The Stinal Countdown: Goosebumps HorrorLand #4: The Scream of the Haunted Mask

 

It's time for our next trip to HorrorLand, and time once again for another sequel book. This time it's a return to Carly Beth and the Haunted Mask. But we have had two stellar books beforehand, so could we have the rare Goosebumps hat trick? Let's hope I'm not overselling things with The Scream of the Haunted Mask.

COVER STORY

The cover is fine. I like the juxtaposition of all the cute and harmless looking masks with the classic haunted mask, and yet for how cute they are, the masks still look creepy. Dorman's version of the mask is fine. I particularly like how he does the eyes, giving them more of an ominous yellow glow. It's not as visually striking as the original covers, but for what it needs to be, it works.

STORY

So, this book is a sort of alternate direct sequel to the original Haunted Mask, Sort of in the way Creep From The Deep was. This means that the events of this book negate the original sequel. It's one year after the Halloween where Carly Beth put on the haunted mask, which resulted in her turning more and more monstrous, until the plaster head of herself made by her mom as a symbol of love managed to defeat the mask. Though we're still going to ignore the twist ending with Noah, her younger brother putting the mask on. Instead we open the book as Carly Beth is being drawn to the basement of her house as the mask, which she put in a box and buried in the basement, is calling to her. She almost puts the mask back on, but stops herself in time.

The next day on the bus, she talks about it to Sabrina, but Sabrina is more interested in Carly Beth's crush on a kid named Gary Steadman. She remembers what happened last year with the mask, but despite her friend's clear PTSD, she shrugs it off as Carly Beth going overboard. And then Carly Beth gets attacked by a snake. Turns out that Chuck and Steve are still dicks to her, but Carly Beth isn't the frightened girl of the original book and is more calm. Carly Beth and Sabrina are more focused on taking care of the kindergartners at Tumbledown Farms for their after school program. The farm no long works as an active farm, but more of a park open to the public on weekends. They describe the kids to be bratty, but not in a "paint a boulder to be a soccer ball" sort of way. More of a "Jesse sticks crayons up his nose, Colin sucks his thumb and Angela is a perfect kid" sort of way instead. Carly Beth thinks Angela could be a kid supermodel, which if I wasn't creeped out in the wrong way from the last book...

Carly Beth and Sabrina arrive as the kids are being wild as usual. Another girl their age named Laura Henry is also there taking care of the kids. Jesse tells Carly Beth that her face is ugly, which makes her panic that the mask is back on, but nope, it was just a trick. So, she's learned to shake off Chuck and Steve, but still gets dunked on by five year olds. Oh Carly Beth. Mrs. Lange, a large woman with bright orange hair shows up and shoos the kids outside to pick apples, but since these are a bunch of energetic and annoying children, they just bug each other and throw apples. Carly Beth and Sabrina notice what looks to be an old, dilapidated stable, to which Carly Beth hears what she thinks is the whinny of a horse. The two go to check it out, but get stopped by Laura.

Later that day, Laura tells them of the tale of the stable. How years ago it was a stable filled with beautiful horses. One night, shrill screams could be heard from within. But when the farm owners checked inside, they found all the horses dead. It was believed to be the cause of the stable boy, who tried to scare the horse groomer, but his prank led to the horses panicking, rushing the door and crushing one another, with the stable boy killed as well. What scared them? A mask the boy was wearing that soon vanished not long after. This of course kicks Carly Beth's PTSD back in. Could it be the same mask? Her paranoia is made no better by Mrs. Lange claiming that the stable boy's ghost is said to still haunt the stables, looking for his mask.

Still paranoid, she checks the basement to see if the mask is still in her box. After being scared by Noah, she sees the box is making banging sounds. The mask is smacking the box, trying to get out. The next day, Sabrina calls Carly Beth, saying they should do their school report on the abandoned barn, and that they should look inside and take photos. Carly Beth, despite her fears, agrees to do so. She even brings carrots for the ghost horses just to see if this is actually real. The two girls hear ghostly horse whinnies and then recoil in horror when the carrots disappear. Of course, they think it must be Chuck and Steve pulling a prank, but when Sabrina calls Chuck, she learns they're both at home. The girls run out of the stable in a panic, but Carly Beth sees what looks to be a boy standing atop the stable, staring at them.

