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.

Goosebumps: Episodes 16-17 A Night in Terror Tower

A Night in Terror Tower is the best of the first season. Beyond that, it’s actually so good that it feels as if it came from an entirely different show. The budget is still low, but the discussions are amazingly frank, and the villain truly menacing. In keeping with the requirements of 90s kids’ television the word “death” is never uttered. But, the show has no problem with referring to the villain as the “Lord High Executioner,” or making reference to “execution by beheading.” It’s as if the writers were flipping the censors the bird.

The episode also succeeds in giving us a plot that’s unpredictable, while still holding together fairly well. Unlike most other episodes there’s no sense that the writers were simply treading water until they could release their twist on you, nor that the twist is somehow separate from the rest of the story. There is all one narrative, and it fits together flawlessly.

Sue (Kathryn Short) and her brother Eddie (Corey Sevier) are taking a tour of London that’s dragging them around from museum to museum. They’re both excited when they find out that their tour guide (Peter Messaline) is going to “Terror Tower,” the knock-off of the Tower of London in which the Prince and Princess of York were once imprisoned by their usurper Uncle (an obvious reference to the historical Princes in the Tower).

I feel like I’ve pointed out the obvious plotholes in plenty of previous episodes, so I can’t let my love of this one get in the way: To see if York had ever been independent I checked Wikipedia for “King of York,” and it took me to a list of Kings of Northumbria, one of which was specifically crowned King of York in 918, with their territory being absorbed by England in 954. That said, however, why in God’s name would the Kings of Northumbria have been locking people in a Tower explicitly stated to be located in London! Did they just rent space rather than have their own dungeons?

Sue and Eddie become separated from the tour group, and find themselves chased through the tower by a strange man (Robert Collins) who wants to take them somewhere. Getting away from him, they’re caught by a security guard (Robert Buck), who doesn’t believe they’re being chased, insisting he’s the only person on the property. Escaping him, the two take a cab back to their hotel.

It’s here that they find...they can’t pay the cabbie (Michael Polley). When they make the attempt, he tells them that the money they have isn’t real British currency. Looking for their mother and father, they’re told that the conference their parents are supposed to be attending isn’t at the hotel, and that their room is unoccupied. Then, it dawns on them that they have no memory of anything that happened prior to that day up to and including their own last names. Honestly, more scenes like this could have made Goosebumps a far better show. No bad effects, or poorly-designed monster. Just two kids who are terrified, and for good reason.

At this point a brief chase ensues, with the cabbie searching the hotel for the kids who can’t pay him. You could complain that being arrested by the British police would probably be the best thing that could happen to you if you’re wandering around London with no memory of who you are, but I honestly can chock that up to irresponsible teenagers being idiots. In the kitchen they’re attacked by the strange man again, and suddenly find themselves in the Middle Ages, still being chased by the same man.

When Sue asks a woman to hide her in exchange for the coins she had (which turn out to be gold sovereigns), the woman immediately turns her over. It’s from her that we finally find out that the mysterious man is the Lord High Executioner. I actually think I may have asked my mother what that word meant during the commercial break.

Locked in the Tower, the children encounter an imprisoned sorcerer named Morgred (Diego Matamoros) who finally explains what’s going on. The two main characters are, in fact, the Prince and Princess of York. Morgred, a servant of their late father, had sent them into the future with new memories to save them from execution. He intended to give them completely new memories, and send himself with them, but was interrupted by the Executioner before he could complete the spell, allowing the Executioner to come after them with Morgred’s three magic stones. It’s at this point that that the spell wears off, and they suddenly find themselves in Renfest clothes with British accents (oddly, the Prince of York seems to be aping Cockney).

I may make fun of the sets and costumes, but honestly it’s a huge step up from what this show usually produces. The music, lighting, sets, costumes, and performances are all cheap, but used as effectively as a gourmet chef making a meal of cheap ingredients. You don’t need fancy stuff to make it work.

As it typical, the final confrontation is quick and relies on the momentary incompetence of the villain, but there are much worse cases. Eddie picks the Executioner’s pocket for the stones, throws them to Morgred who begins the spell. Sue trips some hapless guards, and the scene fades out as the Executioner desperately charges at Morgred.

