOD: I actually liked the characters and setting. I just wish things made SENSE in this book. It’s insanely unclear throughout.

THE TV SHOW EPISODE:  The Episode follows the book pretty closely until the end. They try to “up the ending” but they go a little too crazy. I don’t really understand/get/like the painting thing at the end. It’s a weird way to avoid trying to kill someone on a kid’s show.

31 Days of Goosebumps: Book 36. The Haunted Mask II

Book 36: The Haunted Mask II

I loved The Haunted Mask. I really did. I was pretty excited to read the sequel because I’m pretty sure someone told me this was even better. They were wrong.

The Haunted Mask II takes place a year after the first book. Steve Boswell (one of the two kids who tormented Carly Beth in the first book) is the new person captured by the possessed mask. He purchases it to terrify a group of 6 year olds who drive him crazy.

He picks the mask of a creepy old man and the mask gets stuck to him. He spends his halloween old and feeble. The only person who can help him is Carly Beth. They’re unable to remove the mask until they find an old tuxedo to which the mask becomes a part of and runs out the door.

THE BAD: We have a real change of character. The original book we fell in love with Carly Beth. SHe was a good kid who was in a bad situation. She bought the mask to get back at relentless and mean spirited bully. Steve is kind of a Jerk and while the 6 years are cruel at times, they’re still 6 years old.

THE GOOD: I like that they changed the pace a little bit. Instead of it being a repeat of Haunted Mask where Steve is possessed by evil instead he slowly becomes the old man from the mask. That was a cool change up.

THE TV SHOW EPISODE:  Couldn’t find this episode for whatever reason Netflix doesn’t have the Haunted Mask episodes

31 Days of Goosebumps: Book 35. A Shocker on Shock Street

Book 35: A Shocker on Shock Street

I recall hearing this book mentioned on quite a few “best of” lists for Goosebumps. It’s pretty good (hell after Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes it’s fucking great) but it’s a rough one to get through for sure. 

The book follows two forgettable characters (who I never could quite figure out if they were best friends or brother & sister... not that it matters in the end). As per usual our main characters are a boy and a girl (of similar or same age) that are always fighting over who is braver. They LOVE the Shocker on Shock Street film franchise and are intensely excited that their father has created a ride/tour of the set. They will be the first people to try it out.

Mid-way through the tour things start to go wrong. It seems that the monsters on the ride aren’t robots but instead genuine creatures. They get off the tramcar and run to find safety. They finally find their father and decide that he’s a robot.

Then it’s revealed that he’s not a robot, they are the robots. He built them to test the ride. What?

THE BAD: The ending of this book is such a bat-shit crazy twist layered on top of another twist. It doesn’t particularly make a hell of a lot of sense and I guess that bothers me (Although maybe I just have super high standards for Stine). Seriously though, why did the robots get to see the premiere of a movie?

THE GOOD: Unlike some of the Goosebumps books there is no pacing issues to be found. It moves at a solid pace and honestly sometimes that’s all you can really ask for. Also the Shocker on Shock Street movies sound so ridiculous that I kinda wish they existed.

THE TV SHOW EPISODE:  Pretty decent adaptation with some fun creature effects but continues after the books ending for no real reason.

31 Days of Goosebumps: Book 34. Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes

Book 34: Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes

Well this was a rough one. But I expected that much.

There’s very little new ground at all on this particular story. I will say that I’m glad that by this point Stine doesn’t waste pages like he used to. The story actually flows and all the events are genuine (no 70+ pages of fake outs before anything happens).

I’ve noticed that every kid in every goosebumps book has a super competitive sibling. Can’t believe it took me 34 books to realize this.

Anyway the story follows two neighbors and their kids. Both families enter their gardens into competitions. Our main character’s father purchases two lawn gnomes and terrible things start happening. Turns out at night the gnomes come to life and create mischief. In the end the day is saved by a dog whistle.

Sounds ridiculous and/or hard to follow. Yeah... not a fan of this book. I may have disliked it more than Be Careful What you Wish For (although I still lilked these characters more despite the fact that they’re very forgettable).

THE BAD: It’s just not a very good book. Far from Stine’s best.

THE GOOD: I was actually startled by the Dog Whistle reveal. I didn’t see that coming.

THE TV SHOW EPISODE:  I remember watching this particular episode the day it aired. It’s one of the better episodes because the ending is better and eerier.

31 Days of Goosebumps: Book 33. The Horror At Camp Jellyjam

Book 33: The Horror At Camp Jellyjam

Okay, yesterday’s book was pretty rough. Thankfully we’ve got a better book today. I had never read this book previously but in general I enjoyed this book. It avoided most of the elements of Goosebumps books that I find Stine to be bad at. There’s no fake outs, there’s no drawn out story elements... this particular book dives right into the story and never misses a beat.

Wendy and her brother Elliot end up at Camp Jellyjam due to her painfully irresponsible parents letting them ride in the trailer attached to their car on a road trip. The trailer disconnects and instead of killing them ends up in the weird camp. 

Everyone is very into winning at camp. The slogan is Only the Best and the logo is a weird blob/Jellyfish creature named King Jellyjam. 

Eventually Wendy finds out that King Jellyjam is a real living thing that takes the campers as slaves to wash him. He is killed when Wendy tells everyone to stop washing him and his own stench is too much for him to handle.

THE BAD: That ending is pretty ridiculous. While the film managed to maintain a decent sense of terror this may be one of the dumbest ways any villain has ever been thwarted.

THE GOOD: It’s a pretty eerie premise. Also they mention that King Jellyjam has eaten a few campers. It’s glazed over but that’s pretty fucked up if you think about it.

THE TV SHOW EPISODE:  None Produced

31 Days of Goosebumps: Book 32: The Barking Ghost

Book 32: The Barking Ghost

Well it’s October. Time for part two of the 31 Days of Goosebumps. And we are starting off with a terrible book.

Yea, this was a rough one. I had to force myself to finish this one. The plot is simple. Cooper moves to a new town. He hears random dogs barking. His brother picks on him. He befriends local girl. They search for Dogs. Dogs turn out to be people cursed years ago to have to live life as Ghost dogs. They switch bodies with Cooper and girl. Cooper and Girl try to switch bodies back. They fuck up and end up as chipmunks. The End.

This book is like a combination of two of my least favorite Goosebumps books. It’s like Ghost Beach meets Why I’m Afraid of Bees. I have a lot of issues so let’s get right into this.

THE BAD: Okay there’s a few problems here. Beyond the fact that there’s very little that happens in the actual book there’s two things that infuriated me about this book. The first thing is that Cooper’s brother is intensely cruel. We are not told this brother exists until he’s successfully pulled a prank on Cooper (one of many annoying fake out scares in this book). That bugged me right off the bat. Furthermore when Cooper first meets Fergie she random says “Dogs” and runs away. She has no memory of this happening throughout the rest of the book and there is no explanation why this happened throughout the rest of the book. This is completely random. 

THE GOOD: Still not worse than Be Careful What You Wish For.

THE TV SHOW EPISODE:  Based on the boring source material they did as good of a job as you could ask. The actor playing Cooper’s brother apparently thinks he’s playing a 50’s Greaser though.