The next day, Mrs. Lange offers Sabrina, Carly Beth and Laura the chance to run the Halloween party for the kids, to which they all agree. Instead of heading straight home, Carly Beth stays for a bit and checks the stable once more. It's there where she gets accosted by a strange pale boy named Clark, who says that he lives close to the farm and often comes around to look. This sets off alarms in Carly Beth's head and she asks him about the mask that was lost from the haunting and how it seemed similar to her own issues with a haunted mask. Clark laughs it off, thinking she must be easily spooked. Carly Beth heads off to the bus stop, but hears the whinnies yet again. Panicked, and with a dead phone, she forgoes waiting for the bus and runs home.

However, on her way home, she sees something familiar. It's the mask store. The exact same mask store from the year before. Sure enough, the store owner is there as well. Carly Beth talks to him, pleading to him to take the mask back, but he says that he can't. She never defeated the mask as it cannot be defeated. It has claimed victims before, like someone that she knows, and will get its revenge on her. She runs home to get the mask, but upon opening the box, she sees that it's gone. She immediately thinks Noah may have taken it and put it on, which I remind you must not have happened before in this canon. But when she sees him, he's wearing a green mask alright, but it's of The Incredible Hulk.

The Halloween party goes on as planned, and it goes as expected considering they established the kids to be brats. Carly Beth is sent to Mrs. Lange's office to get some supplies, when she sees a an old newspaper that mentions the stable incident. She then notices the picture of the stable boy, which looks exactly like Clark. She then sees Clark at the party with a mask on, but not her mask. She confronts him about being a ghost, but he says that he's not. When pressed about the picture, he says that it was his grandfather who was the stable boy, which Carly Beth immediately calls BS on because that means his grandfather died at 12, which unless the past was really lax on legal age makes his excuse fall apart.

But as Clark tries to explain himself, the kids begin to panic as the masks they made are stuck to their faces. And it's there where Laura reveals herself. It wasn't Clark's grandfather that wore the mask that night, it was her. She's the ghost, and she wants her mask back, otherwise the kids will suffocate. Carly Beth says she doesn't have the mask, pissing off Laura. However, Sabrina reveals that it was her who took the mask. She snuck into Carly Beth's basement and took it, burying it outside the stable.Carly Beth recovers it, but instead of giving it to Laura, she puts it on her own head instead. Laura calls her a fool twice (What is she? Gilbert Gottfried?) as Carly tries to fight with her, turning more monstrous from the mask. She eventually chases Laura outside where they're soon confronted by the ghost horses who attack Laura, causing her to vanish.

TWIST ENDING

Carly Beth returns to Sabrina and the others, still with the mask on. Fearing she'll be trapped forever, she panics. However, the ghost horses return and start to nuzzle her. Since she gave them the carrots earlier, it acted as a symbol of love, which does the trick, causing the mask to come off. The kids go to bury the mask again, when the mask begins to talk, saying that Carly Beth is its favorite, and it'll see Carly Beth next Halloween.

ENTER HORRORLAND

When we last left things, Britney Crosby and Molly Molloy disappeared from HorrorLand. Compounding to that issue, Sheena Deep turned invisible. Sheena, her brother Billy and Matt Daniels ended up a fake science lab, where they were attacked by actual monster blood. The three were saved by a horror named Byron, who uses a mirror to trap the monster blood. Sheena vanishes (more so), the horrorLand MP's take Byron away and smash the mirror, which then shows Britney and Molly on a flaming carousel.