And with that, they’re back in the present day, being berated by their tour guide for wandering off from the group. Morgred appears, introducing himself as their “Guardian.” They finally get the chance to hear the end of the story, being told that the Prince and Princess mysteriously disappeared before their executions could be performed.

The final twist is probably one of the best justified of the first season. Morgred finds that one of his stones is missing, and believes Eddie pick pocketed it. The camera scrolls over, and we see the Executioner holding the final stone. Given that he was charging Morgred just as they were transported to the future, and the stones were balanced on his open palm, this makes perfect sense.

Honestly, I recommend this episode. It’s not just better than most Goosebumps, it’s legitimately better than many of the movies I’ve reviewed. It’s scary, and if you want to raise a horror-buff child it’s the perfect introduction.

Goosebumps: Episode 15 Say Cheese and Die

Just a personal theory: I think I may have found an example of a good actor, playing a bad actor, playing a character, without the makers knowing. Or maybe with. Who knows, really. Director Ron Oliver actually has a pretty long history in children’s television, so I have trouble believing that he was completely unaware when a young Ryan Gosling played Greg Banks, our protagonist, in a dull “read my lines and emote” manner that seems to be copied directly from standard Tales from the Crypt episodes.

A fun fact: This episode was based on a Twilight Zone episode called A Most Unusual Camera, which was also the basis of an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark called The Tale of the Curious Camera. Goosebumps wiki acknowledges this, and as of this writing incorrectly claims that two actors from this episode are shared with the original Twilight Zone episode, but somehow misses the fact that Ron Oliver also directed the Are You Afraid of the Dark version.

This is a pretty fast-moving episode, with a surrealist feel. Greg, and several of his friends, have apparently become interested in a local homeless man nicknamed “Spidey” (Richard McMillan). They decide to break into the abandoned building where he lives, and discover...a camera. It’s weird looking, but they’re able to figure out pretty quickly that it’s basically a Polaroid. Greg takes his friend Bird’s (Akiva David) picture, right before he has a tumble off a flight of stairs...then, Spidey shows up, and they all run. After leaving, Greg is amazed to find that the picture shows Bird falling off the stairs, although Greg is convinced he took the picture before it happened.

To be fair, this is an episode where the short length does help somewhat. We have an evil camera, and it doesn’t take the characters long to figure out that it’s evil. Greg has one nightmare where his family is killed by the camera (or as close as can be implied by a kids’ show), and it causes two disasters. His father’s (Marvin Karon) new car shows up in a picture damaged, after which the family has a near miss, and the father eventually crashes the car alone. He also photographs his friend Shari (Renessa Blitz), who doesn’t show up in her picture at all. He also finds that the camera is undamaged when thrown onto concrete. I can imagine that in a longer film the protagonist would have kept “experimenting.”

There are definitely some weird moments in the episode. The aforementioned dream has Greg taking his family’s picture at a picnic, and then looking at the developed photo to see skeletons standing in their place. Also, he finds out about Shari’s disappearance when two cops (Karen Robinson and Scott Speedman) show up at his house to literally interrogate him without the slightest shred of evidence he had anything to do with the disappearance. That said, it works to get the kiddies hyped up, and as an adult I guess I can just say “meh, surreal” and move on.

The ending of the episode is quite strong, and probably the most memorable part. Greg decides to return the evil camera to the place where he found it, and finds Shari along the way. Apparently she reappeared at her home after he tore up her picture, which makes the camera a lot less impressive, but they continue on their journey.

Back at the abandoned building they’re confronted by Spidey, who gives his villain speech. He’s one of the more interesting villains. He attempted to make a camera that could predict the future, but instead produced one that made horrible futures come to pass. There’s a certain sympathetic touch to the idea that he became homeless to keep the camera hidden and unused when he discovered it was indestructible. However, I can’t see any particular reason he couldn’t have put it in a weight metal box and dropped into the ocean, where it would have likely been undiscovered for a period much longer than his human lifespan.

Overall, though, he comes across as a jackass with some vague notion that he wants to be a good person. He gives us a line about “primitive tribes” believing that cameras can steal souls that I will politely assume was an intentional attempt to paint him as a racist. He also believes, of course, that the two children now know too much and cannot be allowed to leave.

