Well it's Halloween month and since my "Top 8 Favorite Goosebumps Episodes From Season 1" list is finished, lets jump right into Season 2 of...
R.L. Stine, The Stephen King of horror stories for kids has
a TV show based on his classic "Goosebumps" books. If you were a kid
who grew up in the 90's, then you might remember this show. The show is like
the classic "Nickelodeon" show "Are you Afraid of the
Dark?" having scary episodes with a good story, but uses unknown child
actors, cheap special effects that are either scary or horrible looking; and
usually having scary endings then happy endings.
THE INTRO
I never reviewed or talked about the intro to the show, so
here's my thoughts on it. The show opens up with a mysterious man holding a
suitcase with the words R.L. Stine on it; the case accidentally opens,
papers start flying out and one of them turn into the Goosebump G and as we
follow the G shadow, everything it touches turns it into a scary image. The
intro is just plain cool and awesome. I enjoy the scary imagery (Especially the
dog with cheap but scary evil eyes); I love the chilling music; the
montages of episodes (From the first Season) is cool; and I get creeped
out when I hear that eerie voice saying "Viewer beware, you're
in for a scare". It's indeed one of the best intros to a scary kids show
that I ever seen.
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
Meet Samantha Byrd, a girl who gets constantly bullied by her worst enemy Judith and is a misfit in school. One day, she helps a stranger named Clarissa and as a reward for her kindness, Clarissa decides to give her three wishes. As if you don't know what the rest of the plot is, she makes wishes and there are consequences to each wish. Ok, it's the same old, predictable plot, but to be fair it does make the moral truly stand out, as well as being careful on who you meet and help.
Our main character Samantha Byrd while likable, she's still the same old typical loser that R.L. Stine's and many other horror kids shows keep creating with nothing new to add to her what so ever. Also, some of her scared faces can really be funny times. The bully Judith, again the typical undeveloped and popular full of herself bully with nothing new added to her. However, I do like the many things that happens to this bully due to Samantha's wishing especially when Samantha makes her third one. Samantha also has a best friend, but he's not that interesting or memorable for that matter. While the kids are just the typical kids that shows like this usually give us, the only character who I found interesting was Clarissa. She's so strange, weird and unsettling and yet so likable and fun that you're not completely sure if she's working with or against Samantha. She just keeps you guessing and guessing throughout the whole entire episode.
As far as the episode goes despite having typical cliche characters and predictable storyline, it still has a few good twists to keep us interested, the wishes that our character makes are both funny and dark at the same time while making the story's theme stand out and of course and again the real reason that makes the episode so great is the character Clarissa.
Cliched story, but nowhere near bad.
Our main character Samantha Byrd while likable, she's still the same old typical loser that R.L. Stine's and many other horror kids shows keep creating with nothing new to add to her what so ever. Also, some of her scared faces can really be funny times. The bully Judith, again the typical undeveloped and popular full of herself bully with nothing new added to her. However, I do like the many things that happens to this bully due to Samantha's wishing especially when Samantha makes her third one. Samantha also has a best friend, but he's not that interesting or memorable for that matter. While the kids are just the typical kids that shows like this usually give us, the only character who I found interesting was Clarissa. She's so strange, weird and unsettling and yet so likable and fun that you're not completely sure if she's working with or against Samantha. She just keeps you guessing and guessing throughout the whole entire episode.
As far as the episode goes despite having typical cliche characters and predictable storyline, it still has a few good twists to keep us interested, the wishes that our character makes are both funny and dark at the same time while making the story's theme stand out and of course and again the real reason that makes the episode so great is the character Clarissa.
Cliched story, but nowhere near bad.
RATING 4/5
Skipper is a boy who obsesses over comic books, especially the comic book series starring his favorite super villain, The Masked Mutant. One day, Skipper misses his Bus Stop and finds himself in front of the headquarters of The Masked Mutant. Throughout the episode, Skipper keeps going back to the headquarters and finds many new twists and turns where he finally learns that his comic book might be real.
Skipper is a very enjoyable character. The actor who plays him is decent, I feel the stress and change that this character is going through and I just enjoy watching how much he obsesses over comic books because it reminds us of our addiction to comics, TV, video games and so on when we were kids. He also gets a really cool ending as well. His new friend Libby, I'm going to admit is not even trying half the time. However, maybe her obvious phony and badly acted reactions was part of the plot twist at the end. Skipper’s parents are a lot of fun, especially the Father who's this nerdy looking guy that doesn't want his son reading comic books since Skipper never finishes or does his homework. I also enjoy Skipper's smart and nerdy friend who loves to collect rocks.
The villain is really, really cool. His design is awesome, his personality is fun, he looks scary, he can change his form into anything, he's just an altogether fun villain and I love how he pulls Skipper into his trap. The one who really steals the show is Adam West as an aging Super Hero in distress who's really hilarious, as well as his casting in the episode being one huge clever and comical reference to his career as Batman. However, I do question one scene where the Adam West character in a comic says that he'll be killed in 2 minutes during a death trap, wondering where the hero boy is. It takes Skipper more than 2 minutes to save him, since he has to take a bus all the way to the headquarters, talk to the bus driver and find the basement. My personal theory to that plot hole is that it was an over exaggeration and a way for the Mutant to lure Skipper back into his headquarters so he can easily save him and then kill them both later since the Mutant is not in the room at all, nor is there any obstacle preventing Skipper to not go near that room. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, maybe it is a typical plot hole in time, but it sounds like something that this villain would do since he knows the Adam West hero is not a threat to him whatsoever and is why he gave him a death trap that would slowly boil him from the hot steam. As for the look and set design for the headquarters, it really does look like a comic book world and I also enjoy the shots of Skipper seeing things looking like a comic book.
The episode is great. The villain's cool, Adam West is a lot of fun, the characters are enjoyable, it has a swell comic book look and it has plenty of twists and turns for many of us to enjoy.
RATING 5/5
A young boy named Tim, dreams of becoming a magician and idolizes over his favorite magician Amazo. After seeing him perform live, he discovers that Amazo is a real jerk and decides to steal his magic kit. However, Tim accidentally makes his little sister disappear and he finds a talking rabbit who was once a human and a great magician. Tim must now bring back his Sister and stop Amazo by turning the rabbit back into the great magician he once was.
The characters are ok, but very generic. Tim again while being likable, I still find something about him bland and cliche. He's not a bad character, but he's not all that fun or interesting. Also his acting while not horrible, is still not good, its just passable. His little sister, is the usual young bratty stereotype that R.L. Stine keeps creating without adding anything to her that's new, fun or interesting. The Magician Amazo is actually a really fun character and after discovering that he's a villainous jerk, actually makes you feel as disappointed as our main character is. The one who steals the show is the Rabbit. His personality is fun, he's always enjoyable and the training for the rabbit and its lip movements are done convincingly, even though how they did it was pretty obvious. However, I was disappointed when we see the Rabbit as a human because he looks like and probably is an insulting racial Mexican stereotype, way to ruin a fun character.
As for the episode, it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Yeah, I'll admit, I guess looking back at it, it was predictable, but I don't know, I've seen it two times and I was still amazed by the plot twist and dark ending, as well as being hooked while watching it. I also love the use of Magic tricks in this episode because it really gives the episode its magical look and feel. Again, the only downer in this episode for me are most of the characters, but with all honesty, they're not that bad.
Overall, it was a fair and decent episode and was indeed magical and a lot of fun.
ATTACK OF THE MUTANT
Skipper is a very enjoyable character. The actor who plays him is decent, I feel the stress and change that this character is going through and I just enjoy watching how much he obsesses over comic books because it reminds us of our addiction to comics, TV, video games and so on when we were kids. He also gets a really cool ending as well. His new friend Libby, I'm going to admit is not even trying half the time. However, maybe her obvious phony and badly acted reactions was part of the plot twist at the end. Skipper’s parents are a lot of fun, especially the Father who's this nerdy looking guy that doesn't want his son reading comic books since Skipper never finishes or does his homework. I also enjoy Skipper's smart and nerdy friend who loves to collect rocks.
The villain is really, really cool. His design is awesome, his personality is fun, he looks scary, he can change his form into anything, he's just an altogether fun villain and I love how he pulls Skipper into his trap. The one who really steals the show is Adam West as an aging Super Hero in distress who's really hilarious, as well as his casting in the episode being one huge clever and comical reference to his career as Batman. However, I do question one scene where the Adam West character in a comic says that he'll be killed in 2 minutes during a death trap, wondering where the hero boy is. It takes Skipper more than 2 minutes to save him, since he has to take a bus all the way to the headquarters, talk to the bus driver and find the basement. My personal theory to that plot hole is that it was an over exaggeration and a way for the Mutant to lure Skipper back into his headquarters so he can easily save him and then kill them both later since the Mutant is not in the room at all, nor is there any obstacle preventing Skipper to not go near that room. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, maybe it is a typical plot hole in time, but it sounds like something that this villain would do since he knows the Adam West hero is not a threat to him whatsoever and is why he gave him a death trap that would slowly boil him from the hot steam. As for the look and set design for the headquarters, it really does look like a comic book world and I also enjoy the shots of Skipper seeing things looking like a comic book.
The episode is great. The villain's cool, Adam West is a lot of fun, the characters are enjoyable, it has a swell comic book look and it has plenty of twists and turns for many of us to enjoy.
RATING 5/5
BAD HARE DAY
The characters are ok, but very generic. Tim again while being likable, I still find something about him bland and cliche. He's not a bad character, but he's not all that fun or interesting. Also his acting while not horrible, is still not good, its just passable. His little sister, is the usual young bratty stereotype that R.L. Stine keeps creating without adding anything to her that's new, fun or interesting. The Magician Amazo is actually a really fun character and after discovering that he's a villainous jerk, actually makes you feel as disappointed as our main character is. The one who steals the show is the Rabbit. His personality is fun, he's always enjoyable and the training for the rabbit and its lip movements are done convincingly, even though how they did it was pretty obvious. However, I was disappointed when we see the Rabbit as a human because he looks like and probably is an insulting racial Mexican stereotype, way to ruin a fun character.
As for the episode, it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Yeah, I'll admit, I guess looking back at it, it was predictable, but I don't know, I've seen it two times and I was still amazed by the plot twist and dark ending, as well as being hooked while watching it. I also love the use of Magic tricks in this episode because it really gives the episode its magical look and feel. Again, the only downer in this episode for me are most of the characters, but with all honesty, they're not that bad.
Overall, it was a fair and decent episode and was indeed magical and a lot of fun.
RATING 4/5
Duane and Stephanie constantly visit an old Haunted House by the Sea that's currently a tourist attraction, however, Stephanie likes to constantly scare people in there as well as disrespect the spirits that live there. A boy named Seth tells them that the real ghosts come after closing and an interested Stephanie and a reluctant Duane decide to go on this rare private tour which may be their last. First off, I really, really admire the set up, it's just as creative as "A Night In Terror Tower". Instead of having one ghost that haunts the house, we actually get a few and each of them have an interesting death. On top of it, we get plenty of interesting and creepy visuals and twists along the tour.
The main characters are actually a lot of fun and interesting. Yeah, they're a bit cliché and the acting from them isn't great, but they're still fun and likable. Duane is an honest boy who goes from being scardy cat to actually developing his bravery, while Stephanie is an enjoyably fun prankster that gets what's coming to her for disrespecting the spirits. The kid Seth, who leads them into the house, it's pretty obvious that there's going to be a twist to this character due to his creepy personality, but to be honest, the twist while predictable, it actually works and keeps you off guard. The tour guide is another fun character who is really enjoyable, while at the same time is someone you don't want to tick off when it comes to ghosts. To me he's the best character in the whole episode because he just steals every scene he's in.
There's plenty more things for me to talk about like the ghosts, the twists, some of the visuals, but then I'd be ruining the episode for you. Believe me, the less you know, the more thrilling and interesting this episode becomes. There's so much going on in this episode that I'm surprised that they achieved it all in only less than a half hour.
