Another Tales book, another Curly cover. This time we're in the Halloween spirit as Curly and Drool are in costume, complete with a cute little skeleton parrot on Pirate Curly's shoulder. Nice little touch with the torn bag spilling the candy to the floor. Other than that, we got Jacobus tropes up the wazoo. Converse sneakers front and center, warping angle from the doorway and those pretty, pretty Jacobus tree leaves. The tales series continues the trend on sillier covers since book #2 and this one is definitely no exception. The extra item for this collection was a Halloween make-up kit.
It's Halloween and Charlie and Frank are spending their evening in costume and trying to mix some holiday brew. Specifically the kind that comes from a booklet that they think says Monster Brews to Bring Out the Best in You on Halloween. The choice du jour: Pumpkin Juice Supreme. Ingredients include pumpkin flesh, milk, molasses, butter garlic and chicken broth, followed by two cups of pumpkin guts. The kids mix the ingredients up in a blender then begin to down the brew. Turns out it's not as bad as they thought. They go trick-or-treating and with every piece of candy they get, they eat it voraciously. Almost as if they can't control their urges. Right down to the point they skip the candy and start raiding the fridge of a neighbor's house until he's chased off.
Charlie begins to notice he's growing strange black hairs all over. And that's when he realizes that oh crap, the booklet said the brew wouldn't bright out the BEST in them, it would bring out the BEAST in them. The kids head back to Charlie's house where they have become essentially a pair of Alfs, as in that they're hairy beasts that are hungry for cat. But instead they manage to control themselves and look for a cure. One that requires milk, sugar, eggs, cinnamon nutmeg and the skin of the same pumpkin they used previously. Slight problem in this is that Charlie's mom used the rest of the pumpkin to make a pie. Which conveniently has all the pieces needed for the remedy. The kids eat the pumpkin pie and return to normal.
TWIST ENDING: But just as Frank and Charlie start to relax, Charlie's mother asks about that pumpkin juice they made. She had some and now she's really hungry.
CONCLUSION: So we're right off the bat with one of Stine's favorite tropes, the monster transformation story. This take is fine, being paced just right so that it never drags nor goes by too quick. Stine would take the idea of kids turning into monsters on Halloween through edibles and expand it in the Series 2000 book, Full Moon Fever, so that will be the ultimate judge on if this plot could fill a book. As for this, it was a decent way to start us off. B-
Jeannie's Halloween haul has been kind of pathetic. None of the really good hauls. But one thing that catches her eye is a rub on tattoo of a black snake. She decides to put it on, but her efforts appear to be in vain as the tattoo won't leave the paper. She sees a 3D message on the paper that says it must be applied with water scorched by the sun, which means she heats up a water bottle outside and then uses the water on the tattoo. Sure enough, this does the trick. She heads to her friend Maggie's house to show her, and then we get this line from Stine that I will now type unabridged and hope the FBI don't come after me:
Jeannie throws the long snake thing into the woods and drives off on her bike. She makes it to Maggie's who has a similar tattoo of a green centipede, but doesn't know the trick. Jeannie, still paranoid, tells her that she'll have to do it herself. That night, Jeannie tries to sleep, but more black snakes begin to enter her bed and attack her. She uses her bed sheet and gives them the old heave ho. The next day, she talks to Maggie about this whole mess, to which Maggie mentions that maybe the solution to getting the tattoo off is on the paper. Sure enough, the instructions say it can only be removed by water touched by the light of a full moon, which is conveniently that night. Jeannie waits until that night for the full moon, but it's obscured by clouds. Just then, a bunch of snakes show up and try to attack her. The moon shows up and after some drama getting the cap off the water bottle, she manages to do so and removes the tattoo, effectively ending the snake dilemma.
TWIST ENDING: The next day, Jeannie sees Maggie and explains what happens, just as a kid named Zach shows up and slaps them with two tattoos. A tarantula for Maggie and a rat for Jeannie. Too bad the next full moon is in a month.
