In the interests of brevity, I will spare telling most of the story involving my first encounter with these books. What I will talk about as a brief preamble, though, is how they really were my first tentative steps into horror. The fact that I graduated from Goosebumps in 1995 or so to somehow watching The Langoliers in 1998 is a bit much, but there's an entire personal history I can chart out there. Some of it you'll even see in this marathon! If Stephen King was the so-called "King" of horror, the nightmare master himself who filled my younger self with dread? R.L. Stine was the Prince of horror. A gateway that was tense, but tame. A gateway which allowed me to get interested in this spooky shit in the first place. It's almost 25 years later and I've come back to pay my dues. I collected every original Goosebumps book as a child, and I think all of them are still in my attic. I grabbed three random ones that I had interesting memories of, and read them for this post. Let's get into Goosebumps, y'all. Oh, and beware... because you may be in for a scare. Get it? I did the... the thing. Right. Book.
#35- A SHOCKER ON SHOCK STREET
The short version: It's Universal Studios if it was about a bunch of gonzo horror movies and IF THE SCARES WERE REAAAAAAAL!!!
I'll level with you, I had no real strong connection with Shock Street here. I picked it just because I remembered it being about a horror movie theme park ride. It seemed to fit the tone of what I was going for in the marathon. That being said, R.L. Stine's old person sensibilities are showing. He has the right idea in the Shock Street series being a tentpole horror movie franchise with six films and a planned theme park ride, but everything else about these movies sounds way more like something out of the 1950s. It's all weird B-movie stuff. Shit like Wolf Girl or Ape Face or The Toxic Wild Man. It's not at all contemporary, and with my cursory knowledge of horror movie history it just feels a little weird. We were still in the twilight years of the slasher genre, and Stine even sees to know that, namedropping Elm Street. Beyond that, what's the book? Scares on a horror movie theme park ride. They keep happening. Sometimes the scares are just the other kid, Marty, messing around and the next chapter will begin with "ha ha GOTCHA", which... I think is a Goosebumps trend. Yes, even though you're both scared, the kid still fucks around and goofs off. Well. Then there's the twist ending. THE TWO KIDS WERE ROBOTS! ROBOTS MADE TO... GAUGE A CHILD'S INTEREST IN HORROR MOVIE TIE-IN SHIT? What was a cute "haha that's weird" twist at 10 becomes fucking horrifying at my current age. Oh my god this world has self-aware robots! With consciousness and shit! This Blade Runner hellscape is used by a horror movie theme park to test its rides! And the kids get fucking retired at the end because they're malfunctioning!! OH MY GOD!!! That... should be a good enough place to leave Shock Street. Oh my god.
#48- ATTACK OF THE JACK O'LANTERNS
The short version: IT'S A PRANK, BRO! IT'S JUST A PRANK, BRO!
Well. Here's one I remember the TV version of, quite evocatively. I don't remember where my VHS tape of this is and I can read the book faster than 22 minutes anyway, so here we are. The weird themes of kids going to inappropriate means just to prank someone with a scare are at fucking 12 in this book. Witness the opening scenes, where two kids get high schoolers to crash their own Halloween party in ski masks and threaten their guests, all just to scare the living shit out of them and prank them good. Jesus CHRIST. That's a level beyond, and I don't think it's in the TV version. Anyway, our protagonist kids decide to get PRANK REVENGE and plot the greatest Halloween spooky prank ever. Involving spooky jack-o'-lantern people forcing them and the two shitty prank kids to TRICK OR TREAT FOREVERRRRR. At least you can say these kids are only pranking the two mean kids who pulled that shit on them. It's less evil. Anyway all the supernatural shit in this book is aliens. Two of the kids are just aliens and the other two know about it. OH BUT THE ALIENS HAVE BEEN FUCKING EATING PEOPLE! That is again way more fucking horrifying when you're old enough to think about it beyond "ooh that's scary". I still like this one, but I admit my jaw was on the floor when I read that shitty prank again. Jesus Christ what in the fuck. Will the last book have any shitty pranks in it? Let's see.
#50- CALLING ALL CREEPS
The short version: Truly we all were the real Creeps.
Sometimes nostalgia (and a child's perspective) blinds you from the truth. I remember this being one of my favorite Goosebumps books. I don't know what I was thinking because this entire affair left me with a bit of shock and awe at how... unpleasant it was. Life is just unpleasant and unfair for poor protagonist Ricky. A bunch of bullies pick on him, everyone laughs at him and calls him names, and whenever the hell he gets tormented by his bullies, it causes incidental property damage and he's blamed and the bullies get no heat at all. I was never seriously bullied as a child but this feels really raw and real in an uncomfortable way. We, of course, have a prank attempt played because of course we do... but the consequences of this prank are that it backfires and somehow Ricky is thought to be the leader of a bunch of alien shapeshifting lizards called the Creeps? Who want to turn everyone else in school into Creeps by slipping magic transformation seeds in their food? What the fuck? Also the Creeps are his former bullies, which... Huh. What I remembered from my childhood is the twist ending where Ricky is trying to stop everyone from eating the Creep cookies... but then the Creeps are like "yo you'll be the leader and every Creep will be your slave" and then he's like YEAH FUCKERS I'VE BEEN HELD DOWN FOR TOO LONG, EAT THEM FUCKING COOKIES YOU MEAN SONS OF BITCHES!!! Except not like that because it's a book for children. It's still a child protagonist siding with the mind-controlling forced transformation alien lizards because he'll get to be the dom! WHAT THE FUCK?? No! Oh my god no what in the fuck why did I remember this book? AUGH! I'm very tired. I'm leaving you on that. I don't know what in the name of God, I really don't, but next time I'll have something better for you. Promise.
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