RATING 5/5
IMPORTANT NOTICE: "The Headless Ghost" episode got Re-rated in my "Top 8 Favorite Goosebumps Episodes From Season 2".
Ok with a title like that, chances are we're in for something really gross and stupid and that's what this episode actually is! Todd is a boy who's completely obsessed with worms! He loves them, he experiments with them, he uses them to prank his annoying little sister, he owns a bunch of them and his room is full of pictures of them. This kid is actually scaring me and grossing me out. However, I guess from the cruelty of how he treats worms and experiments with them, the worms come after him...I'm scared...no wait...I'm grossed out!
Out of all bugs like Spiders, Cockroaches, ants and such, worms are our monster, that's not scary it's gross and lame! They do nothing but wiggle in the dirt and multiple when being torn apart, how is that scary?! The kid wakes up to find worms in his bed, oh no, he's going to get crawled on. Thousands of worms are surrounding him and crawling on him, oh no, he's going to get dirty and it's not like he can't just brush them off. Help, a bunch of worms are on his feet that are preventing him from moving, I hope they don't eat his legs! Holy smoke, a giant worm that looks like a giant penis is after him...beware? It does nothing! What I'm trying to say is WORMS ARE NOT SCARY! They're gross, but NOT SCARY.
The acting is god awful, it's really some of the worst acting I've ever seen on the show. No one, and I mean no one is good at acting at all. As for the characters, they're bland, uninteresting, not likable and are the typical cliches that we keep seeing. You have the kid with the obsession, the annoying sibling, the only black kid in the neighborhood and at school who's best friends with our main character, the ignorant mother, and a friend of the younger sibling that no one seems to remember or care about. We also get a misunderstanding between the kid and the best friend and within in a minute when they see each other again, they make up. The kid also thinks his Sister is doing these worm pranks to him, but come on we know it's the worms doing it themselves. Sure in "Night Of The Living Dummy 2" we knew that the dummy was alive, but most of us were scared by not seeing it move most of the time and feeling bad for our main character since she's treated like a lunatic, what are the consequences and scary stuff happening here...NOTHING! As for the ending, it was more funny (In a bad way) than scary.
This episode was gross, dumb and not scary! This episode is probably the dumbest and worst episode I've probably ever seen from this show! I honestly don't know how any bad episode is going to top this one!
RATING 0/5
Two kids named Hat and Eddie are trying to prank a pitch perfect girl named Courtney who is very smart, very nice and not afraid of anything. Hearing about a monster called the Mud Monsters, the two boys decide to prank her by tricking her that the Mud Monster is real. However, the plan backfires since the Mud Monster is in fact real and begins to chase after the two boys. UHHHH, as if one episode wasn't cliche, gross, or bad enough.
The characters, while being acted well they stink which is really sad. The two boys are the typical prankster duo we've seen in kids' horror shows dozens of times. One loves to prank, while the other one feels reluctant about it. Yeah we've seen it dozens of times and this duo brings nothing new to it. However, I will admit I was kind of rooting for them because the person they try to prank for some reason really gets under my skin. I mean this character is so pitch perfect that it feels like that she's rubbing it in our faces as well as being so smart and well educated that I feel like she's just a complete show off and sucking up to people. How she taunts our main characters and how unafraid she is of things really makes me wish that the Monster would just drown her or at least freaking scare her.
As you may have guessed the Mud Monster itself is a goofy and cheesy idea and I don't mean that in a fun way, I mean that in a negative way. Look at it, it looks like something from a cheesy horror film made in the 50s or a robot from a haunted house ride. The only scary scene that this monster has is the opening scene when it kills a Grandpa and a little girl and while being a cool and dark opening for a kids show, that whole scene gets ruined when the little girl looks like she's laughing at the monster than being afraid of it. The Monster doesn't even show up throughout the entire episode, it's mostly just the kids trying to prank "Little Miss Perfect". We don't see the Monster again until the climax and the majority of the climax is silly and stupid. Even the freeze frame image at the end was more laughable than being a scary dramatic conclusion.
This episode could have been a concept where it's so stupid and cheesy that it’s fun to watch (Like "It Came From Beneath The Sink" for example), but to be honest it's actually stupidly annoying. The two main characters are bland recycled characters, the girl is so annoyingly perfect that she feels like she's insulting the viewer whenever we see her, the Monster is so lame that it's not even funny, and the story itself is stupid. Maybe it was the episodes intention to be stupid, maybe the character Courtney was intended to be annoyingly unlikable to the viewer, maybe the monster was supposed to be a dumb idea from the start, but I'm sorry when you have no pay off of something bad happening to your annoying character, lame humor, and on top of it, an out of place scene that's supposed to scare and scar kids from the very start, it doesn't work and feels like a mess.
THE HEADLESS GHOST
The main characters are actually a lot of fun and interesting. Yeah, they're a bit cliché and the acting from them isn't great, but they're still fun and likable. Duane is an honest boy who goes from being scardy cat to actually developing his bravery, while Stephanie is an enjoyably fun prankster that gets what's coming to her for disrespecting the spirits. The kid Seth, who leads them into the house, it's pretty obvious that there's going to be a twist to this character due to his creepy personality, but to be honest, the twist while predictable, it actually works and keeps you off guard. The tour guide is another fun character who is really enjoyable, while at the same time is someone you don't want to tick off when it comes to ghosts. To me he's the best character in the whole episode because he just steals every scene he's in.
There's plenty more things for me to talk about like the ghosts, the twists, some of the visuals, but then I'd be ruining the episode for you. Believe me, the less you know, the more thrilling and interesting this episode becomes. There's so much going on in this episode that I'm surprised that they achieved it all in only less than a half hour.
RATING 5/5
IMPORTANT NOTICE: "The Headless Ghost" episode got Re-rated in my "Top 8 Favorite Goosebumps Episodes From Season 2".
GO EAT WORMS
Out of all bugs like Spiders, Cockroaches, ants and such, worms are our monster, that's not scary it's gross and lame! They do nothing but wiggle in the dirt and multiple when being torn apart, how is that scary?! The kid wakes up to find worms in his bed, oh no, he's going to get crawled on. Thousands of worms are surrounding him and crawling on him, oh no, he's going to get dirty and it's not like he can't just brush them off. Help, a bunch of worms are on his feet that are preventing him from moving, I hope they don't eat his legs! Holy smoke, a giant worm that looks like a giant penis is after him...beware? It does nothing! What I'm trying to say is WORMS ARE NOT SCARY! They're gross, but NOT SCARY.
The acting is god awful, it's really some of the worst acting I've ever seen on the show. No one, and I mean no one is good at acting at all. As for the characters, they're bland, uninteresting, not likable and are the typical cliches that we keep seeing. You have the kid with the obsession, the annoying sibling, the only black kid in the neighborhood and at school who's best friends with our main character, the ignorant mother, and a friend of the younger sibling that no one seems to remember or care about. We also get a misunderstanding between the kid and the best friend and within in a minute when they see each other again, they make up. The kid also thinks his Sister is doing these worm pranks to him, but come on we know it's the worms doing it themselves. Sure in "Night Of The Living Dummy 2" we knew that the dummy was alive, but most of us were scared by not seeing it move most of the time and feeling bad for our main character since she's treated like a lunatic, what are the consequences and scary stuff happening here...NOTHING! As for the ending, it was more funny (In a bad way) than scary.
This episode was gross, dumb and not scary! This episode is probably the dumbest and worst episode I've probably ever seen from this show! I honestly don't know how any bad episode is going to top this one!
RATING 0/5
YOU CAN'T SCARE ME
The characters, while being acted well they stink which is really sad. The two boys are the typical prankster duo we've seen in kids' horror shows dozens of times. One loves to prank, while the other one feels reluctant about it. Yeah we've seen it dozens of times and this duo brings nothing new to it. However, I will admit I was kind of rooting for them because the person they try to prank for some reason really gets under my skin. I mean this character is so pitch perfect that it feels like that she's rubbing it in our faces as well as being so smart and well educated that I feel like she's just a complete show off and sucking up to people. How she taunts our main characters and how unafraid she is of things really makes me wish that the Monster would just drown her or at least freaking scare her.
As you may have guessed the Mud Monster itself is a goofy and cheesy idea and I don't mean that in a fun way, I mean that in a negative way. Look at it, it looks like something from a cheesy horror film made in the 50s or a robot from a haunted house ride. The only scary scene that this monster has is the opening scene when it kills a Grandpa and a little girl and while being a cool and dark opening for a kids show, that whole scene gets ruined when the little girl looks like she's laughing at the monster than being afraid of it. The Monster doesn't even show up throughout the entire episode, it's mostly just the kids trying to prank "Little Miss Perfect". We don't see the Monster again until the climax and the majority of the climax is silly and stupid. Even the freeze frame image at the end was more laughable than being a scary dramatic conclusion.
This episode could have been a concept where it's so stupid and cheesy that it’s fun to watch (Like "It Came From Beneath The Sink" for example), but to be honest it's actually stupidly annoying. The two main characters are bland recycled characters, the girl is so annoyingly perfect that she feels like she's insulting the viewer whenever we see her, the Monster is so lame that it's not even funny, and the story itself is stupid. Maybe it was the episodes intention to be stupid, maybe the character Courtney was intended to be annoyingly unlikable to the viewer, maybe the monster was supposed to be a dumb idea from the start, but I'm sorry when you have no pay off of something bad happening to your annoying character, lame humor, and on top of it, an out of place scene that's supposed to scare and scar kids from the very start, it doesn't work and feels like a mess.
RATING 1/5
Joe's Dad has bought two Lawn Gnomes for his garden to win a best garden contest against the nasty next door neighbor Major McCall. However, the Gnomes are alive and are destroying McCall's garden and framing it on Joe. Joe tries to convince everyone that the Gnomes did it, but no one believes him. Alright, seriously, this is a rehash of "Night Of The Living Dummy 2"! The look and style is similar, and it follows the same exact formula.
Our main character Joe, while the actor isn't that good and the fact that he's a rehash of Amy from "Night Of The Living Dummy 2", he's still a decent and likable character. His older sister that doesn't believe him (Yeah, see any similarities yet?) is a very fun bratty character and is always a joy to watch, even if her line delivery feels staged on a few occasions. The Dad while not all that interesting nor does he put any pressure on our main character for his suspicious acts, he's still a nice humble character. The best character and performance in the whole episode is the nasty next door neighbor Major McCall. This is a character that you just love to hate and he does indeed have nothing likable or nice about him at all. He hates kids, he steals their stuff, he enjoys mocking our characters, and is just all around tough. The actor portraying him not only gives it his all, but he seems to be having a ton of fun playing this military character. Oh, and what happens to him in the ending is a perfect fate for this character.
The Gnomes while coming off as Slappy knock offs due to their similar plan (Which is more of a toying around plot than a revenge plot) and personality (not to mention voices that resemble Slappy's), they're still creepy and a lot of fun. When you first see them as regular lifeless Lawn Gnomes already you're creeped out by them with their unfriendly and menacing look. When you finally see them moving around causing mischief and chasing after our characters, they're both funny and scary at the same time. The designs and special effects for them are cool, especially that creepy make-up they put on the actors portraying them.
The idea is silly (I mean, come on, try saying the title out loud without laughing) and it is mostly a rehash of the "Night Of The Living Dummy 2" plot only this time with Gnomes, but it was at least a decent episode especially when comparing it to the last two episodes that I just reviewed. The characters while not interesting, they're still fine; the Gnomes are cool and fun villains; and the nasty next door neighbor is a delight to watch. Not the greatest episode, but I did enjoy it.
RATING 3/5
Terri and Jerry Saddler are staying with their distant cousins on a beach during their vacation. The kids also meet two other kids named Sam and Louisa, who also have the same last name as them. During their stay, they find out that the beach is haunted by a ghost and that the ghost lives in a cave. While their new friends and cousins tell them to stay away from the cave, the kids decide to go anyway to find some shocking and horrifying facts.