Shari snaps his picture, in a move that’s both surprisingly smart and ruthless for a children’s show protagonist. He disappears, and we see him screaming to be released from inside the camera. The protagonists leave the camera behind, and we get our final scare when two bullies from earlier in the episode find the camera, and take their own picture...and then Spidey is behind them.

I recommend this episode. Each episode of this show seems to have it’s own tone, and here the tone I get is, as I mentioned earlier, very Tales from the Crypt. It’s a scary story, compressed into a product that bears little resemblance to the real world, and I could seriously imagine Crypty laughing and throwing out a few puns (if complaining a bit about the lack of blood, sex, and curse words). It’s cheesy, everyone knows that it’s cheesy, and they make it work.

Goosebumps: Episode 14 It Came from Beneath the Sink

 

 

As the season progresses this show is definitely getting better. This is an episode that’s way better than it has any right to be. I really get the impression that at some stage this was intended to be a throwaway filler (hence the half-hour runtime), and the people involved just decided to give it their all anyway. It also doesn’t hurt that, relative to most of Season One, there’s a disproportionate number of people who are still working. Direct David Winning has dozens of other credits, mostly for television. We also have Katherine “American Mary” Isabelle as our lead, Kat, and Amanda “SG-1” Tapping as her mother.

Our heroine moves into a new house (a few blocks away from her old one, dodging the “new kid” cliché that this show has already used five episodes ago) and finds a mysterious...sponge. The sponge seems to move, and even has a face when no one else is looking, with bright red eyes of evil, and teeth that an orthodontist would hate. Furthermore, a series of strange events begins to occur shortly after Kat finds the sponge.

This is actually a surprisingly subtle point in the episode’s favor. Rather than making the evil overt from the very first moment, they actually build up a series of events that, in isolation, would not be cause for concern. Kat’s mother’s dishes are broken, her brother (Tyrone Savage) cuts his foot, the family dog disappears, and Kat’s bike crashes. The family’s reaction is also fairly realistic. Everyone is concerned, but no one rushes to panic.

Finally, Kat goes to her friend Carlo (Ashley Brown), an X-Files fan who tells her the creature is a “Grool.” The Grool is actually one of the best monsters in concept not just in Goosebumps, but that I’ve ever seen. A living bad luck charm that attaches itself to a person to curse them, and grows stronger by feeding on their bad luck. However, if the Grool is given away, the owner dies, effectively creating a no-win situation.

Honestly, Carlo is one of the best things about this episode. He’s sane enough that you can believe him, but just crazy enough to be a memorable and unique character. All three of the child actors do decently, and are even fairly smart in discussing the logic of the Grool. (They’re legitimately unsure if Kat loaning the Grool out to a science teacher “counts” as giving it away.)

And yes, the Grool is defeated by the Power of Love. It loves bad, so it hates good. However, the episode manages to make the twist work with one addition: even at it’s weakest, the Grool can never die. Instead, it can only be contained. And so, Kat has to spend the rest of her life greeting the Grool every morning, and putting on pleasant music for it to listen to throughout the day. It’s a cute scene, but as an adult I definitely have my doubts that she could maintain this ritual for the next sixty years.

...oh, and then there’s a vampire potato. Such a creature was mentioned earlier in the episode by Carlo, so it gets at least slight set-up, and honestly it’s probably the funniest stinger this show has ever given us. Most of the “twists” are barely even worth addressing. But “vampire potato?” That I want to talk about.

If this episode was presented to me just as a short film, without the context of being a Goosebumps episode, I’d still recommend it. It’s a nice way to spend twenty minutes, and had a lot more talent behind it than most of the episodes in this season combined. Definitely gets a big, fat thumbs up from me.

Goosebumps: Episodes 12-13 Stay Out of the Basement

Stay Out of the Basement, more than any other episode of Goosebumps I’ve seen to date, knows exactly what it is. It’s a goofy throw-back to the silly science fiction of the 1950’s, and it is glorious in its stupidity. I can just see the creators laughing over this script. They even included the line “I think Dad is a mad scientist.”

