The Stinal Countdown: Goosebumps HorrorLand #8: Say Cheese - And Die Screaming!

It's time for the last major sequel from this era of HorrorLand, and the noticeable pattern of these sequels is that they're all ones to books that have had sequels in the original 62. That batch leaves us with of course another sequel for Say Cheese and Die. Can this one right the wrongs of the last sequel, or will we get another picture perfect mess? Let's check out Say Cheese - And Die Screaming!

COVER STORY

Oh man. THI- Nah, I can't even clown on this one. This one didn't get me, since it came out when I was way older and less scared of wacky skeleton action. Regardless, I do kind of like it. There's a nice, sort of bizarre atmosphere to everything from the night background, the tall grass and just this sense of calm, before you get the skeleton kid with the camera. The design is fine, I even like the cracks on the skull, one big enough to let the moonlight glow through. My only gripes are that it doesn't make much sense since the skeleton stuff was more in the photos, not with the photographer. And the book does have a skeleton dream sequence, so that could have worked better. But the biggest question I posit this cover is why is the skeleton not wearing any pants?

STORY

Julie Martin is our protagonist. A shutterbug, she's been dreaming about being assigned the job of taking the big student body picture for the yearbook. However, she has to deal with David Blank, another photographer out to get the job. Since David's dad is the manager Camera World, a store at the mall, he gets access to the best stuff, while Julie just has her basic camera. Julie shows her idea for the photo to Mr. Webb, the teacher running the yearbook. She plans to take a picture of the entire Twin Forks Middle School student body from atop the diving board of the new swimming pool. David argues he should do so, so they come to the decision that the kid who gets the most pictures in the yearbook can do the diving board photo.

The next day, after taking care of her little brother Sammy, Julie and her best friend Reena go biking, only to be bothered by a pair of stock mean girls named Becka and Greta, the "sneer sisters" as Julie dubs them, despite them not being sisters. After arguing with them, the two girls realize they've driven further than planned, and end up at a yard sale. While Reena looks at the clothing, Julie spots a camera on a table. When she goes to grab it, the woman running the sale yells at her to put it down. But not even a minute after that confrontation, a girl who appears to be the woman's daughter hands Julie the camera free of charge. The kids head back to Julie's where she tests the camera out by taking a picture of Reena.

The photo shows Reena with a bad case of red eye. Suddenly, Reena screams in pain. Her eyes are starting to burn to the point that they are literally glowing red, but without any eye laser powers. Reena's parents taker her home while Julie is still freaked out, but still not thinking that it was the work of the camera. After dinner, she heads to the school where a basketball game is taking place. Karla Meyer is the school's star player, so Julie decides to take a picture of her. However, the picture only shows Karla's arm. Julie is still confused, until not too long into the game, Karla catches her arm on the rim of the basket, breaking it immediately. With this incident so soon after what happened to Reena, Julie starts to think that maybe this camera might be causing some real bad stuff to happen, but why?

As Karla is being taken into the ambulance, David notices Julie's new camera and snatches it from her, taking a picture of Julie. The picture begins to exit, but suddenly gets caught inside the mechanism. Julie begins to feel a sharp pain in her torso, as if she's being sawed in half. She manages to rip the photo out in time. Now 100% certain the camera is evil, Julie decides she wants to get rid of it. She also tries to patch things up with Reena over the whole "blinding you" thing, but Reena tells her to get lost. Julie takes the camera back to the house where she found it, but there's nobody there. They all moved out. Only thing left is a bit of furniture and a stuffed monkey. Julie leaves the camera there and heads home. However, when she gets back, she sees the monkey and the camera sitting in a chair in her room. Undeterred, Julie takes the camera again at night and throws it in the pond.

She returns home and goes to bed, which gives us our skeleton dream sequence for the book. She takes a picture from atop the diving board of the whole school, only for the picture to show them all as skeletons, while the camera is dripping blood for some reason. She wakes up the next morning, only to see the camera is on the kitchen table. Frustrated, she decides to seek some help on the matter, so she heads to Camera World to talk with David's father. Mr. Blank studies the camera and brings up its origins. This particular camera was a prop that was used for a 1950s horror movie called Say Cheese - And Die Screaming! However, whenever the camera was used on set, horrible things continued to befall production, until the film was eventually cancelled. So, first off, this might not be the same evil camera apparently as it might not have any ties with Spidey. How it ended up at the garage sale is also a curiosity, but we aren't going to get many answers on that either. Julie, thinking this is finally her chance to get rid of it, leaves the camera with Mr. Blank.

But shocker of shockers, the next day at school she sees David with the camera, just about to take a photo of Becka and Greta. David also reveals that he was the one who's been following Julie around and bringing the camera back. Seriously, DOES ANYODY IN THESE BOOKS KNOW WHAT A LOCK IS? Despite Julie trying to stop him, he takes a picture of Becka and Greta, which comes out with them having scaly lizard skin, like in the previous Say Cheese book. It immediately befalls them, to which they don't seem to blame the camera, as much as they blame Julie for witchcraft. Okay, sure. Even though David took the picture, Julie's miss Teen Witch?

Julie tries to tell her mother, but you know, Goosebumps parents. She returns home and sees her little brother Sammy fighting with a bee. In the scuffle, Sammy grabs the camera and takes a picture of himself, as well as a picture of Julie. Sammy's picture comes out with his body, but the bee's head covering his face. In Julie's picture, it shows her falling off the diving board at school to her death. Well, that took a turn. Suddenly, Sammy's head begins to grow yellow fuzz and he can only speak in buzzes. Sammy is taken to the hospital while Julie learns at school the next day that she won the yearbook contest, so she'll be taking the diving board picture. That's when Julie comes up with an idea. If she can stop herself from going up the diving board and falling, maybe she can negate not only her fate, but everything that's befallen the other victims.