I'm not going to go into too much detail on this episode, NOT that it's good or worth watching by any means, it’s mostly because the episode suffers from one gigantic problem, the pacing. Everything about this episode feels completely rushed. The acting is so rushed that not only is it bad, but not one person in this whole entire episode gives a good performance or takes their time expressing their character. The only person who came close to expressing their character and having an interesting personality (Yeah, all the characters are bland and boring as you may have guessed) is the person who plays the person in the cave, but sadly he fails just as miserably as everyone else in the episode. The scares and suspense is done so quickly that it not only has no effect or pay off for that matter, but not once did I find anything in the episode scary. The episode doesn't even take it's time to let the atmosphere sink in nor give us any good visuals. As for the story and the set-up, it didn't interest me; the mystery of who the ghost is, was too predictable, I knew who it was the minute I first met the character; and the twist ending makes little to no sense at all.
It's an episode that goes by so quickly that you ask yourself with a confused and fuzzy memory "What was I watching". It's an awful episode, but not as awful as the episode with the worms.
REVENGE OF THE LAWN GNOMES
Joe's Dad has bought two Lawn Gnomes for his garden to win a best garden contest against the nasty next door neighbor Major McCall. However, the Gnomes are alive and are destroying McCall's garden and framing it on Joe. Joe tries to convince everyone that the Gnomes did it, but no one believes him. Alright, seriously, this is a rehash of "Night Of The Living Dummy 2"! The look and style is similar, and it follows the same exact formula.
Our main character Joe, while the actor isn't that good and the fact that he's a rehash of Amy from "Night Of The Living Dummy 2", he's still a decent and likable character. His older sister that doesn't believe him (Yeah, see any similarities yet?) is a very fun bratty character and is always a joy to watch, even if her line delivery feels staged on a few occasions. The Dad while not all that interesting nor does he put any pressure on our main character for his suspicious acts, he's still a nice humble character. The best character and performance in the whole episode is the nasty next door neighbor Major McCall. This is a character that you just love to hate and he does indeed have nothing likable or nice about him at all. He hates kids, he steals their stuff, he enjoys mocking our characters, and is just all around tough. The actor portraying him not only gives it his all, but he seems to be having a ton of fun playing this military character. Oh, and what happens to him in the ending is a perfect fate for this character.
The Gnomes while coming off as Slappy knock offs due to their similar plan (Which is more of a toying around plot than a revenge plot) and personality (not to mention voices that resemble Slappy's), they're still creepy and a lot of fun. When you first see them as regular lifeless Lawn Gnomes already you're creeped out by them with their unfriendly and menacing look. When you finally see them moving around causing mischief and chasing after our characters, they're both funny and scary at the same time. The designs and special effects for them are cool, especially that creepy make-up they put on the actors portraying them.
The idea is silly (I mean, come on, try saying the title out loud without laughing) and it is mostly a rehash of the "Night Of The Living Dummy 2" plot only this time with Gnomes, but it was at least a decent episode especially when comparing it to the last two episodes that I just reviewed. The characters while not interesting, they're still fine; the Gnomes are cool and fun villains; and the nasty next door neighbor is a delight to watch. Not the greatest episode, but I did enjoy it.
RATING 3/5
GHOST BEACH
I'm not going to go into too much detail on this episode, NOT that it's good or worth watching by any means, it’s mostly because the episode suffers from one gigantic problem, the pacing. Everything about this episode feels completely rushed. The acting is so rushed that not only is it bad, but not one person in this whole entire episode gives a good performance or takes their time expressing their character. The only person who came close to expressing their character and having an interesting personality (Yeah, all the characters are bland and boring as you may have guessed) is the person who plays the person in the cave, but sadly he fails just as miserably as everyone else in the episode. The scares and suspense is done so quickly that it not only has no effect or pay off for that matter, but not once did I find anything in the episode scary. The episode doesn't even take it's time to let the atmosphere sink in nor give us any good visuals. As for the story and the set-up, it didn't interest me; the mystery of who the ghost is, was too predictable, I knew who it was the minute I first met the character; and the twist ending makes little to no sense at all.
It's an episode that goes by so quickly that you ask yourself with a confused and fuzzy memory "What was I watching". It's an awful episode, but not as awful as the episode with the worms.
RATING 0/5
It's Halloween and Drew and Walker are getting ready to go Trick-Or-Treating, however, the two are being pranked by two kids from the Neighborhood named Tabitha and Lee. But two friends of Drew named Shane and Shana, who once lived in the neighborhood have a plan for the two bullies. Drew and Walker go Trick-Or-Treating with the bullies and the group meet two giant creatures with Jack-O-Lanterns for heads. At first, the kids think it's the two kids pulling a prank, but then they come to realize that they are real monsters with magical powers.
It's important to know that Drew is the first African American kid to star in a "Goosebumps" episode instead of being the only black person in the show and best friend of the main character. While nothing special is added to the character she's still likable and the actress does a decent job playing her. Her best friend Walker (which by the way, is it me, or does he look way too old to be hanging out with Drew. I could be wrong, maybe it's just the height difference) is not only bland, but is sometimes annoying. He's very wimpy, he's not interesting and that costume he wears is really, really lame nor is the joke regarding his lame costume funny at all. The two bullies, man are they so boring and uninteresting. They don't feel or act like the bullies we usually get on the show, they're just straight out bland and forgettable. The friends Shane and Shana while likable and making you wonder what they're planning or what happened to these characters, there's a bit of blandness to these two kids. I don't know why, they just feel very wooden.
Much like what "The Haunted Mask" did, the episode truly captures its Halloween atmosphere pretty well. The Jack-A-lanterns are pretty creepy and cool looking and their personalities while over the top, is still a bit freaky. I also love how at first you think (Like all the characters) that these monsters are just Shane and Shana pulling a prank on the two bullies. However, once the characters find out they're real, you begin to believe that they’re not only real, but probably have killed the two kids since there's been a history of disappearances of people missing. Yeah, the idea of making the kids Trick-Or-Treat forever does sound silly, but personally I think it was done well here. The special effects are good, but cheesy at the same time and even if half of the effects do look cheesy, there's still a creative and Halloween charm to the cheesiness of these effects. There's also a dream sequence of the kids being trapped in a stranger’s house and while being something you can cut out from the episode, it's still pretty unsettling. The episode also has a really good plot twist, but with that said, it feels a little too similar to how the twist in "Welcome To Camp Nightmare" was executed.
The episode's a mixed bag of things I love and hate about it and with the negatives aside, I still find it enough to be enjoyably creepy, creative, fun and entertaining.
Taking place a year after the events from "The Haunted Mask"; the spirit of Halloween has brought back the evil Mask that Carly Beth wore, and now seeks her to be part of her face forever. However, the Mask needs help. It leads one of the kids who bullied Carly Beth to the abandon party store, where Carly Beth got the Mask, and now Steve finds an old man Mask, that he plans to wear to scare people to make his last Halloween become his most memorable one. However, the old man Mask takes over Steve's face, and now the Mask that Carly Beth wore has Steve under his control, and will only free him from his old man Mask, if he helps it get revenge on Carly Beth. If you read my "Top 8 Favorite Goosebumps Episodes From Season 1", you probably already know that I saw this episode before I ever saw the first Haunted Mask episode. Now that I've finally seen both episodes, is this episode just as good and faithful to the first classic episode?
First of all, all of the characters are played by the same actors that played them in the first episode. Everyone, except for the kid who plays our lead character Steve. Let me at least talk about the original actors playing their characters before I talk about the kid playing our lead. All the original actors, surprisingly bring the same magic and charm as they did in the previous episode, and the best part is, most of them have changed and grew up a bit. For example, Carly Beth is no longer that scare-able girl that we've seen in the first episode. She's braver than she was in the first episode, and now doesn't take any of Chuck and Steve's pranks anymore. Chuck, who was a major prankster in the first episode, now doesn't find it all that fun anymore. Granted, mostly having to do with Carly Beth not being scare-able anymore, but throughout the episode, we see him accepting that he's getting too old for Halloween and his childish pranks, and starts getting more and more mature as the episode moves on. That's actually great development to this former fun loving prankster.
Now we move on to Steve, who is now played by the same kid who played 12 year old Michael from the second "Goosebumps" episode "Cuckoo Clock Of Doom". Now when I think about it, it's actually pretty cool that this episode got the two leading stars from the first two "Goosebumps" episodes. The kid who plays Steve is great. As the people around him are maturing, he's the only one who wants to stay as a kid, and still be able to Trick-Or-Treat, scare people, and pull a few pranks. Until the Mask becomes a part of him, he actually starts off as being unlikable as the character was in the first episode. Once he realizes that he's stuck as an old man, you can't help, but feel sorry for him. As you can already tell, the episode's theme is about age and growing up, and it’s actually done just as well as the first episode's theme, which is love.
The Make-Up they use for the old man Mask, is twice as creepy and nightmarish, as the original Mask. It looks scary, disgusting, and hideous; you have Spider's crawling on the Mask's face; you see the kid's hands actually change into old prune hands; and the Old man voice is done so great, that it definitely tops the scary voice that Mask uses when the Mask controls Carly Beth in the first one. The original Mask from the first one looks just as scary as it did in the first episode. The effect for the Mask floating has upgraded a bit (Until the climax that is, that was cheaper than the effects in the first episode); when taking over a body, instead of having human eye's, it has wide dark lifeless eyes like a Mask without a person wearing it (Odd, but still scary); almost every moment with the original Mask is twice as scary as the first episode; and on top of it, it talks in a voice so dark and sinister that it makes me wonder, why the Mask would want to take over Carly Beth. I mean, does the Mask really want to talk in that childish voice again; he has a body that's bigger, darker, and gives him a more sinister voice than the body that a Pre-teen girl can bring? With joking aside, the Haunted Masks revenge is still a good enough plot for a kids show. The episode also surprisingly carries the same look, feel, and atmosphere as the first episode, and it does indeed bring back the nostalgia from the first episode.
This is actually a sequel that's just as great as the first one, and is pulled off so well, that it feels like the second act to the first episode, and to me, that's important to any good sequel!
ATTACK OF THE JACK-O'-LANTERNS
It's Halloween and Drew and Walker are getting ready to go Trick-Or-Treating, however, the two are being pranked by two kids from the Neighborhood named Tabitha and Lee. But two friends of Drew named Shane and Shana, who once lived in the neighborhood have a plan for the two bullies. Drew and Walker go Trick-Or-Treating with the bullies and the group meet two giant creatures with Jack-O-Lanterns for heads. At first, the kids think it's the two kids pulling a prank, but then they come to realize that they are real monsters with magical powers.
It's important to know that Drew is the first African American kid to star in a "Goosebumps" episode instead of being the only black person in the show and best friend of the main character. While nothing special is added to the character she's still likable and the actress does a decent job playing her. Her best friend Walker (which by the way, is it me, or does he look way too old to be hanging out with Drew. I could be wrong, maybe it's just the height difference) is not only bland, but is sometimes annoying. He's very wimpy, he's not interesting and that costume he wears is really, really lame nor is the joke regarding his lame costume funny at all. The two bullies, man are they so boring and uninteresting. They don't feel or act like the bullies we usually get on the show, they're just straight out bland and forgettable. The friends Shane and Shana while likable and making you wonder what they're planning or what happened to these characters, there's a bit of blandness to these two kids. I don't know why, they just feel very wooden.
Much like what "The Haunted Mask" did, the episode truly captures its Halloween atmosphere pretty well. The Jack-A-lanterns are pretty creepy and cool looking and their personalities while over the top, is still a bit freaky. I also love how at first you think (Like all the characters) that these monsters are just Shane and Shana pulling a prank on the two bullies. However, once the characters find out they're real, you begin to believe that they’re not only real, but probably have killed the two kids since there's been a history of disappearances of people missing. Yeah, the idea of making the kids Trick-Or-Treat forever does sound silly, but personally I think it was done well here. The special effects are good, but cheesy at the same time and even if half of the effects do look cheesy, there's still a creative and Halloween charm to the cheesiness of these effects. There's also a dream sequence of the kids being trapped in a stranger’s house and while being something you can cut out from the episode, it's still pretty unsettling. The episode also has a really good plot twist, but with that said, it feels a little too similar to how the twist in "Welcome To Camp Nightmare" was executed.