The premise is that Margaret and Casey (Beki Lantos and Blake McGrath) are being left with their botanist father (Judah Katz) while their mother (Lucy Peacock) is away caring for her sick sister. Their father, however, has been isolated of late, working on some project intended to regain his recently terminated post at the local University.

However, as soon as their mother is away the two go down into the basement, and their father runs up behind them screaming the episode title. Apparently he feels that what’s down in the basement is dangerous, and wants the two to stay away. While the idea of a scientist not allowing his kids into his laboratory is actually far more believable than the insane behavior of most Hollywood science (looking at you new Ninja Turtles franchise), this is easily the last moment of the story that isn’t downright absurd.

The children begin to grow suspicious of their father when Margaret sees him eating plant food, and catches a glimpse of him in the bathroom, having taken off his hat to reveal leaves growing from his head, and was washing off a cut that was bleeding green. To allay their suspicions, their father begins attempting to spend more time with them.

He first explains to this that he’s working on an animal/plant hybrid. This was the scene that convinced me the episode was being intentionally stupid. The process is described as “putting animals cells in a plant.” I really doubt the writers were unfamiliar with the concept of DNA in the 90s.

He also attempts to force them to eat a weird green slop for breakfast. This is treated as insidious in some unspecified way. Even having watched the episode twice I’m not clear on whether or not they would have been harmed by eating it, or if it was just a sign that he failed to recognize the slop as unappetizing to normal humans.

When a family friend from the University (Hrant Alianak) disappears after going down in the basement (the two never saw him leave), they venture down into the basement, which they find now resembles a rainforest, and has plants that can reach out and grab them. I’m not sure exactly how many times the two of them slipped down into the basement over the course of the episode, but it was enough to rob their final descent of any tension, as we already knew more-or-less what was down there.

On their final trip down they discover...their actual father! He explains that some of his blood had mixed with an experiment, resulting in a plant that looked exactly like him, and who was planning to replace humanity with plant copies! Honestly, the reveal wouldn’t have been that far out of place in a black-and-white sci-fi film in the middle of the 20^th century, and here it had me nearly rolling on the floor. If every Goosebumps episode was made this perfectly in imitation of old horror films I would have flown through this season.

The climax is the single goofiest example of “who do I shoot!” I’ve ever seen. Margaret has to decide which “father” to spray with weed killer. Apparently “spray them both and call the Toxin Helpline to see if their real father needs to go to the hospital for skin contact or not” didn’t occur to her, and instead she has to guess from her father calling her “Princess.” Naturally, only he would know to call her this, not the plant copy who as far as we can tell has all of his memories (I mean, it’s not like he had to ask their names or learn English).

Even if you’re not interested in Goosebumps, I’d say check this episode out. It’s fun, and you’re sure to get a few laughs out of it. I don’t remember if it scared me as a kid, but my reaction as an adult is more than enough reason to justify its existence.

Goosebumps: Episode 11 My Hairiest Adventure

Wow, this episode is bad. At least with most Goosebumps episodes I have some idea what the makers were going for. Here, though, I’m clueless. The acting is horrendous, the twist defies logic, and most of the set-up isn’t particularly scary.

Our protagonist, Larry (Aaron Bartkiw), is a member of a terrible rock band with his friends, is constantly chased by dogs, suffers from allergies that require regular shots, and begins to suffer unexpected body hair growth when he tries a bottle of expired instant tan his friends found in a garage. He becomes desperate to hide the hair from his parents, because he doesn’t want to reveal his use of the instant tan.

Let’s break down the problems with this premise: first of all, the dogs just follow Larry. They never behave in a remotely aggressive manner, and when he’s sitting still in front of him they don’t even jump on him. Why is he afraid of these dogs?

Secondly, while never telling adults about your problems is a staple of both this series and children’s entertainment in general, this episode really strains my suspension of disbelief. A child covering up behavior from his parents when he thinks they might view it as irresponsible is one thing, however there’s no particular reason Larry can’t tell his parents about the hair growth without mentioning the instant tan. If he’s already going to the doctor for allergy shots on such a regular basis it’s not like he’d be afraid of a medical professional seeing hair on his arms and legs.