CONCLUSION: Aside from the inappropriate creep factor, this one was all right. It's a fresher concept than what we usually get from these short stories. We never get an explanation about where the tattoos come from, but in this case it doesn't detract from the story. Could this have been a longer book, probably not. As an episode? Maybe. Just let's subtract that middle part. A-.
We open with protagonist Max trapped in his closet thanks to his bully of an older brother Eugene. He gets saved by his mom, who thinks Eugene's pranks are hilarious, because Goosebumps parents. He goes out trick-or-treating, only for Eugene to take his candy. Annoyed, he heads home, only to see a strange house he hasn't visited. He goes to the door, but gets accosted by an old woman who grabs his arm and offers him a treat of a rock. She says to not throw the rock away as it's magic. Sure enough when Max gets home, he throws the rock outside, saying he wishes he was an only child..
The next day he heads to school, but the school is missing. In fact, he heads to his friend Alex's place, but his mother screams at him. He goes to other places, but everyone just recoils in horror. Eventually to the point that he's being chased by the adults in town.
TWIST ENDING: He makes it to his neighbor Mrs. Greenway's house and hides from the mob, only swerve! She throws him back out to the mob where they lock him in a cage. He then sees a plaque that says ENDANGERED SPECIES. Turns out he got his wish to be an only child, as in the only child left on earth.
CONCLUSION: A truncated Be Careful What You Wish For that actually works pretty well. If you take away the logistics of a world without children. I guess some cataclysmic event destroyed sperm and humanity is pretty much done after this. Or adults give birth to full grown adults, now that's a freaky image. Regardless, I liked this one. Episode or book, I don't know if it would have been able to stretch that well, but for a short story, this succeeded. A.
Tom and his ten year old brother Jon have been left home alone with seemingly nothing to eat. As they argue over the last of the Oreos, they hear the doorbell. They open it to see a strange old woman that they've never met. She introduces herself as their aunt Dahlia from their father's side. She gets settled in and offers them prune cookies, with the emphasis on making sure they eat the prune. They do, and very rapidly the two kids start to turn old. Before they can understand what's going on, two old ladies, Lillian and Martha, show up and are impressed at how quickly the two kids are aging. It doesn't take long for the two kids to realize what's going on. Aunt Dahlia is turning the two kids old so she can pimp them out to her old friends. This is... this is just a whole book of wrong so far. The kids manage to use wrinkle cream to reverse the effects. After another encounter with Dahlia grab a pitcher of prune juice and throw it in Dahlia's face, causing her to turn to dust. The parents show up, neither knowing who Aunt Dahlia was actually related to because Goosebumps parents under a spell.
TWIST ENDING: The next day at school, Tom is back to normal. He gets to sit next to Becca, a girl he's interested in. However, he recoils in horror when she tells him that her aunt Susan showed up and gave her some prune cookies. Okay, this just got a whole lot more HELL NO.
CONCLUSION: So, I did cover the episode before, hence why this was a lot more of a rushed recap. It mostly feels the same, though Aunt Dahlia is more established to be a witch with no ties to Tom and Jon in the book than in the episode. The solution in the episode is baby food and not wrinkle cream. The twist is also different with the episode having Jon turn into a baby from eating more baby food, while admittedly the book twist of another old witch also turning a kid old to pimp her out to horny old folks gives me goosebumps, so I guess that means it's effective. A-.
Scott, Darleen and Melanie are three kids who live on Maple Street. Have been almost their entire lives. So it comes to a shock to them that they see a random scarecrow placed in the yard of the Swofford residence. Especially considering Mr. Swofford's kinda dead. They marvel at the scarecrow, particularly the clothing on it, seeing as it looks to be a lot of expensive clothing that they're all interested in. A scarf for Melanie, a red cap for Scott and gloves for Darleen. But they head to school instead of continuing this planned game of scarecrow stripping. Later, Scott and Darleen see Melanie with the scarecrow's scarf around her neck, saying that it's a victimless crime to steal from a scarecrow. That night, Darleen heads out to steal the gloves, but thinks differently about it and leaves.