The episode's a mixed bag of things I love and hate about it and with the negatives aside, I still find it enough to be enjoyably creepy, creative, fun and entertaining.
RATING 3/5
THE HAUNTED MASK 2
Taking place a year after the events from "The Haunted Mask"; the spirit of Halloween has brought back the evil Mask that Carly Beth wore, and now seeks her to be part of her face forever. However, the Mask needs help. It leads one of the kids who bullied Carly Beth to the abandon party store, where Carly Beth got the Mask, and now Steve finds an old man Mask, that he plans to wear to scare people to make his last Halloween become his most memorable one. However, the old man Mask takes over Steve's face, and now the Mask that Carly Beth wore has Steve under his control, and will only free him from his old man Mask, if he helps it get revenge on Carly Beth. If you read my "Top 8 Favorite Goosebumps Episodes From Season 1", you probably already know that I saw this episode before I ever saw the first Haunted Mask episode. Now that I've finally seen both episodes, is this episode just as good and faithful to the first classic episode?
First of all, all of the characters are played by the same actors that played them in the first episode. Everyone, except for the kid who plays our lead character Steve. Let me at least talk about the original actors playing their characters before I talk about the kid playing our lead. All the original actors, surprisingly bring the same magic and charm as they did in the previous episode, and the best part is, most of them have changed and grew up a bit. For example, Carly Beth is no longer that scare-able girl that we've seen in the first episode. She's braver than she was in the first episode, and now doesn't take any of Chuck and Steve's pranks anymore. Chuck, who was a major prankster in the first episode, now doesn't find it all that fun anymore. Granted, mostly having to do with Carly Beth not being scare-able anymore, but throughout the episode, we see him accepting that he's getting too old for Halloween and his childish pranks, and starts getting more and more mature as the episode moves on. That's actually great development to this former fun loving prankster.
Now we move on to Steve, who is now played by the same kid who played 12 year old Michael from the second "Goosebumps" episode "Cuckoo Clock Of Doom". Now when I think about it, it's actually pretty cool that this episode got the two leading stars from the first two "Goosebumps" episodes. The kid who plays Steve is great. As the people around him are maturing, he's the only one who wants to stay as a kid, and still be able to Trick-Or-Treat, scare people, and pull a few pranks. Until the Mask becomes a part of him, he actually starts off as being unlikable as the character was in the first episode. Once he realizes that he's stuck as an old man, you can't help, but feel sorry for him. As you can already tell, the episode's theme is about age and growing up, and it’s actually done just as well as the first episode's theme, which is love.
The Make-Up they use for the old man Mask, is twice as creepy and nightmarish, as the original Mask. It looks scary, disgusting, and hideous; you have Spider's crawling on the Mask's face; you see the kid's hands actually change into old prune hands; and the Old man voice is done so great, that it definitely tops the scary voice that Mask uses when the Mask controls Carly Beth in the first one. The original Mask from the first one looks just as scary as it did in the first episode. The effect for the Mask floating has upgraded a bit (Until the climax that is, that was cheaper than the effects in the first episode); when taking over a body, instead of having human eye's, it has wide dark lifeless eyes like a Mask without a person wearing it (Odd, but still scary); almost every moment with the original Mask is twice as scary as the first episode; and on top of it, it talks in a voice so dark and sinister that it makes me wonder, why the Mask would want to take over Carly Beth. I mean, does the Mask really want to talk in that childish voice again; he has a body that's bigger, darker, and gives him a more sinister voice than the body that a Pre-teen girl can bring? With joking aside, the Haunted Masks revenge is still a good enough plot for a kids show. The episode also surprisingly carries the same look, feel, and atmosphere as the first episode, and it does indeed bring back the nostalgia from the first episode.
This is actually a sequel that's just as great as the first one, and is pulled off so well, that it feels like the second act to the first episode, and to me, that's important to any good sequel!
RATING 5/5
Max, his little brother Noah, and his friends find a mirror hidden in the attic, with a light that can make them invisible. The kids start playing with it until weird side effects begin to happen the more time they become invisible and to make matters worse the kids discover another world behind the mirror, where their reflections are waiting to take their place in the real world. Ok, I get what R.L. Stine is trying to do with this concept, and maybe this story translated a lot better in his book, but in a less than a 30 minute episode, it makes little sense. There's a history with this mirror, but it's never explored or talked about. It can make you invisible, but you're taken into another dimension if you're invisible for too long? I feel like R.L. Stine took two separate stories, one being about a light that makes you invisible; and the other one being about a mysterious mirror that leads you to another dimension; and combined both stories and ideas into one. Maybe it's explained better in the book, but how it's translated here, it feels like a mess.
The characters in this episode are really bland and not interesting, and are sadly just the typical kid stereotypes that keep appearing in the series, with nothing new to them at all, such as the curious main character, the annoying sibling who causes nothing but trouble, and the only black kid in the neighborhood. The acting from the kids isn't good either, it feels very rushed most of the time. The characters are also idiots as well. Who asks the shortest kid in the group to pull a switch that's too high for him to reach, while the rest of the gang are able to reach it; and what kind of dumb kid eats in front of their parents when he's invisible, when he's trying to keep the invisible mirror a secret? I really don't find any of these characters good at all. They're bland, dumb, cliché, and the actors themselves seem to have rushed through it because they have nothing to work with. Oh, and when the actors play their evil reflection, they're not scary, and become even more bland than coming off as creepy or unsettling.
Now the invisible special effects in this episode of things moving on their own are actually really good and convincing. I was actually convinced that the kids were invisible do to those effects, especially during that scene when invisible Noah is drinking a glass of milk, which looked legit. Where I felt that the episode should have been focused on was that other world inside the mirror that we only see during the climax. Yeah, it looks hokey, but there's still a creative strangeness to it which makes it a cool looking world. In fact, I would have liked the idea better if the real Max and his reflection literally switched places, and the story would result with Max exploring and trying to get out of this world, while reflection Max has plans for his friends; that would be at better plot, than this mess of a plot.
The only good thing this episode offers are the creative special effects, and some cool ideas, but as a whole it feels like one big mess, starring bland characters that we can care less about.
RATING 2/5
THE SCARECROW WALKS AT MIDNIGHT
Jodie and Mark are spending their summer vacation in the country on their Grandparents farm, however, their Grandparents have been acting strange whenever one of their farm workers named Stanley is around. The farm is also haunted by living Scarecrows that only walk at Midnight. Does Stanley have something to do with the walking Scarecrows; well isn't it obvious? Let me just say that the explanation to why the Scarecrows walk makes very little sense at all.
The kids I'll admit, while being bland characters, the actors playing them did a decent enough job at making them likable. Their acting isn't bad either. However, once we get to the climax of the story and we see them acting scared, that's when the acting from them gets bad and when I stop caring or liking these characters. They started out decent, but then all credibility gets lost in the end. The same can be said for the guy who plays Stanley. He starts out being creepy, but again at the climax after finding out why the Scarecrows are alive, he turns into an annoying bumbling idiot. Also during the climax, why doesn't Stanley try to do something productive, like try turning the walking Scarecrows back into regular lifeless Scarecrows? The Grandparents are very likable and well-acted, but sadly they become forgettable as I let the days go by. Stanley also has a son named Sticks, who is sadly another forgettable character as well.
The Scarecrows, while having cool and scary designs, and having great build up to them, they don't do anything. All they do is scare, chase, and that's it. They don't do anything productive or villainous at all except look scary. They don't even have any personality at all. So yeah, they're scary looking, but outside of that, they're nothing special. By the way, in the ending when The Harvester comes to life and starts coming after our characters. I thought it was a cool and scary concept, until I clearly saw the silhouette of the person driving it in more than one shot. What a great way to ruin your scary ending!
The episode started out good, but once we got to the climax that's when things started getting bad. It's not an awful or bad episode, since it does deliver a few scares with those scary looking scarecrows, as well as being entertaining, but as a whole, it's still weak.
RATING 2/5
MONSTER BLOOD/MORE MONSTER BLOOD
A kid named Evan stays at his weird Aunt’s house, while his parents go house hunting in Georgia. However, he is told by his Aunt to not go into a room that she never locks, even after when catching him in the room. He and a neighborhood girl named Andy, sneak into this horrifying old room, to find a jar of green ooze called Monster Blood, which they curiously take out of the jar, and start playing with it as if it was Flubber. However, the Ooze continues to grow and grow, and eat everything in its path, even when making the slightest contact with a human that for some reason doesn't consume Evan, when he becomes covered in it after foolishly sitting on the ledge of the Bathtub, with this dangerous substance in it. Evan manages to get rid of it, but in the second part of the episode, some of the blood somehow gets into his suitcase, and starts eating people on the plane one by one.
OK, before I go further into the review, let me address that "Monster Blood" is really popular in the "Goosebumps" franchise. It has it's own series of books; it crosses-over in many other "Goosebumps" books; and that green ooze dripping to create the "Goosebumps" logo, is actually the "Monster Blood". The second part "More Monster Blood" isn't even based off a book, it was created for the show. While, I never read any of the "Monster Blood" stories, except for using it in the choose your own adventure book (Which I love reading) "Escape From The Carnival Of Horrors", I am really displeased on what a letdown that this episode was.
The "Monster Blood" is basically "The Blob". I mean, sure, when an animal or insect eats it, it becomes gigantic (Which, by the way, am I the only one wondering what the giant dog's been doing all this time?); it starts out acting like Flubber for some unknown reason, instead of eating people; but it’s mostly "The Blob" in a nutshell. So, that green ooze that makes it on the cover of "Goosebumps" and that appeared in countless books is a rip-off from a classic B Movie from the 50's. Don't believe me, he actually made a book and episode called "The Blob That Ate Everyone"! Clever homage, parody, or plagiarism; you be the judge! The effects for the "Monster Blood" aren't good either. The CGI is really, really terrible! I mean the "Monster Blood" dripping during the credits looks more real, than that phony CGI. I will admit, the non-CGI effects are decent for it. The effects for the giant dog was decent in TV standards, but the giant ant at the end was terrible! By the way, if I told you what the Blob, I mean "Monster Bloods" weakness was, you'd think I made it up!
The characters are ok. Evan is an ok character, and the actor playing him does an ok job, however, this kid does do a lot of stupid things in the first part, when in the second part he's horribly acted when he's being dramatic. His friend Andy is really an uninteresting and forgettable bland obnoxious character, and does nearly the amount of the same stupidity that Evan does in the first part. The girl that Evan meets on the Plane is not a bad actress, but she's really boring as a character. He also meets two kid stereotypes on the Plane so you can identify who is who. He meets a kid who's really nerdy and has dozens of problems; and the other kid is a bully, who looks like he's related to Biff Tannen's Family from "Back To The Future". However, while the two kids are cliche stereotypes, they at least reform themselves in the end. The actress that plays Evan's Aunt does a nice job at being weird, unsettling, and funny. Finally, the actress who plays the villain who creates the "Monster Blood" may be a really short and pointless appearance, since she never appears in the next half, was actually the best performer in this whole two part episode. She's fun, villainous, and looking hot doesn't hurt either.
This two part episode was terrible! I'll admit, some of the characters and performances are decent, some of the effects are ok, and the second part had such a great set-up that I wish that it was a stand-alone episode. However, the episode suffers from some bland and idiotic characters, poor CGI effects, and lame and confusing writing. As bad as it is, it was at least entertainingly fun.
RATING 2/5
VAMPIRE BREATH
Freddy and Cara are left home alone by their parents, and the two find a secret door. Inside the secret door, they find a Coffin, and a bottle of Vampire Breath, which they foolishly open, waking up a Vampire named Count Nightwing, who chases after the kids to consume the rest of the bottle. However, the kids find a hidden room, within the hidden room, that leads to a room full of Coffins, as a Vampire slave girl named Gwendolyn tries to help the kids.