The final problem is a really annoying plot hole in the final twist. Over halfway through the episode Larry suddenly runs into a dog with a gold coin and different color eyes, exactly like his friend and bandmate Lily (Courtney Greig). He finds that Lily has disappeared. He finds in short succession that all of his bandmates have turned into dogs.

The twist: Larry’s doctor (Dan MacDonald) was experimenting with a formula to turn dogs into babies, which he’d been giving Larry in the guise of his allergy shots, but after many years the dogs were reverting to their original states. The episode ends with Larry turning into a dog, and being perfectly happy as one.

The problem, however, is actually in the set-up: The episode uses the dogs and “allergies” as it’s foreshadowing, but somehow fails to make any reference to Larry’s closest friends having the same problem. Why were these issues exclusive to Larry? It’s implied that Lily, at least, is covering up the hair growth, but we see her standing in front of the same dogs who were chasing Larry without any interest in her, and you’d think “we all get regular allergy shots” would be the kind of thing that would come up among childhood friends.

The episode ends with the good doctor making a decision to give up on dogs, and turning Larry’s pet cat into a baby. However, this baby apparently kept cat eyes. I would love to see the episode she goes through.

Seriously, there is no reason to watch this episode except to facepalm. Not a single thing in it makes sense, nothing is scary, and the parents’ acceptance of the boy they raised for twelve years becoming a dog is just absurd! This is a strong contender for the single worst episode of the first season.

Goosebumps: Episode 10 Night of the Living Dummy II

(note: For anyone unfamiliar with Goosebumps custom, the tv series remained consistent with the book titles. So, this episode is Night of the Living Dummy II because that’s the book it was adapted from. The original Night of the Living Dummy was never adapted.)

For the episode that gave this series’ most memorable villain his first on-screen appearance, wow this is crap. Slappy (Ron Stefaniuk) is appropriately charismatic, but nothing else really works. In this particular episode even Slappy seems a bit weak, showing little ability to actually do anything particularly horrible (his later episodes give him the power to turn people into Dummies, bring other dummies to life, possess people, and make him a far more overt pedophile than in this appearance).

To be fair, I don’t think the family in this episode is supposed to be especially likable. I get the impression we’re supposed to see them as a family of dorks living in the land of sunshine and rainbows. You don’t hate them, but I think you are supposed to see them as far too sensitive.

The parents (Gina Clayton and Richard Fitzpatrick) are intent on having daily family time when everyone in the family stands up and…does something. The father sings, the son Ted (Andrew Sardella) shows a video he made of the family, the older sister Sara (Caterina Scorsone) shows her painting, and our protagonist Amy (Maggie Castle) fails at ventriloquism with her dummy “Dennis.” After Dennis’ head comes off, Amy’s father reveals that he bought her a new Dummy by the name of Slappy, who has a magic incantation written down in his pocket that Amy conveniently takes out and reads aloud.

However, when Amy tries to perform with Slappy, the dummy begins spewing insults at the rest of the family, which they all believe to be her ventriloquism (why they think she suddenly became competent at throwing her voice is beyond me). However, to me this scene really highlights the entire problem with this family: they apparently can’t deal with even the slightest thing getting out of line. Slappy’s jokes are basic-level standup comedy: Dad can’t sing, Sara can’t paint, Ted is stupid, and Mom is fat. The jokes aren’t even terribly original.

Saying “Slappy is alive” would be pointless unless I was talking to someone who not only knew nothing about this series, but had no ability at all to see obvious plot twists coming…oh, and didn’t read the title of the episode. Over the course of the episode Slappy does destroy a painting, and nearly hit Amy’s father with a guitar (resulting in the guitar being destroyed), before going on a rampage through the house attacking Amy and Sara. However, there’s never any indication that he poses any form of threat that would not be posed by a small person of his size. He might teleport once or twice, or he might just be nimble and quick on his feet.