Carly Beth is the next kid to get an invitation for HorrorLand and brings Sabrina with her. We open as they arrive in the haunted theater. It's there where they see Billy and Matt entering the theater. They sit next to the two girls and explain everything that's happening. Carly Beth and Sabrina are confused about this whole situation as expected. They try to leave, but with the horrors blocking the exit, they have no choice but to watch Mondo the Magical, a small bald magician. He does a few tricks to the delight of the kids, which includes pulling a hat out of a rabbit. Thankfully not in the way you're likely thinking. He then has a box brought onstage where he places his assistant Rhonda inside. Rhonda vanishes, but Sheena exits the box, now fully visible.

The kids try to get answers, but she's still a bit foggy. She remembers being sucked into the monster blood, then winding up in some part of HorrorLand she hadn't seen before, where she saw a carousel with flaming horses. She saw Britney and Molly, but couldn't reach them, eventually winding up on the stage suddenly. Carly Beth still doesn't get what's going on, but Sabrina drags her into joining the other kids on this mystery. They enter a storage room backstage where they find a name tag with BYRON scratched into it. They also find a drawing of the carousel, calling it the wheel of fire. The kids check out the park and try to find any sign of the attraction, but no luck.

Upon searching however, Carly Beth spots a mask store named "Make a Face". And wouldn't you know it? On the shop window is the mask. Her mask. The Haunted Ma-oh wait, on closer inspection it's a completely different green mask. Carly Beth and Sabrina enter the store anyway and enter the back room, where they find two masks with faces similar to Britney and Molly, which suddenly whisper that they're next. The kids exit the shop and spot some horrors eating black ice cream (which for some reason is the most shocking thing to the kids), mentioning that the guests they've invited are in for a surprise. Two are already gone and soon will befall the rest. Carly Beth and Sabrina head back to the Stagger Inn in hopes to find the others, but suddenly see what looks to be Billy, Sheena and Matt entering Werewolf Village. The two girls end up lost and attacked by caterpillars, not to mention scared of the many wolves in the forest. They find the exit, but it's gated. But as they panic, something suddenly grabs them, ending this part of the story.

CONCLUSION

Goosebumps sequels are often the worst things I have to review. Specifically direct sequels that continue with the same characters. And the main reason for that is because the characters within are written to be pretty dumb, usually having no problems reusing the cursed items that got them nearly killed before. I harp so much on the Monster Blood sequels because Evan and Andy never learn their lesson, and as such weaken the threat of monster blood itself. Say Cheese and Die - Again! is another example as we have the same kid stupidly using an evil item that caused so many horrible accidents the previous time, all so he could go to freakin' Yosemite! The rare exception was The Haunted Mask II, which while following similar patterns, did do so with a character from the previous book. One who had to deal with a totally different mask. So going into this sequel, I had my concerns that nothing would be learned from anybody. I'll say this Jovial Bob, you caught me off guard.

Carly Beth Caldwell is the best protagonist that Goosebumps ever offered. Her first outing told of a kid, already easily frightened, using a haunted mask to get revenge, only to become a monster far worse than she had ever imagined. So, having a sequel follow her, I feared the trappings of her using the mask again for some contrived reason. And what I got was the exact opposite. Carly Beth is still afraid of the mask. It gives her nightmares, she has PTSD. She keeps it in a box in the basement because she fears having it befall anyone else, but also continues to feel lured to it like a symbiotic relationship. One that she manages to control, but as the opening of the book suggests, that addiction is still there. That is actually pretty good character writing, from Stine of all people. I just wish it was in a somewhat more interesting book.

Not that the ghost story isn't interesting mind you, but I feel like it's something that could have been put in any story and worked, not something that particularly screams Haunted Mask. The scares are pretty minimal and there's a lot of dryness to this book, but I will say the ending was interesting, despite being brief. Carly Beth, fearing what Laura could do with the mask, yet still fearing for the kids lives, having no option but to put the mask back on herself. It's a great climax, but feels too brief to leave the impact it should. So in the end, which direct sequel do I prefer, this or Haunted Mask II? While I still rate Haunted Mask II higher for having more interesting things going on, I think I prefer this one for how it handles Carly Beth as a character. I just wish there was more oomph to it. The Scream of the Haunted Mask gets a B+.