Our two kids, while not the typical R.L. Stine stereotypes, they're bland, forgettable, and are really not good actors. The villain Count Nightwing seems like a good villain, and the guy playing him does a fine job; but he's sadly all bark and no bite (No pun intended), nor is he scary. The girl that helps our leads, well, let’s just say, I knew there was going to be a twist to this character, for many obvious reasons. My major problem with the episode is the twist at the end, which not only nearly rehashes the ending to "The Girl Who Cried Monster", but leaves me with so many questions that my head just hurts by just thinking about them.
There's really not much else for me to say or comment on, except that it’s a lame episode that's badly acted and filled with so many plot holes that it hurts my head just thinking about them. If there was only one good thing that the episode did ok with, the sets are nice, but it doesn't save anything.
RATING 1/5
HOW TO KILL A MONSTER
Gretchan and Clark are two kids who have now become Brother and Sister, after their parents married each other. While their parents are on their Honeymoon, the kids stay with Gretchan's Grandparents who live in a swamp. During their visit, the Grandparents are hiding something in a room that the kids are not allowed to go in (Seen it before), however, the kids eventually go into the room, and discover that the Grandparents are hiding a monster in that room. The kids are left alone, and are locked inside the house (With locks inside the house as opposed to outside of the house. How did the Grandparents leave, or why did the kids not break the locks to get out of the house?) as the monster chases after them. Aside from the flaw I just mentioned, and a cliche that we've seen before; I really love the episode's set-up!
Our two leads, while not being great actors, they're not only likable, but they actually do have chemistry together. I love that the two are both in-laws that can't stand each other, and are both completely different from each other. For example, Gretchan enjoys staying at the swamp, while Clark can't stand it. Sure, it’s been done before, but these kids are really a lot of fun when they're together, even if their acting isn't that good. It’s fun seeing them argue at each other, and how their friendship develops in the episode is done pretty well. The Grandparents are a lot of fun. I love how absent minded they are; I enjoy watching the actors over the top performance as these old hillbillies; and while being freaky on a few occasions, they're still just as likable and fun as our leads.
The build up to the episode's monster is done well; the mystery of why the Grandparents have a monster, and locked the kids inside the house with it, rises up your curiosity; and the monster itself, while more silly than it is scary, it's still a creative looking monster, and the effects for it are neat. I also enjoy watching the kids try to figure out ways of killing it, and escaping from it. Sadly, when we find out what the monster's weakness is in the end, it's not only anti-climactic, but it makes very little sense.
The episode has a good set-up; decent effects and atmosphere; good chemistry between our two leads; and fun supporting characters. However, the ending freaking killed it, and that was a huge downer. It's better than the episodes after "The Haunted Mask 2", but the ending ruined it!
RATING 2/5
CALLING ALL CREEPS
Ricky is your typical nerdy loser, who constantly gets picked on and bullied, especially from a popular girl named Tasha. Ricky tries to get back at her by writing in the school paper for creeps to contact her, but his plan backfires when Tasha discovers his plan, and has the creeps call him instead. A trio of kids who used to bully Ricky, turn out to be a race of monsters called Creeps, who think Ricky is their commander who has a plan to turn everybody in the world into "Creeps", starting with the kids at their school.
In all honesty, the plot makes no sense. By "Creeps", what type of people was Ricky intending to call Tasha. Is it weird kids; kids who are creepy; kids who are losers; pedos; or what? Plus, how does he think he'll get away with his prank since the person he's pranking runs the school Newspaper? Also who are these monsters? What's their back story; where do they come from; where's the rest of their race; and why do they think this loser is their commander? He's not one of them, but for some reason they know that, and let him lead anyway, despite being a complete loser and push-over? Maybe the book translates the story a lot better, but for a half hour episode, I'm completely lost!
The kid actors are surprisingly good. Don't get me wrong, the characters that they play are the typical stereotypes that you see in shows like this, like the loser, the new kid, the popular bully, and so on; but they actually do a great job at playing their characters. While I enjoyed the kids who play Ricky and his new friend Iris, my personal favorite performance goes to the girl who plays the popular girl. The reason why is because usually when I see the actress who plays her in other kids shows, she's the innocent sweetheart. She played Melissa in the "Are You Afraid Of The Dark" episode "The Tale Of The Dollmaker"; and she's best known as the voice of Phoebe in "The Magic School Bus". Seeing her play this popular bully, is not only shocking, but she makes this character so hateable, that you wonder if this is the same actress, who played all those cute and innocent roles. As for the three kids who turn out to be "Creeps", they're ok.
The Creeps in this episode are seriously not scary or threatening, they're actually really silly looking. I mean, the effect for them changing into Creeps, is really, really cheesy; their voices are so over the top that it's funny instead of scary; and instead of make-up, it's rubber masks that looks like something you can buy at your local party store. It's such a pity considering all the good effects that were used in previous episodes like "The Haunted Mask"; "The Girl Who Cried Monster"; "Night Of The Living Dummy 2"; "Attack Of The Mutant", and so on. What I really like about this episode is the ending, and without giving too much, it's probably one of the darkest endings that I have ever seen in the series.
This episode is showing signs of the series getting better with its acting and dark ending, but it's still a bit of a letdown with its confusing storyline and cheesy monster effects.
RATING 2/5
WELCOME TO DEAD HOUSE
Amanda and Josh move into an old house in a dark town called "Darkfalls", and strange things begin to happen ever since their Mother puts up an old family heirloom that's supposed to be a good luck charm. The people who live in the town act very strange; their pet dog is acting weird; and Amanda sees dead people inside the house. Lately, we've been getting plenty of mediocre episodes from this show, but boy, things are really starting to bounce right back up again! First of all, I really love the episode's premise. Instead of having a typical Haunted House story, you get a dark and creepy town to go with it, and on top of it, you get zombies coming after our main characters. It's a really dark and creative set up. For those who are expecting this story to follow the book, like many "Goosebumps" episodes, it doesn't; but it's still a great episode.
The kid actors are really good. The girl who plays Amanda does a fantastic job at making you believe and fear what she fears throughout the whole episode. It's not over the top, or exaggerated as you would think; it's actually done in a really subtle way. On top of it, she's a very likable character. The kid who plays Josh, who is the same kid who played Jerry in that horrible episode "Piano Lessons Can Be Murder"; is actually really, really good in this episode as this bratty little brother, who hates moving and living in this weird town. I mean to see this actor go from playing a kid who's unintentionally the scariest thing in the whole episode; to playing a likable brat who you can understand why he's so upset, is just incredible development in his acting career on this show! The ignorant parents who of course don't believe the kids until the ending, are really good actors as well. Most actors who play the parents on this show are usually over the top, or boring; but these actors actually not only make these characters likeable, but they seem natural at playing their roles! Even the pet dog is a really good actor!
The actors who play the strange people who live in the town who turn out to be zombies (I honestly don't think I'm giving anything away) are really, really creepy! I mean, they’re not as over the top as most of the villains and monsters are in the show, they're actually legitimately creepy and unsettling. When you see them as just strange people, you feel just as creeped out, as our main characters are. Even the ones who act nice and friendly, you feel a huge vibe that something is not right with them! When you finally see the people reveal themselves to be dead, they don't ham it up to the point where they become silly; they actually stay as creepy and unsettling as they were when you first met them as just strange residents of the town. In fact, they actually act and remind me of the zombies in the classic zombie film "Night Of The Living Dead", due to how they move and look. The only huge difference is, they are civilized, then just mindless zombies that just rip people to shreds; which in all honesty, I like R.L. Stine's take on zombies. In fact, I'd like to see a legit zombie film for adults actually explore that idea! The make-up they put on them is really freaking looking too. It's not gory, or anything; but looking at their gray decaying faces is scary enough to frighten kids!
The look and feel of the episode, is really dark and eerie! I mean seeing these dark and shadowy shots, mixed with the eerie music and sound effects creates a really unsettling atmosphere for this episode. Of course, the best sequence in the whole episode, goes to the climax when our characters are being chased by the zombies, from a cemetery to the old house where they live in! It's really a cool and thrilling sequence! The episodes final scare, is not only scary, but makes you wonder what happens next. So as you may have guessed, I enjoy this episode a lot. I guess the only few flaws that I found in it that even I questioned as a kid is, why did a dead girl warn Amanda to leave the house, despite the fact that she needs her blood to stay alive? It's a scary scene, don't get me wrong, but her telling Amanda to leave, to later coming after her, makes no sense! I also would have liked to see the cursed heirloom explored a bit more, than what we were given. On top of it, the twist of the town residents being zombies, and even the ones who we're supposed to be surprised that they are zombies, was really predictable and kind of obvious. Even when I was a kid, watching this episode for the first time, I've seen, or felt that twist coming! However, despite these flaws, I still really think it's a great episode, and personally, those flaws don't bother me as much as you think!
This episode has indeed redeemed this Season from many of the mediocre episodes that I've reviewed after "The Haunted Mask 2" for its unsettling atmosphere; creative and dark premise; and excellent acting!
RATING 5/5
DON'T WAKE MUMMY
Jeff constantly gets picked on, and pranked by his older sister Kim, for being a scare-able wimp. One day, their Father who's away in Egypt (Or in a room with a tent and an obvious painted backdrop of Pyramids that not only won't fool a kid into thinking he's in Egypt; but makes you wonder where the budget for this show went) sends a Mummy to their house inside a sarcophagus and a jar containing its heart. Kim and his friend open the sarcophagus, which awakens the Mummy inside it. I hate to say this, but now the Season's moving backwards again!
Most of the acting in this episode is really not good. The kid who plays Jeff is ok, but he's not that good of an actor, and his character really doesn't interest me at all. However, I do like that his character at least develops at the end of the episode, even though I still don't find the actor or the character interesting. Kim's best friend is bland and forgettable; and the Mother is not only not a good actress, but she's boring as well. The real best performance in this episode goes to the actress who plays Kim. She's just as good as the actress who plays Tara in "Cuckoo Clock Of Doom". She's fun; you love to hate her; and the actress seems to be having a great time playing this prankster. When I looked up who the actress was that played her, I was shocked to find out that she was played by a young "Criminal Minds" star A.J. Cook. While her performance is good, her development in the episode is shown very briefly; and let's just say I'm a bit disappointed that no revenge from our main character was taken into action.
From what I read, the Mummy in this episode is supposed to be the same Mummy from the episode "Return Of The Mummy". I'm not 100% on that, since I read it in "Goosebumps Wiki"; however, same Mummy or not, it's still scarier compared to the goofy Mummy in "Return Of The Mummy". I'm not saying it's scary enough to scare older kids, because there's no suspense, thrills, atmosphere, or personality to make this Mummy scary. Even when you first see the Mummy lying in its sarcophagus, you'd think it was a dead robot that was part of a cheesy haunted house attraction. However, once you see it move and come after our characters, that's when you start appreciating it for at least walking like a mummy; coming after the characters with nothing holding him back; and having a creepier design when compared to the over the top Mummy at the end of "Return Of The Mummy". Bottom line, while little kids will be more scared of the Mummy than older kids; it at least looks and acts a lot better than the Mummy in the first season. By the way, the Mummy has a pet cat, and let me tell you, both of the effects for it look fake. At first it goes from looking like a beat up stuffed animal, to a robot from a (You guessed it) haunted house ride.
While this episode will most likely scare little kids, then kids around 7 and up, it's an ok episode. It's not one of the better ones due to having some bland acting and some really cheesy effects; but it does have a few good things going for it.
RATING 2/5
THE BLOB THAT ATE EVERYONE
If you're thinking that this is a "Goosebumps" episode that rips-off or homages "The Blob", well, you don't get a cheap "Blob" copy until the climax. Yeah, I'm dead serious, the blob, isn't the episodes focus! Instead, its about a young aspiring writer named Zack, who trespasses into a store that was hit by lightning and finds a typewriter that has electrocuted him. Despite having a computer at home (Even though, I do get the idea that he wanted to use something old fashioned), and instead of avoiding a typewriter that has electrocuted him; he still wants it. Just as he steals it; a creepy store owner who comes out of the shadows, tells him he can have it, as opposed to wanting it back, and we never ever see or hear from her ever again! Zack starts writing stuff on the typewriter, and all of his writing comes true. How does a man eating blob fit the story; he's trying to write a story about one, but we don't see it until the climax.