Slappy asserts that saying the words made Amy his slave, but we’re never shown any evidence that it did anything more than bring him to life. Furthermore, he’s defeated by…having his head smashed on a hard surface. That’s it, and he’s gone. The twist? He was destroyed by the other dummy, Dennis (he talks, but I’ve tried and cannot find any record of who voiced him)

In spite of his ineffectualness, Slappy is still creepy here. However, the rest of the cast lets him down, Castle most of all. I often glace at the IMDB page of these episodes to see if any of the child actors are still working. I was utterly shocked to find that Castle is. Maybe she gets better, but in this episode she’s just terrible. Every line sounds unnatural and rehearsed, and I didn’t feel a single emotion coming out of her. Most of the other actors are, at best, meh.

Watching this episode seems less like an enjoyable nostalgia trip, and more of a history lesson. This episode is clearly inferior to less remembered stories like The Phantom of the Auditorium and Return of the Mummy. It’s an important part of the development of my generation of horror fans, and it introduced those of us who didn’t regularly read the books to a great icon, but that’s far from the same as being good.

Goosebumps: Episode 9 Return of the Mummy

Just as I was beginning to lose hope, I find a one-part episode that doesn't feel rushed. Return of the Mummy feels a little like the script had a razor blade taken to it, but somehow it still works. I suspect this was at least partially because the show lacked the budget to portray an actual pyramid or anything of appropriate scale for ancient Egypt, so we're limited to scenes of people in small rooms. However, these scenes function to deliver the story in a fun, if somewhat campy manner, carried by actors who are clearly enjoying themselves in the roles.

Gabe (Daniel De Santo) is a kid sent to Egypt to spend the summer with his archaeologist Uncle Ben (Elias Zarou) and his cousin Sari (Annick Obonsawin) who are in the process of opening a Pharaoh's tomb. I seriously doubt that the first people to enter a Pharoah's tomb would be the lead archaeologist together with his young daughter and nephew, but this is clearly set in fantasy world. In fact, a good argument could be made to place this story in the same continuity as the old Universal Mummy films.

Before the episode even begins Gabe has already purchased a “summoner” from a man at the airport. Apparently this is the hand of an actual Mummy, which can be used to awaken other Mummies. Uncle Ben, while suspecting the hand was a scam, expresses a willingness to let him try it on the Pharaoh. We get rapid exposition dumps, such as giving Ben a piece of amber with a scarab in it while explaining that possessing a scarab grants immortality. Meanwhile, Sari acts as the standard Goosebumps antagonistic sibling.

We get a reporter (Afrah Gouda) who shows up the site, having mysteriously found out about the dig. Strangely, she has a piece of amber with no scarab in it, because apparently all pieces of amber are supposed to have bugs in them. For some reason she's allowed to enter the tomb with them, because why not.

The Mummy's appearance is fairly sudden. The episode assumes that we knew it was coming, even if the characters didn't, so why pretend otherwise? The real twist, however, is that our reporter is actually the Pharoah's sister, who controlled him throughout his reign, and gained immortality by becoming a scarab. She slept in her piece of amber every night, while able to become a human by day. This is all infodumped on us when she appears, so don’t think I’m rushing. She even continues infodumping after her brother, uninterested in re-establishing their Kingdom, smashes the amber and she’s transforming back into beetle-form.

Her brother then attacks Gabe and Sari. Why he cares about attacking them I'm not sure, but destroying Gabe's summoner appears to stop him and destroy the tomb. So, my best guess is he wanted to get rid of the thing that was keeping him awake.

The episode ends with Uncle Ben trying to figure out how to explain the events to reporters. I'm not sure why Uncle Ben believes them, since he was unconscious for most of the events, but I suppose the 8-year-olds in the audience don't think of things like that. Honestly, the plot hole just adds to the glorious cheese for me.

Unseen to Gabe, however, the supposedly destroyed summoner slips back into his suitcase, headed home for America. I'd actually be curious what happened when it got there. Can it only bring back mummies, or could Gabe cause a zombie apocalypse? I guess we'll never know.

Goosebumps: Episode 7 The Phantom of the Auditorium

I’m actually starting to dread one-part episodes of this show. Even when all the other parts are in place for a good story, the actors still rush through their lines. This episode is another lost opportunity. The kids are mostly passable actors, and borrowing the costumes and organ music from The Phantom of the Opera is a cheap way to get chills, but it works.