The day of the photo arrives as the pool is now filled up and the students are inside, ready for their picture. Julie, realizing if she goes up, she's done for, tells David that he can take the picture instead. David goes up and takes some pictures. But as he heads for the ladder, he slips and falls, managing to hold on to the diving board as he hangs on for dear life. Julie, realizing the camera may have just won regardless, heads up to save him. In the midst of pulling David up however, she slips and begins to fall, only for David to save her in time. The two manage to make it off the diving board to safety. Not only that, but all the pictures she took are different, no longer showing the fates that befell the victims. Julie then learns that Sammy, Becka and Greta are all healed up suddenly. Julie did it. She defeated the camera.

TWIST ENDING

That night, Julie tries to come up with a plan to destroy the camera once and for all. She gets to thinking about what would happen if the camera took a picture of itself. So Julie sets things up just right so that the camera would take a picture of itself in the mirror. The picture gets taken, but after looking at the picture, Julie sees that there are now two evil cameras sitting on her desk.

ENTER HORRORLAND

Recap: The group of kids that have been invited to HorrorLand, save for Britney Crosby and Molly Molloy, begin to work together to find answers about not just how to escape, but information on Panic Park, where the two girls may have wound up. As the kids begin to learn that mirrors may have teleportation properties in the park, Michael Munroe searches for one, only to find the control room in the park. The kids sneak in and use the internet to learn about the history of the two parks, along with a blog that was run by two other kids named Lizzy and Luke. The kids think the only exit to the park is in a section called Good-Bye Land, so Michael jumps the hedge, only to be accosted by a pair of horrors. Another Horror saves Michael and gives him a mirror, which Michael uses to hop into Panic Park.

Julie is the next kid to be invited to HorrorLand, so she brings her non-evil camera with her to take pictures. She sees the Zoltar-like booth named Madame Doom and goes to take a picture, but every time she looks in the viewfinder, she sees Slappy. She's then interrupted as she sees a human face gorilla emerging from the sewers (they were freed by the kids in the last book). The creature almost attacks her, before six horrors subdue the beast. They then turn their attention to Julie, snatching away her camera. Julie then meets the other kids who were guests to the park (well, the ones not in Panic Park) and they fill her in on the situation, though of course she scoffs like the rest did. The Monster Police chase the kids off, but a confused Julie lags behind, making it to the Tunnel of Screams, where all she can hear are screams. Her screams. But it's no big deal since the horrors record your screams beforehand for special scares like this. That's... neat.

Julie then ends up being confronted by Byron, who tries to tell her to leave HorrorLand and get to Panic Park. He mentions that if "The Keeper" finds her or the others, they'll be trapped forever. He hands her a mirror and runs off, still being chased by the Monster Police. Julie examines it, then just throws it away. The other kids arrive and are excited about the mirror, but become crushed when Julie mentions just throwing it away in a garbage can that conveniently gets thrown into a truck. Billy suggests the one thing nobody thought of, just walk out the front gate. The kids do so, only to be confronted by a horror. However, this one allows them to leave, stamping their hands for re-entry. The kids arrive at the parking lot, but nobody is around, and there's still no signal on their phones. Suddenly, their hands begin to itch as giant snake-like tendrils begin to grow out of the hand tattoos. The tendrils wrap around the kids, trapping them.

CONCLUSION

Say Cheese - And Die Screaming! is actually pretty good, at least in the case of the Say Cheese books. It's a fresh take on the story of the camera, which feels like a much needed breath of fresh air. If this was the third book to feature Greg being stupid with the camera, it would have been much worse. But to do it with a protagonist who is smart enough to realize the camera is evil within two pictures makes Julie a far better character to follow. Unfortunately, that means the rest of the pictures have to be happy accidents caused by others or accidental flashes. Granted, this does give off some interesting new powers to the camera like if the picture gets caught, it causes the victim to feel like they're being torn in twain. It adds more menace to a device that already could screw with fate however it wishes. Be it breaking someone's arm or causing a kid to have a bee head. And yes, the bee head is weird, but the last book did give Greg reptile skin, which this book also recycles. As for the pacing, it was fine, moving at just the right pace for only eighty-some pages.

I also like the new origin for the camera as it adds a lot of ambiguity to the device instead of saying it was the cause of black magic by evil scientists. There could still be a chance it was the same camera from the previous books. Somehow Spidey lost the camera in the fifties and it ended up as a prop for the movie. After whatever befell Greg and his class, the camera somehow vanished from Pitts Landing and ended up in Julie's town at some random yard sale. Or, it could be a completely different evil camera, one that somehow was also infused with dark magic and caused suffering to whoever it took a picture of. Either way, it's the fresh take that was needed.

I also like the resolution of trying to cheat the camera out of its predictions, which also feels like something that the other books never got around to trying. Though why these books have strayed further away from the idea of tearing the photos to negate the curses is beyond me. And some of the imagery in the book is definitely creepy, including the skeleton dream, which for not being a last second addition this time, actually feels more thought out. It's also a far darker dream as we get Julie actually say that she's killed her entire school. At least that doesn't get laughed off as a "stupid dream" later on.  If I had any issues, I'd say the twist is kind of stupid, what with there being two evil cameras, but it's still better than a third book in this series being "take a picture and wait for the results". In the end, it's probably the strongest of the Say Cheese And Die books structurally, even if I have a softer spot for the first. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but I feel it's a sturdier roll. Say Cheese - And Die Screaming! gets an A-.