The characters in this story are really bland cliches that we keep seeing in this show. Our main character is the idiot loser; his best friend Alex, is the typical smart and sometimes wise-ass best friend; and the bully Adam, is a typical bully. Just like the acting in "You Can't Scare Me"; it's not bad, but it's not good enough to make these bland, cliche, and idiotic characters interesting or likable. Oh, and a little trivia for you "Goosebumps" fans; Zach was originally going to start his story with the famous "Goosebumps" tagline "Reader Beware, You're In For A Scare", before throwing his rough draft with the tagline in the garbage. That was the only funny part in the episode.
The whole story with a typewriter that makes everything that our character writes down become true, really has no scares. The first half of the episode is literally just them experimenting with it. There is some build up to things that may look scary, but they're done really poorly, where the payoff itself is a let down. The only time when the typewriter itself looks scary is when we see it type the words down of Zack's sentence in slow motion, after when our characters notice something strange is going on. It started out scary, but then gets over-used so many times, that it gets annoying.
The Blob monster, actually appears in the opening scene of the episode, however, much like the opening scene in the episode "You Can't Scare Me"; it starts out scary, despite the bad acting; but it turns out to be something that one of the characters wrote. At least in the episode "You Can't Scare Me", the paper that the character was reading is a report on a legendary monster that turns out to be real, and has probably killed the victims that we've seen in the intro. Getting back to the monster, the effects and design for it is so poor, so cheesy, and so fake, that it's not only not funny, but it's really sickening for me to look at. It almost looks like a melted down animatronic of "Audrey 2" from the musical remake of "Little Shop Of Horrors". As for the monster's weakness and the mystery behind this magical typewriter; without giving anything away it was stupid and anti-climatic. Yeah, it was hinted earlier on in the episode, but it's still a lame ending that's not clever in the slightest.
The episode is really a downer. The characters stink; the scary magical typewriter is not creative or scary; the blob monster looks so horrible and ugly, and does so little in the story, that it was best to not include it in the episode at all; and the ending was a complete downer.
RATING 1/5
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DUMMY 3
Trina and Daniel's wimpy cousin who has a fear of dummies named Zane, comes to visit them for a few days. Their Dad, who is a dummy collector, receives a new dummy named Slappy (And for some reason, only a piece of his face is missing, then his entire face that was busted up in the last episode with Slappy) who is back to causing mischief and coming after our main characters, once our characters read the card that brings him to life. This episode is a two part episode, when the previous one with Slappy was a one parter, and it does indeed work as a two part episode, because of how each part works as a first and second act. The first part is off-screen mischief that we assume that Slappy is causing, when in a twist its Zane (Sorry to give away the twist, but I had to give it away, because it leads to an important criticism in my review); and the second part is Slappy chasing our main characters as they are home alone in the middle of a dark and stormy night. Those are really good set-ups for both acts.
Slappy is just as fun as he was in the previous episode, but sadly he lacks the amount scares that he had in the previous episode. I mean granted, he has a few creepy and unsettling moments in this episode, but for the majority of it, he's mostly a goofball. In fact, our main characters actually take him down a few times, when in the previous one, he was unstoppable. I'll admit, it is fun seeing our characters fight against this dummy, but if it was meant to be scary, well, its more silly, than it is scary. I also wonder what Slappy was doing all this time, while Zane was pranking his cousins (This is part of the reason, why I gave the twist away). Despite Slappy being a goofy pushover, the episode does upgrade him. He now has magic green breath that can make dummies come to life, and turn people into dummies; and the effects for him have changed a bit. Since he's alive throughout the whole second part of the episode, he had to look more animated so he can move around more, so for the scenes when he's chasing after our characters, or walking around, they actually used a small person in a costume. While it's obvious that you can tell when the effects team are using an actor, or a dummy; in all honesty, I still think the effects are cool. To me, it's like the effects in "Jurassic Park", while you can tell when the effects team are using animatronics, or CGI, they're so cool looking that you don't care, I'm not saying the effects here are just as great as "Jurassic Park" (I mean for god sake at the time it came out nobody knew the difference), but I do appreciate the effort that was put behind it. I mean, comparing the effects in this episode, to most of the effects in most of the episodes made this season, they're pretty damn good, if not great. Slappy is also accompanied by a dummy named Rockhead, who is just as fun and creepy as Slappy. The only downside is, Slappy doesn't bring all the other dummies to life, which is a shame because the dummies themselves look so cool and fun, that it makes you wonder what kind of personality trait that each one would carry.
The acting is actually really good here. I mean, every single actor in this episode, makes their character fun and likable. You have the older Sister Trina who's smart and fun; you have the little brother Daniel who's a lot of fun to be around with; and you have the two parents who are not only fun too, but they actually act like regular parents, than being bland or so over the top that it's silly. The actor who surprised me the most is the kid who played Zane, because the kid playing him is a young Hayden Christensen, who we all know him best as a whiny, annoying, and bland Anakin Skywalker in the "Star Wars: Prequel Trilogy". I mean finding out that this is the same actor who gave a bland, corny, and annoying performance as Anakin (Which in all fairness, he did become cool and menacing when he joined the Dark Side) to play such a likable, frightened, and fun character is just mind blowing. I mean his performance in this episode (With the exception of Evil Anakin) shows that this actor does have some acting abilities.
The episode itself does have some creepy visuals and an unsettling atmosphere on most occasions, in fact, it does seem like a solid 5/5 episode, but it does have some problems. I already talked about Slappy being not as scary as he was in the previous episode; the fact that the episode doesn't follow the continuity as the previous one; and the fact that the dummies don't come alive, except for one, but here's something I didn't mention, which connects to why I gave that twist away with Zane. If Zane was the mastermind at pranking the family, then who opened the door to the put the dummy in Zane's room, if Zane was already inside the room and actually sees the door opening. I know it's supposed to make us think Slappy did it, but it still makes no sense. I mean, does he have the force? There's a scene when the Mother leaves the living room that Zane is in, as his Uncle tries to show him that dummies are not scary. The Mother comes back to announce that Dinner is ready, but when they enter the dining room, right after the scene, it's already a mess. If the Mother didn't go to check on the dinner, then where did she go? Obviously Zane couldn't have been in two places at once. Another issue I have is some of the scares aren't scary, not just because that some of them are goofy, but also because of how predictable they were. Just the way how some of them are shot, you knew what was going to happen. There are some good ones, but the majority were either silly or predictable.
While not being as good as I remembered it, it's still one of the better episodes from this Season. Slappy despite not being as scary as he used to be, he's still fun; the acting is good; it does have some decent scares; and the effects are good, despite how obvious of who the puppet is, and the actor is. If the episode didn't have so many plot holes and balanced out the comedy and scares with Slappy, it definitely would have received a 5/5, but I'm still giving my second best rating, since it is one of the better ones.
RATING 4/5
CONCLUSION
The Season started out great, but once we got to the worms episode that's when things go down hill. The ideas, scares, and effects for most of the episodes seem good or creative, but for the majority, we get bland and cliche characters and people who can't act; ideas and stories that seem like a mess of different ideas that are executed poorly or are just dumb to begin with; really cheesy and silly monsters and special effects; pacing that feels rushed to the point where we wonder what we were just watching; and endings that nearly kill the whole episode. While close to getting a 2/5 for entertainment value, there are indeed some really great episodes that really do hit bulls-eyes. There's not too many of them, but they're still great by being fun; having cool visuals and effects (In TV standards); some decent acting and likable characters; some scary villains and monsters; a heavy atmosphere; and a creative and scary premise. While this Season is mostly an entertaining mess, it still has enough great and decent episodes to balance itself out with the bad ones.
RATING FOR THE SECOND SEASON
3/5
LET'S GET INVISIBLE
Max, his little brother Noah, and his friends find a mirror hidden in the attic, with a light that can make them invisible. The kids start playing with it until weird side effects begin to happen the more time they become invisible and to make matters worse the kids discover another world behind the mirror, where their reflections are waiting to take their place in the real world. Ok, I get what R.L. Stine is trying to do with this concept, and maybe this story translated a lot better in his book, but in a less than a 30 minute episode, it makes little sense. There's a history with this mirror, but it's never explored or talked about. It can make you invisible, but you're taken into another dimension if you're invisible for too long? I feel like R.L. Stine took two separate stories, one being about a light that makes you invisible; and the other one being about a mysterious mirror that leads you to another dimension; and combined both stories and ideas into one. Maybe it's explained better in the book, but how it's translated here, it feels like a mess.
The characters in this episode are really bland and not interesting, and are sadly just the typical kid stereotypes that keep appearing in the series, with nothing new to them at all, such as the curious main character, the annoying sibling who causes nothing but trouble, and the only black kid in the neighborhood. The acting from the kids isn't good either, it feels very rushed most of the time. The characters are also idiots as well. Who asks the shortest kid in the group to pull a switch that's too high for him to reach, while the rest of the gang are able to reach it; and what kind of dumb kid eats in front of their parents when he's invisible, when he's trying to keep the invisible mirror a secret? I really don't find any of these characters good at all. They're bland, dumb, cliché, and the actors themselves seem to have rushed through it because they have nothing to work with. Oh, and when the actors play their evil reflection, they're not scary, and become even more bland than coming off as creepy or unsettling.
Now the invisible special effects in this episode of things moving on their own are actually really good and convincing. I was actually convinced that the kids were invisible do to those effects, especially during that scene when invisible Noah is drinking a glass of milk, which looked legit. Where I felt that the episode should have been focused on was that other world inside the mirror that we only see during the climax. Yeah, it looks hokey, but there's still a creative strangeness to it which makes it a cool looking world. In fact, I would have liked the idea better if the real Max and his reflection literally switched places, and the story would result with Max exploring and trying to get out of this world, while reflection Max has plans for his friends; that would be at better plot, than this mess of a plot.
The only good thing this episode offers are the creative special effects, and some cool ideas, but as a whole it feels like one big mess, starring bland characters that we can care less about.
RATING 2/5
THE SCARECROW WALKS AT MIDNIGHT
Jodie and Mark are spending their summer vacation in the country on their Grandparents farm, however, their Grandparents have been acting strange whenever one of their farm workers named Stanley is around. The farm is also haunted by living Scarecrows that only walk at Midnight. Does Stanley have something to do with the walking Scarecrows; well isn't it obvious? Let me just say that the explanation to why the Scarecrows walk makes very little sense at all.
The kids I'll admit, while being bland characters, the actors playing them did a decent enough job at making them likable. Their acting isn't bad either. However, once we get to the climax of the story and we see them acting scared, that's when the acting from them gets bad and when I stop caring or liking these characters. They started out decent, but then all credibility gets lost in the end. The same can be said for the guy who plays Stanley. He starts out being creepy, but again at the climax after finding out why the Scarecrows are alive, he turns into an annoying bumbling idiot. Also during the climax, why doesn't Stanley try to do something productive, like try turning the walking Scarecrows back into regular lifeless Scarecrows? The Grandparents are very likable and well-acted, but sadly they become forgettable as I let the days go by. Stanley also has a son named Sticks, who is sadly another forgettable character as well.
The Scarecrows, while having cool and scary designs, and having great build up to them, they don't do anything. All they do is scare, chase, and that's it. They don't do anything productive or villainous at all except look scary. They don't even have any personality at all. So yeah, they're scary looking, but outside of that, they're nothing special. By the way, in the ending when The Harvester comes to life and starts coming after our characters. I thought it was a cool and scary concept, until I clearly saw the silhouette of the person driving it in more than one shot. What a great way to ruin your scary ending!
The episode started out good, but once we got to the climax that's when things started getting bad. It's not an awful or bad episode, since it does deliver a few scares with those scary looking scarecrows, as well as being entertaining, but as a whole, it's still weak.