The next day before school, Scott takes the hat and puts it on his head. Melanie isn't there with them as they head to school. Darleen still thinks about taking the gloves all day. When school ends, she meets up with Scott who has a hard time remembering anything, saying his head hurts. They head to Melanie's, whose mom tells them that she's lost her voice. Darleen is getting paranoid, thinking it might be some sort of curse from the scarecrow. She goes to get the gloves again, but leaves. The next morning, Scott is now sick, apparently due to some sort of head injury. Darleen still decides to just go to the scarecrow and takes the gloves. She puts them on, just as something attacks her.
TWIST ENDING: It was Scott and Melanie who were faking the whole illnesses as a prank. It was them who put the clothes on the scarecrow all along. As they all laugh, they look to notice the scarecrow now has a smile on his face.
CONCLUSION: It's a cute little parable about not stealing, and as a short story it flowed pretty well. Hell, compared to our last outing with scarecrows, I think it fared much better. Full book? No way. Episode? I could see that working. B-.
Dave Warren and his friend Ben are working on their upcoming science fair project when a delivery comes for Dave. It's an ant farm from the company AWESOME ANTS INC. Dave's big project is the study of ants this year. Turns out the farm is massive, so it has to be placed in his backyard. It comes with the ants and the feeding gel they need with an explicit warning to never feed the ants anything else. Getting them wet and feeding them after midnight is okay though. After a day or so of nothing happening, Ben puts a dead caterpillar into the farm and the ants ferociously tear it apart. As the next days pass, Dave notices the ants are starting to get a little bigger, but continues to study them. Cut to a few days later as he heads to school. However, there aren't any kids around, or his teacher Mr. Lantz. There is however, a giant red ant that starts to chase after Dave. He runs home, but eventually gets caught by the ant. The ant drags him back to his backyard where all the other ants are there. They force him to eat a gel vitamin and he passes out.
TWIST ENDING:
Dave wakes up to see Ben, Mr. Lantz and the other students who tell him that the ants grew gigantic and overpowered them, forcing them into the ant farm. Mr. Lantz tells Dave and the others to hurry up and get busy making tunnels.
CONCLUSION: This is a neat story. Super rushed, but I like the concept. Though it does bring to question where the ants came from and how they have this growing power. I'd hazard a guess that maybe AWESOME ANTS INC. is run by giant ants who send these farms to stupid kids who inadvertently help their colonies grow and thrive. It's something. There is an episode, which changes some stuff around, but twist aside, sticks to the formula. A Full book version would have been fine here as well. B.
Sarah's having a rotten Halloween, mainly because she's been forced to go with her parents and her five year old sister Katie to Cuddle Bear Land, an amusement park for little kids with plenty of bear mascots all around, constantly telling the patrons to partake in the park's honey crackers. Sarah's not fond of this, but is allowed to go check the place out on her own so long as she returns to the Hibernation Rest Center. She talks to some of the bears, who still suggest she eat some of the crackers. After going on the roller coaster, she loses track of time and starts heading to the rest center, only to get lost. Sarah eventually finds a place called THE CAVE, which is an employee lounge.
After asking where to find the center, Sarah gets greeted by a Cuddle Bear named Kira, who instead of telling Sarah where to go, she keeps offering more honey crackers. Sarah eats some, then looks in a mirror, where she sees furry ears on the top of her head. Fearing she's being turned into a bear, she runs out of the cave in a panic as Kira tries to chase after her.
TWIST ENDING: Sarah runs into her family who notice the furry ears on Sarah's head. It's then that Sarah notices that it's just a furry cap. The book ends with Sarah at home and Katie eating a bag of honey crackers.