The story takes place in a school where the drama class is about to do a production of The Phantom, an obvious knock-off of the above-mentioned story. We’re told the story of the play, and for the most part it’s the same basic premise as the name-brand Phantom. One major change, however: in this play, The Phantom is killed by the Raoul equivalent out of jealousy, and then returns as a ghost.

Brooke (Jessica Moyes) is cast as the female lead in the play, “Esmerelda.” Her friend Zeke (Shawn Potter) is the Phantom. The two of them have excellent chemistry together, and seem like one of the more realistic friendships I’ve seen in children’s television. Zeke is a prankster, who enjoys startling Brooke in his costume. However, Brooke doesn’t really seem to mind, and the two project a sense of trust.

However, Brooke’s snobby understudy Tina (Julia Chantrey) informs us that the play is cursed. Seventy years earlier the play was performed, and the child who was to play The Phantom disappeared, his body never found, and a year later his ghost appeared on the stage when the play was performed again.…also, there’s a new student named Brian (Stuart Stone), and a creepy “night janitor” named Emile (Erik Fink) hanging around.

Of course, things start to go wrong with the play. And by “things” I mean “thing.” As far as I can tell, putting aside a jump scare or two by Zeke, and a bad dream Brooke had at the beginning of the episode, the entire plot seems to be driven by a single incident disrupting rehearsal, when someone in a Phantom costume zip-lines in and causes a prop to nearly hit Brooke. Zeke, having the costume and being a prankster, is blamed and kicked out of the play.

Granted, in the real world this might be enough to create a real issue, but in the world of Goosebumps, where parents and lawsuits are the things of legends, it hardly seems up to snuff to shut down production. This is yet another case of a full hour being needed. At least three or four incidents would have really built up the tension.

Naturally, the two leads team up with Brian to investigate under the stage, and find that the Phantom has been living there. As it so happens, “Emile” was not a janitor but a homeless man living under the school with a Phantom costume. Apparently he felt that the play being performed would create a greater chance of discovery than…people believing that children were in physical danger. There’s no real climax to this storyline, as Emile apparently just runs off when he realizes he’s been discovered, but I’m okay with that. I imagine it’s pretty accurate to what a real homeless person would do if he knew his shelter had been found.

And then, the twist: on the night of the play, someone knocks out Zeke and takes his place on stage. Brooke realizes that she’s on stage with an actual ghost (the flames in his eye sockets were probably the give-away). The Phantom gives a speech in which he explains that he fell down the trap door, died, and became a ghost…oh, sorry, he “fell into the abyss” and “became a real Phantom.”

Honestly, the inability to directly reference death works here. The Phantom is quite effective if you interpret him as an overly dramatic child suddenly given supernatural powers. He even asserts that playing the Phantom in his Middle School play would have been “the greatest night of my life.” And apparently he plans to take “Esmeralda” with him into “eternal darkness.” He’s defeated when she rips off his mask.

And for an extra twist: the Phantom was to be performed by Brian seventy years ago. Brian was the ghost. This would have been a good twist…if we’d had time to develop Brian properly. As it is, he was the background character who painted sets, and was sad that he’d moved to the school too late to audition (…if he could fool the teacher into thinking he was in the class without records or a social security number, why not do so early enough to audition?).

Still, the scenery and atmosphere gives this episode a huge advantage. I really want to know who thought The Haunted Mask merited twice the running time of this episode. This is a rare time when not only was I willing to do my second viewing, I was actually looking forward to it, because the episode is really that enjoyable.

Goosebumps: Episodes 5-6 Welcome to Camp Nightmare

Only four episodes in, and I'm already starting to form a list of things that make for a good Goosebumps episode: a two-parter for good pacing, a director who can provide atmosphere, human villains to minimize cheesy special effects, a protagonist a few years older than the show's target demographic, and a surreal environment that makes the final twist seem less stupid by comparison.

If you can't tell, I'm listing off the things I like in Welcome to Camp Nightmare. This is another step up from the already good Girl who Cried Monster, which still had problems with cheesy make-up and pacing. It still has a certain degree of hamminess to it, but moreso than any previous episode there's a sense that the cheese is intentional. All of these actors are having a blast, and the Summer Camp environment invokes the sense of an '80s slasher made appropriate for small children.

