Goosebumps: Episodes 18-19 The Werewolf of Fever Swamp

If I had to name an episode of this show right off the top of my head, it probably would have been this one. The episode was aired as a special three months after A Night in Terror Tower to wrap up the season. While it’s better than most of the previous episodes, I find it somewhat amazing that Fox decided that this would work better as a finale than the truly awesome Terror Tower. Going back to my own memories, I remember thinking this episode was a big event and being really impressed. I have no idea if it was actually significant in the television landscape, though, or if it was just my nine-year-old imagination.

A boy named Grady (Brendan Fletcher) moves into Fever Swamp with his parents (Geoffrey Bowes and Maria Ricossa) and sister (Mairon Bennett). His parents are “scientists” of no specified discipline who are studying how a group of domestic deer survive being released in the swamp. First, though, they all have to be fenced up in the yard for what seems like several days to a week, presumably because deer actually roaming the swamp would be harder to film.

Grady and his sister are miserable, living in a place where they can’t even get television reception, and the only other child present is a boy named Will (Michael Barry). There’s also a creepy old Swamp Hermit (Don Francks) who apparently lost his family many years ago, and now wanders the swamp aimlessly. As Grady is forced into a friendship of convenience with Will, he begins to pick up local urban legends about werewolves. Will believes the Swamp Hermit to be one, and thinks he has halted his aging by killing people in the swamp.

Going ahead and spoiling the obvious twist: Will’s status as the werewolf makes him hard for me to classify him as a character. When he briefly regains his humanity due to an eclipse he tells Grady to run, so it’s clear he’s not malicious, but his attempts to mislead Grady about the identity of the werewolf make me uncertain of what his intentions are. He also claims that both wolfsbane and silver bullets are useless against werewolves, but this isn’t a theory we ever see tested, so I’m not sure of his motivations on that point.

To go even deeper, he makes references to “werefolk” as if werewolves are some kind of community. His claim that werewolves can stop aging as long as they kill makes me wonder how old he really is. Finally, he makes a reference to having a “yard,” but we never see his parents. However, I believe the building behind him in his introduction scene is intended to be his home, but could be part of Grady’s parents’ property. So I’m not sure if he even lives in a house or just wanders the swamp.

At the same time, a dog breaks into the family’s house, and Grady takes him in, naming him Vandal. However, after finding a dead rabbit, and some additional property damage, his parents and sister begin to suspect that Vandal is a very bad dog and plan to call the sheriff to get rid of him. Will feels that this makes it his duty to prove that there is a werewolf. And no, I don’t know why a pet killing a large rodent in the swamp is a problem.

In his effort to “prove” that the Swamp Hermit is a rabbit-killing werewolf Grady wanders out into the swamp, and ends up trapped in a net set by the Hermit, who for some reason brings Grady back to his home and...sits there eating and looking creepy. Then, when Grady tells the Hermit that his parents are coming with Elephant Rifles to save him (a joke, as the family had earlier been established as pacifists), the Hermit picks up his own gun and howls at the moon. My best guess is he was trying to attract the real werewolf, but I have no idea why kidnapping Grady was a part of his plan. Grady gets away while he’s howling, and runs back home, resetting the entire story to square one.

After the werewolf frees all the deer (no, don’t know why he didn’t eat them), Grady tries to lock his mother inside a shed to keep her safe, and we get a series of shots of Grady’s sister sneaking around in the dark with werewolf sounds playing over her. I think they may have also recycled Saber from Camp Nightmare for a few shots. During the attack sequence they can’t seem to make up their mind how wolfed out Will is, but I can possible excuse that as the eclipse taking effect over time.

Sister and Mom end up locked together in a shed. Grady, meanwhile, goes looking for Vandal, who ran off, and for some reason I don’t understand Will as well. When the werewolf is done terrorizing the family he comes after Grady, but gets caught in another net trap, and we get a speech from the Hermit explaining that his family was killed by the werewolf. However, he turns his back while standing right next to the werewolf, and is strongly implied to be killed. You’d think someone who spent years hunting a werewolf would be a bit more careful, but I guess the adult fixing everything wouldn’t be as interesting for the kiddies in the audience.

This is when Will is turned back into a partial human by the eclipse, and tells Grady to run. Grady is an idiot though, and is attacked by the werewolf who...picks him up and shakes him. Then vandal arrives and fights the werewolf, pushes it into the bog at the center of the swamp, which Will had earlier earlier compared to quicksand in an obvious set-up, and the werewolf sinks. It’s probably one of the more overtly violent endings, with a character either drowning onscreen, or (if werewolves are immortal) being trapped potentially forever.

Having seen the creature, Grady’s parents now accept that there was some sort of wolf involved in the attack, rather than Vandal. They’re still insistent, however, that there are no werewolves. Grady, however, is now beginning his transformation into a werewolf, getting nightmares and howling at the moon. An obvious twist, but a fair one for someone attacked by a werewolf. I guess we can just assume shaking is now the manner of curse transfer.

The episode isn’t bad. If you want to relive nostalgia for your childhood, or introduce your children to the show, this would be a decent episode to do it with. The production values are pretty high, the acting isn’t half bad, and it actually leaves some major questions unanswered for us to play around with. Also, you get to see the early days of Brendan Fletcher, later known for his ground breaking role as “the guy in the thing.” Also, he starred in Uwe Boll’s Rampage, and gets points for starring in something by Uwe Boll that was actually enjoyable to watch.

So, yeah. Check it out.