CONCLUSION: So, this whole story was just about a kid at a park, meeting some people in costumes, having a weird hallucination and that's it? I guess Homer was right. Man, you better not feed the bears. Could it be a book or ep? Get outta here! D
Mike Mason has a knack for making scary art. This Halloween, he's made a goblin drawing out of construction paper to display outside. Hoping it'll scare kids, he gives the sleepy looking goblin intense monster eyes and tells it to wake up. Mike and his friend Karen go trick or treating until he sees that the goblin has come to life and runs home. Then he wakes up. It was all a nightmare. He goes to school, but suddenly the goblin shows up again and chases him home. Then he wakes up. He was sleeping in class. He goes trick or treating seemingly for real this time until the goblin once again chases him home. Only this time, the goblin confronts him, saying that it was Mike who woke him up and told him to be really scary.
TWIST ENDING: Mike runs up to his bed to sleep, hoping he can wake up somehow. But he sees himself in bed. The goblin tells Mike that he can no longer wake up because he's trapped forever in the goblin's dream.
CONCLUSION: A weird Groundhog Day-lite that works well enough, but the twist ending could have been handled a bit better. No need for a book or ep though. C.
We open up the story with Suzanne and her best friend Liz being chased by a bat. They manage to dodge it as it disappears. Suddenly a strange girl they never met named Dorrie Morrow appears. She says that she's an expert in bats, mainly due to her parents being bat scientists, so the interest rubbed off. They befriend Dorrie, who is super nice to the two, but never stops talking about bats. Her room is filled with pictures of bats and bat skeletons. This annoys Liz and Suzanne, who decide that they should prank her out of it by sleeping over and having a vampire show up. That being Mike, Liz's older brother. The sleepover occurs and Mike scares the hell out of Dorrie, sending her running off. Dorrie forgives them the next night and the three go trick-or-treating. They stop at Dorrie's, as she says she's going to give some candy to her brother. While she's in the house however, a bat shows up and scares Liz and Suzanne. They grab the bat and get Dorrie who leads the two girls to her family's basement.
TWIST ENDING: The two girls then see two humanoid bats the size of adult humans. They start to run until they see Dorrie, who is now turning into a bat. She wasn't kidding about her family being BAT scientists.
CONCLUSION: It was okay. Hits a lot of the basic tropes of these sort of stories, but it flows well enough to work as a short story. For the penultimate story in this edition, it was fine. B-.
Laura is a nut about radios, particularly trying to make a transmitter so she can contact being from another planet. It's why she's at a yard sale with her older sister Tammy, though Tammy is looking for stuff for her science project. That's when the old man running the sale shows them a strange looking suit, as if it came from outer space. He claims that wearing it will help contact aliens. The kids take it and Laura decides to wear it for Halloween. That night she uses her radio transmitter and gets responses, saying that the aliens are coming to get her and take her away. It scares Laura out of wearing the costume for Halloween, so she chooses to go as a radio again, because the point hasn't been made hard enough that she like Radios. As she goes out, she gets grabbed by the space suit. Only it's quickly revealed that it was Tammy in the suit, playing a prank on her.
TWIST ENDING: However, suddenly, Tammy gets teleported inside the suit and an alien takes her place. It tells Laura that anyone who wears the suit gets teleported. It also tells Laura that she should play more rock and/or roll for her broadcasts.
CONCLUSION:
B-.
This edition is a weird one. There are some solid stories in the first half with the standout being The Wish, but there were way too many mediocre stories. Ones that just feel like Jovial Bob on autopilot. Granted, this book didn't have an ending where "and all the kids were monsters all along", though Bats About Bats comes close to that. I do like that most of the stories do center around Halloween, but a lot of them feel like the holiday is just window dressing for convenience. The Wish could work without Halloween, or Bats About Bats, it's just that they have to be Halloween to sell this book's claim on the back about TEN HALLOWEEN SCARES. In the end, while there was only one bad story, the mediocre still outweighed the good, meaning this is on par with the original Tales as the weakest of the bunch so far. Still More Tales To Give You Goosebumps gets a B-.
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