Our protagonist this time is named Billy (Kaj-Erik Eriksen), a kid whose parents frequently go off on expeditions every summer. Normally, he stays with his Aunt and Uncle, but this summer they decided to send him off to camp. I like how downplayed his reaction is. Billy comes across as less hyperactive and emotional than our three previous protagonists right from the start. He mentions that he prefers Camp over his Aunt and Uncle, but doesn't seem especially thrilled to be there either.

Most of the other kids at the camp come across as more typical Goosebumps protagonists, either easily freaked out, or snarky as hell. Billy acting as straight-man for the group works well. We get to spend the most time with the character least likely to grate on our nerves. It also goes perfectly with the eventual twist.

The episode probably embodies the fear of childhood powerlessness better than any other single episode. The majority of tension in the episode is driven by one primary conflict: the adults at the camp seem oblivious to danger. The episode starts with the kids being left in what appears to be a random part of the woods by their bus driver, and nearly attacked by a large canine creature. The camp director, Uncle Al (Chris Benson) makes his appearance by scaring the creature off with a flare-gun. He assures them that “Saber” will leave them alone if they stay on the trail, not bothering to comment on why they would build a Summer Camp at all in woods that had such a monster in it.

Uncle Al is contrasted with counselor Larry (Paul Brogren), a snarky and disinterested jerk. Where Al comes across as friendly, Larry is constantly rude and demeaning to his campers. To the episode's benefit, neither of them come across as villainous from the start. Al seems happy-go-lucky, but oblivious. Larry, on the other hand, initially comes across as a guy who's just fed-up with stupid kids who don't listen.

After arriving, camper Mike (David Roemmele) is bitten by a snake. Billy and Mike beg Larry for a doctor, but Larry tells them to just wash it off and wrap it. I remember that as a kid this seemed horrible. Now, looking at the scene, I see Larry as someone who knows there are no poisonous snakes in the area, and thinks the kids are over-reacting.

Gradually, however, it becomes clear that something is wrong. First Mike disappears, and the counselors refuse to say where he went. Then Roger (Benjamin Plener) is attacked by Saber offscreen, apparently killed. Finally, Larry turns and runs away when he sees Jay and Collin (Jeffrey Akomah and Ken Mundy) drowning. Eventually, Uncle Al begins refusing to acknowledge that campers of those names even existed.

Finally, Billy runs to hide in the “Forbidden Bunk,” where he encounters Dawn (Sarah Mitchell), and escapee from the Girls' Camp across from them, who tells him stories similar to his own. They also find that all of their letters home have been stored in the bunk. The sequence is right out of a nightmare.

When Billy goes out to investigate further, he's captured by Larry, and finds Uncle Al in fatigues, handing out crossbows loaded with alleged “tranquilizer darts” to subdue Dawn. Apparently it's camp policy to rally all the boys into a hunting party whenever anyone tries to run. The scene seems surreal, but the use of human villains helps here. The scene works as well as the actors selling it, and they sell it.

Billy, however, is having none of this, shooting Uncle Al with the crossbow he assumes to be lethal, determined that no one else can be allowed to die. And then, the reveal: the crossbow dart was harmless, and Billy just passed a test by the government. Everyone is alive, Saber was mechanical, and his parents (Alec Bachlow and Michele Duquet) set the whole thing up because they couldn't take Billy with them on a long-term expedition unless he was able to show courage, and an ability to act independently of authority. This ending works because, unlike a lot of protagonists, Billy does show himself to be a kid with exceptional control of his own emotions, much more so than any previous main characters on this show.

...oh, and they're all human-like aliens on another planet, and the expedition is to Earth. And this planet is so close that Earth is clearly visible in the sky, but Billy has never heard of it. Yes, the final twist is kind of insane, but it doesn't really bother me. It doesn't fundamentally change anything that came before it, and the actors are good enough to get me to go with a fundamentally stupid idea. It's silly, but it kind of makes me smile.

...how exactly did the Night of the Living Dummy episodes become the face of this franchise? I suppose there really isn't a marketable villain for this episode. Still, so far as I've gotten (granted it’s only four stories), this is the most bang you're going to get for your buck by a mile.