RATING 2/5
MONSTER BLOOD/MORE MONSTER BLOOD
A kid named Evan stays at his weird Aunt’s house, while his parents go house hunting in Georgia. However, he is told by his Aunt to not go into a room that she never locks, even after when catching him in the room. He and a neighborhood girl named Andy, sneak into this horrifying old room, to find a jar of green ooze called Monster Blood, which they curiously take out of the jar, and start playing with it as if it was Flubber. However, the Ooze continues to grow and grow, and eat everything in its path, even when making the slightest contact with a human that for some reason doesn't consume Evan, when he becomes covered in it after foolishly sitting on the ledge of the Bathtub, with this dangerous substance in it. Evan manages to get rid of it, but in the second part of the episode, some of the blood somehow gets into his suitcase, and starts eating people on the plane one by one.
OK, before I go further into the review, let me address that "Monster Blood" is really popular in the "Goosebumps" franchise. It has it's own series of books; it crosses-over in many other "Goosebumps" books; and that green ooze dripping to create the "Goosebumps" logo, is actually the "Monster Blood". The second part "More Monster Blood" isn't even based off a book, it was created for the show. While, I never read any of the "Monster Blood" stories, except for using it in the choose your own adventure book (Which I love reading) "Escape From The Carnival Of Horrors", I am really displeased on what a letdown that this episode was.
The "Monster Blood" is basically "The Blob". I mean, sure, when an animal or insect eats it, it becomes gigantic (Which, by the way, am I the only one wondering what the giant dog's been doing all this time?); it starts out acting like Flubber for some unknown reason, instead of eating people; but it’s mostly "The Blob" in a nutshell. So, that green ooze that makes it on the cover of "Goosebumps" and that appeared in countless books is a rip-off from a classic B Movie from the 50's. Don't believe me, he actually made a book and episode called "The Blob That Ate Everyone"! Clever homage, parody, or plagiarism; you be the judge! The effects for the "Monster Blood" aren't good either. The CGI is really, really terrible! I mean the "Monster Blood" dripping during the credits looks more real, than that phony CGI. I will admit, the non-CGI effects are decent for it. The effects for the giant dog was decent in TV standards, but the giant ant at the end was terrible! By the way, if I told you what the Blob, I mean "Monster Bloods" weakness was, you'd think I made it up!
The characters are ok. Evan is an ok character, and the actor playing him does an ok job, however, this kid does do a lot of stupid things in the first part, when in the second part he's horribly acted when he's being dramatic. His friend Andy is really an uninteresting and forgettable bland obnoxious character, and does nearly the amount of the same stupidity that Evan does in the first part. The girl that Evan meets on the Plane is not a bad actress, but she's really boring as a character. He also meets two kid stereotypes on the Plane so you can identify who is who. He meets a kid who's really nerdy and has dozens of problems; and the other kid is a bully, who looks like he's related to Biff Tannen's Family from "Back To The Future". However, while the two kids are cliche stereotypes, they at least reform themselves in the end. The actress that plays Evan's Aunt does a nice job at being weird, unsettling, and funny. Finally, the actress who plays the villain who creates the "Monster Blood" may be a really short and pointless appearance, since she never appears in the next half, was actually the best performer in this whole two part episode. She's fun, villainous, and looking hot doesn't hurt either.
This two part episode was terrible! I'll admit, some of the characters and performances are decent, some of the effects are ok, and the second part had such a great set-up that I wish that it was a stand-alone episode. However, the episode suffers from some bland and idiotic characters, poor CGI effects, and lame and confusing writing. As bad as it is, it was at least entertainingly fun.
RATING 2/5
VAMPIRE BREATH
Freddy and Cara are left home alone by their parents, and the two find a secret door. Inside the secret door, they find a Coffin, and a bottle of Vampire Breath, which they foolishly open, waking up a Vampire named Count Nightwing, who chases after the kids to consume the rest of the bottle. However, the kids find a hidden room, within the hidden room, that leads to a room full of Coffins, as a Vampire slave girl named Gwendolyn tries to help the kids.
Our two kids, while not the typical R.L. Stine stereotypes, they're bland, forgettable, and are really not good actors. The villain Count Nightwing seems like a good villain, and the guy playing him does a fine job; but he's sadly all bark and no bite (No pun intended), nor is he scary. The girl that helps our leads, well, let’s just say, I knew there was going to be a twist to this character, for many obvious reasons. My major problem with the episode is the twist at the end, which not only nearly rehashes the ending to "The Girl Who Cried Monster", but leaves me with so many questions that my head just hurts by just thinking about them.
There's really not much else for me to say or comment on, except that it’s a lame episode that's badly acted and filled with so many plot holes that it hurts my head just thinking about them. If there was only one good thing that the episode did ok with, the sets are nice, but it doesn't save anything.
RATING 1/5
HOW TO KILL A MONSTER
Gretchan and Clark are two kids who have now become Brother and Sister, after their parents married each other. While their parents are on their Honeymoon, the kids stay with Gretchan's Grandparents who live in a swamp. During their visit, the Grandparents are hiding something in a room that the kids are not allowed to go in (Seen it before), however, the kids eventually go into the room, and discover that the Grandparents are hiding a monster in that room. The kids are left alone, and are locked inside the house (With locks inside the house as opposed to outside of the house. How did the Grandparents leave, or why did the kids not break the locks to get out of the house?) as the monster chases after them. Aside from the flaw I just mentioned, and a cliche that we've seen before; I really love the episode's set-up!
Our two leads, while not being great actors, they're not only likable, but they actually do have chemistry together. I love that the two are both in-laws that can't stand each other, and are both completely different from each other. For example, Gretchan enjoys staying at the swamp, while Clark can't stand it. Sure, it’s been done before, but these kids are really a lot of fun when they're together, even if their acting isn't that good. It’s fun seeing them argue at each other, and how their friendship develops in the episode is done pretty well. The Grandparents are a lot of fun. I love how absent minded they are; I enjoy watching the actors over the top performance as these old hillbillies; and while being freaky on a few occasions, they're still just as likable and fun as our leads.
The build up to the episode's monster is done well; the mystery of why the Grandparents have a monster, and locked the kids inside the house with it, rises up your curiosity; and the monster itself, while more silly than it is scary, it's still a creative looking monster, and the effects for it are neat. I also enjoy watching the kids try to figure out ways of killing it, and escaping from it. Sadly, when we find out what the monster's weakness is in the end, it's not only anti-climactic, but it makes very little sense.
The episode has a good set-up; decent effects and atmosphere; good chemistry between our two leads; and fun supporting characters. However, the ending freaking killed it, and that was a huge downer. It's better than the episodes after "The Haunted Mask 2", but the ending ruined it!
RATING 2/5
CALLING ALL CREEPS
Ricky is your typical nerdy loser, who constantly gets picked on and bullied, especially from a popular girl named Tasha. Ricky tries to get back at her by writing in the school paper for creeps to contact her, but his plan backfires when Tasha discovers his plan, and has the creeps call him instead. A trio of kids who used to bully Ricky, turn out to be a race of monsters called Creeps, who think Ricky is their commander who has a plan to turn everybody in the world into "Creeps", starting with the kids at their school.
In all honesty, the plot makes no sense. By "Creeps", what type of people was Ricky intending to call Tasha. Is it weird kids; kids who are creepy; kids who are losers; pedos; or what? Plus, how does he think he'll get away with his prank since the person he's pranking runs the school Newspaper? Also who are these monsters? What's their back story; where do they come from; where's the rest of their race; and why do they think this loser is their commander? He's not one of them, but for some reason they know that, and let him lead anyway, despite being a complete loser and push-over? Maybe the book translates the story a lot better, but for a half hour episode, I'm completely lost!
The kid actors are surprisingly good. Don't get me wrong, the characters that they play are the typical stereotypes that you see in shows like this, like the loser, the new kid, the popular bully, and so on; but they actually do a great job at playing their characters. While I enjoyed the kids who play Ricky and his new friend Iris, my personal favorite performance goes to the girl who plays the popular girl. The reason why is because usually when I see the actress who plays her in other kids shows, she's the innocent sweetheart. She played Melissa in the "Are You Afraid Of The Dark" episode "The Tale Of The Dollmaker"; and she's best known as the voice of Phoebe in "The Magic School Bus". Seeing her play this popular bully, is not only shocking, but she makes this character so hateable, that you wonder if this is the same actress, who played all those cute and innocent roles. As for the three kids who turn out to be "Creeps", they're ok.
The Creeps in this episode are seriously not scary or threatening, they're actually really silly looking. I mean, the effect for them changing into Creeps, is really, really cheesy; their voices are so over the top that it's funny instead of scary; and instead of make-up, it's rubber masks that looks like something you can buy at your local party store. It's such a pity considering all the good effects that were used in previous episodes like "The Haunted Mask"; "The Girl Who Cried Monster"; "Night Of The Living Dummy 2"; "Attack Of The Mutant", and so on. What I really like about this episode is the ending, and without giving too much, it's probably one of the darkest endings that I have ever seen in the series.
This episode is showing signs of the series getting better with its acting and dark ending, but it's still a bit of a letdown with its confusing storyline and cheesy monster effects.
RATING 2/5
WELCOME TO DEAD HOUSE
Amanda and Josh move into an old house in a dark town called "Darkfalls", and strange things begin to happen ever since their Mother puts up an old family heirloom that's supposed to be a good luck charm. The people who live in the town act very strange; their pet dog is acting weird; and Amanda sees dead people inside the house. Lately, we've been getting plenty of mediocre episodes from this show, but boy, things are really starting to bounce right back up again! First of all, I really love the episode's premise. Instead of having a typical Haunted House story, you get a dark and creepy town to go with it, and on top of it, you get zombies coming after our main characters. It's a really dark and creative set up. For those who are expecting this story to follow the book, like many "Goosebumps" episodes, it doesn't; but it's still a great episode.
The kid actors are really good. The girl who plays Amanda does a fantastic job at making you believe and fear what she fears throughout the whole episode. It's not over the top, or exaggerated as you would think; it's actually done in a really subtle way. On top of it, she's a very likable character. The kid who plays Josh, who is the same kid who played Jerry in that horrible episode "Piano Lessons Can Be Murder"; is actually really, really good in this episode as this bratty little brother, who hates moving and living in this weird town. I mean to see this actor go from playing a kid who's unintentionally the scariest thing in the whole episode; to playing a likable brat who you can understand why he's so upset, is just incredible development in his acting career on this show! The ignorant parents who of course don't believe the kids until the ending, are really good actors as well. Most actors who play the parents on this show are usually over the top, or boring; but these actors actually not only make these characters likeable, but they seem natural at playing their roles! Even the pet dog is a really good actor!
The actors who play the strange people who live in the town who turn out to be zombies (I honestly don't think I'm giving anything away) are really, really creepy! I mean, they’re not as over the top as most of the villains and monsters are in the show, they're actually legitimately creepy and unsettling. When you see them as just strange people, you feel just as creeped out, as our main characters are. Even the ones who act nice and friendly, you feel a huge vibe that something is not right with them! When you finally see the people reveal themselves to be dead, they don't ham it up to the point where they become silly; they actually stay as creepy and unsettling as they were when you first met them as just strange residents of the town. In fact, they actually act and remind me of the zombies in the classic zombie film "Night Of The Living Dead", due to how they move and look. The only huge difference is, they are civilized, then just mindless zombies that just rip people to shreds; which in all honesty, I like R.L. Stine's take on zombies. In fact, I'd like to see a legit zombie film for adults actually explore that idea! The make-up they put on them is really freaking looking too. It's not gory, or anything; but looking at their gray decaying faces is scary enough to frighten kids!
The look and feel of the episode, is really dark and eerie! I mean seeing these dark and shadowy shots, mixed with the eerie music and sound effects creates a really unsettling atmosphere for this episode. Of course, the best sequence in the whole episode, goes to the climax when our characters are being chased by the zombies, from a cemetery to the old house where they live in! It's really a cool and thrilling sequence! The episodes final scare, is not only scary, but makes you wonder what happens next. So as you may have guessed, I enjoy this episode a lot. I guess the only few flaws that I found in it that even I questioned as a kid is, why did a dead girl warn Amanda to leave the house, despite the fact that she needs her blood to stay alive? It's a scary scene, don't get me wrong, but her telling Amanda to leave, to later coming after her, makes no sense! I also would have liked to see the cursed heirloom explored a bit more, than what we were given. On top of it, the twist of the town residents being zombies, and even the ones who we're supposed to be surprised that they are zombies, was really predictable and kind of obvious. Even when I was a kid, watching this episode for the first time, I've seen, or felt that twist coming! However, despite these flaws, I still really think it's a great episode, and personally, those flaws don't bother me as much as you think!
This episode has indeed redeemed this Season from many of the mediocre episodes that I've reviewed after "The Haunted Mask 2" for its unsettling atmosphere; creative and dark premise; and excellent acting!
RATING 5/5
DON'T WAKE MUMMY
Jeff constantly gets picked on, and pranked by his older sister Kim, for being a scare-able wimp. One day, their Father who's away in Egypt (Or in a room with a tent and an obvious painted backdrop of Pyramids that not only won't fool a kid into thinking he's in Egypt; but makes you wonder where the budget for this show went) sends a Mummy to their house inside a sarcophagus and a jar containing its heart. Kim and his friend open the sarcophagus, which awakens the Mummy inside it. I hate to say this, but now the Season's moving backwards again!
Most of the acting in this episode is really not good. The kid who plays Jeff is ok, but he's not that good of an actor, and his character really doesn't interest me at all. However, I do like that his character at least develops at the end of the episode, even though I still don't find the actor or the character interesting. Kim's best friend is bland and forgettable; and the Mother is not only not a good actress, but she's boring as well. The real best performance in this episode goes to the actress who plays Kim. She's just as good as the actress who plays Tara in "Cuckoo Clock Of Doom". She's fun; you love to hate her; and the actress seems to be having a great time playing this prankster. When I looked up who the actress was that played her, I was shocked to find out that she was played by a young "Criminal Minds" star A.J. Cook. While her performance is good, her development in the episode is shown very briefly; and let's just say I'm a bit disappointed that no revenge from our main character was taken into action.
From what I read, the Mummy in this episode is supposed to be the same Mummy from the episode "Return Of The Mummy". I'm not 100% on that, since I read it in "Goosebumps Wiki"; however, same Mummy or not, it's still scarier compared to the goofy Mummy in "Return Of The Mummy". I'm not saying it's scary enough to scare older kids, because there's no suspense, thrills, atmosphere, or personality to make this Mummy scary. Even when you first see the Mummy lying in its sarcophagus, you'd think it was a dead robot that was part of a cheesy haunted house attraction. However, once you see it move and come after our characters, that's when you start appreciating it for at least walking like a mummy; coming after the characters with nothing holding him back; and having a creepier design when compared to the over the top Mummy at the end of "Return Of The Mummy". Bottom line, while little kids will be more scared of the Mummy than older kids; it at least looks and acts a lot better than the Mummy in the first season. By the way, the Mummy has a pet cat, and let me tell you, both of the effects for it look fake. At first it goes from looking like a beat up stuffed animal, to a robot from a (You guessed it) haunted house ride.
While this episode will most likely scare little kids, then kids around 7 and up, it's an ok episode. It's not one of the better ones due to having some bland acting and some really cheesy effects; but it does have a few good things going for it.
RATING 2/5
THE BLOB THAT ATE EVERYONE
If you're thinking that this is a "Goosebumps" episode that rips-off or homages "The Blob", well, you don't get a cheap "Blob" copy until the climax. Yeah, I'm dead serious, the blob, isn't the episodes focus! Instead, its about a young aspiring writer named Zack, who trespasses into a store that was hit by lightning and finds a typewriter that has electrocuted him. Despite having a computer at home (Even though, I do get the idea that he wanted to use something old fashioned), and instead of avoiding a typewriter that has electrocuted him; he still wants it. Just as he steals it; a creepy store owner who comes out of the shadows, tells him he can have it, as opposed to wanting it back, and we never ever see or hear from her ever again! Zack starts writing stuff on the typewriter, and all of his writing comes true. How does a man eating blob fit the story; he's trying to write a story about one, but we don't see it until the climax.
The characters in this story are really bland cliches that we keep seeing in this show. Our main character is the idiot loser; his best friend Alex, is the typical smart and sometimes wise-ass best friend; and the bully Adam, is a typical bully. Just like the acting in "You Can't Scare Me"; it's not bad, but it's not good enough to make these bland, cliche, and idiotic characters interesting or likable. Oh, and a little trivia for you "Goosebumps" fans; Zach was originally going to start his story with the famous "Goosebumps" tagline "Reader Beware, You're In For A Scare", before throwing his rough draft with the tagline in the garbage. That was the only funny part in the episode.
The whole story with a typewriter that makes everything that our character writes down become true, really has no scares. The first half of the episode is literally just them experimenting with it. There is some build up to things that may look scary, but they're done really poorly, where the payoff itself is a let down. The only time when the typewriter itself looks scary is when we see it type the words down of Zack's sentence in slow motion, after when our characters notice something strange is going on. It started out scary, but then gets over-used so many times, that it gets annoying.
The Blob monster, actually appears in the opening scene of the episode, however, much like the opening scene in the episode "You Can't Scare Me"; it starts out scary, despite the bad acting; but it turns out to be something that one of the characters wrote. At least in the episode "You Can't Scare Me", the paper that the character was reading is a report on a legendary monster that turns out to be real, and has probably killed the victims that we've seen in the intro. Getting back to the monster, the effects and design for it is so poor, so cheesy, and so fake, that it's not only not funny, but it's really sickening for me to look at. It almost looks like a melted down animatronic of "Audrey 2" from the musical remake of "Little Shop Of Horrors". As for the monster's weakness and the mystery behind this magical typewriter; without giving anything away it was stupid and anti-climatic. Yeah, it was hinted earlier on in the episode, but it's still a lame ending that's not clever in the slightest.
The episode is really a downer. The characters stink; the scary magical typewriter is not creative or scary; the blob monster looks so horrible and ugly, and does so little in the story, that it was best to not include it in the episode at all; and the ending was a complete downer.
RATING 1/5
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DUMMY 3
Trina and Daniel's wimpy cousin who has a fear of dummies named Zane, comes to visit them for a few days. Their Dad, who is a dummy collector, receives a new dummy named Slappy (And for some reason, only a piece of his face is missing, then his entire face that was busted up in the last episode with Slappy) who is back to causing mischief and coming after our main characters, once our characters read the card that brings him to life. This episode is a two part episode, when the previous one with Slappy was a one parter, and it does indeed work as a two part episode, because of how each part works as a first and second act. The first part is off-screen mischief that we assume that Slappy is causing, when in a twist its Zane (Sorry to give away the twist, but I had to give it away, because it leads to an important criticism in my review); and the second part is Slappy chasing our main characters as they are home alone in the middle of a dark and stormy night. Those are really good set-ups for both acts.
Slappy is just as fun as he was in the previous episode, but sadly he lacks the amount scares that he had in the previous episode. I mean granted, he has a few creepy and unsettling moments in this episode, but for the majority of it, he's mostly a goofball. In fact, our main characters actually take him down a few times, when in the previous one, he was unstoppable. I'll admit, it is fun seeing our characters fight against this dummy, but if it was meant to be scary, well, its more silly, than it is scary. I also wonder what Slappy was doing all this time, while Zane was pranking his cousins (This is part of the reason, why I gave the twist away). Despite Slappy being a goofy pushover, the episode does upgrade him. He now has magic green breath that can make dummies come to life, and turn people into dummies; and the effects for him have changed a bit. Since he's alive throughout the whole second part of the episode, he had to look more animated so he can move around more, so for the scenes when he's chasing after our characters, or walking around, they actually used a small person in a costume. While it's obvious that you can tell when the effects team are using an actor, or a dummy; in all honesty, I still think the effects are cool. To me, it's like the effects in "Jurassic Park", while you can tell when the effects team are using animatronics, or CGI, they're so cool looking that you don't care, I'm not saying the effects here are just as great as "Jurassic Park" (I mean for god sake at the time it came out nobody knew the difference), but I do appreciate the effort that was put behind it. I mean, comparing the effects in this episode, to most of the effects in most of the episodes made this season, they're pretty damn good, if not great. Slappy is also accompanied by a dummy named Rockhead, who is just as fun and creepy as Slappy. The only downside is, Slappy doesn't bring all the other dummies to life, which is a shame because the dummies themselves look so cool and fun, that it makes you wonder what kind of personality trait that each one would carry.
The acting is actually really good here. I mean, every single actor in this episode, makes their character fun and likable. You have the older Sister Trina who's smart and fun; you have the little brother Daniel who's a lot of fun to be around with; and you have the two parents who are not only fun too, but they actually act like regular parents, than being bland or so over the top that it's silly. The actor who surprised me the most is the kid who played Zane, because the kid playing him is a young Hayden Christensen, who we all know him best as a whiny, annoying, and bland Anakin Skywalker in the "Star Wars: Prequel Trilogy". I mean finding out that this is the same actor who gave a bland, corny, and annoying performance as Anakin (Which in all fairness, he did become cool and menacing when he joined the Dark Side) to play such a likable, frightened, and fun character is just mind blowing. I mean his performance in this episode (With the exception of Evil Anakin) shows that this actor does have some acting abilities.
The episode itself does have some creepy visuals and an unsettling atmosphere on most occasions, in fact, it does seem like a solid 5/5 episode, but it does have some problems. I already talked about Slappy being not as scary as he was in the previous episode; the fact that the episode doesn't follow the continuity as the previous one; and the fact that the dummies don't come alive, except for one, but here's something I didn't mention, which connects to why I gave that twist away with Zane. If Zane was the mastermind at pranking the family, then who opened the door to the put the dummy in Zane's room, if Zane was already inside the room and actually sees the door opening. I know it's supposed to make us think Slappy did it, but it still makes no sense. I mean, does he have the force? There's a scene when the Mother leaves the living room that Zane is in, as his Uncle tries to show him that dummies are not scary. The Mother comes back to announce that Dinner is ready, but when they enter the dining room, right after the scene, it's already a mess. If the Mother didn't go to check on the dinner, then where did she go? Obviously Zane couldn't have been in two places at once. Another issue I have is some of the scares aren't scary, not just because that some of them are goofy, but also because of how predictable they were. Just the way how some of them are shot, you knew what was going to happen. There are some good ones, but the majority were either silly or predictable.
While not being as good as I remembered it, it's still one of the better episodes from this Season. Slappy despite not being as scary as he used to be, he's still fun; the acting is good; it does have some decent scares; and the effects are good, despite how obvious of who the puppet is, and the actor is. If the episode didn't have so many plot holes and balanced out the comedy and scares with Slappy, it definitely would have received a 5/5, but I'm still giving my second best rating, since it is one of the better ones.
RATING 4/5
CONCLUSION
The Season started out great, but once we got to the worms episode that's when things go down hill. The ideas, scares, and effects for most of the episodes seem good or creative, but for the majority, we get bland and cliche characters and people who can't act; ideas and stories that seem like a mess of different ideas that are executed poorly or are just dumb to begin with; really cheesy and silly monsters and special effects; pacing that feels rushed to the point where we wonder what we were just watching; and endings that nearly kill the whole episode. While close to getting a 2/5 for entertainment value, there are indeed some really great episodes that really do hit bulls-eyes. There's not too many of them, but they're still great by being fun; having cool visuals and effects (In TV standards); some decent acting and likable characters; some scary villains and monsters; a heavy atmosphere; and a creative and scary premise. While this Season is mostly an entertaining mess, it still has enough great and decent episodes to balance itself out with the bad ones.
RATING FOR THE SECOND SEASON
3/5
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