The Stinal Countdown: Goosebumps SlappyWorld #3: I Am Slappy's Evil Twin

Time for another visit to our favorite nutty knothead as we enter the third SlappyWorld book. And I'm seeing double here, four Slappys! Okay, just two. And I thought one was bad enough. It takes two to make a thing go right, so will that be the case here? Let's find out with I Am Slappy's Evil Twin.

Compared to our last cover, this one is definitely more memorable and visually striking. I like the design of Snappy, our extra Slappy, and how they give him a more deranged look. I like that he doesn't look exactly like Slappy either with the gap teeth and scuffed up look. I also like how Slappy has no idea what's going on given his quizzical expression. Good work, a definite case of being back on track.

We open this book (after the Slappy preamble) with... an origin story? The year is 1920 as ventriloquist/dummy designer Franz Mahar is busy designing a dummy. We learn a bit about Mahar. He was a famous ventriloquist who had fame and fortune. That is until he started to share his act with a magician named Kanduu. Kanduu was evil and often used his magic for terrible things, case in point bringing one of Mahar's dummies to life. That dummy being... MR. WOOD? Wait, Stine actually freaking remembered Mr. Wood? Two pages in and I'm actually impressed with a Goosebumps book, that's an academy record. Let's see how long until that dies.

Mahar ran away and moved into a small workshop in the US where he continued his Geppetto ways, building more dummies to be his friends. As he finishes the dummy he's working on, Mahar then brings it to life, because given being hassled by Mr. Wood, this is a great idea. Suddenly the villagers arrive, accusing Mahar for the bad luck that has befallen their small farm village. They blame it on Mahar's dummies and destroy his latest work. They threaten his life if he continues his work, but he tells them they pretty much destroyed his life's work, so don't worry. But as they leave, he takes out his real living dummy (dummies with green eyes are living while black-eyed dummies are just normal) and promises that the villagers will never hurt it.

Flash forward almost a century later to modern times. Luke Harrison is helping his bossy younger sister Kelly and their friend, the more mechanically minded Jamal, build a drone. We get an incident where Luke crashes into a propane tank and somewhere Hank Hill had a cold sweat. But thankfully there's no explosion to end this book super early. We learn that Luke and Kelly's dad is David Harrison, a producer of horror movies for his own studio, Horror House Films. Suddenly the tension is cut when two identical dummies show up and appear to be talking by themselves. Mr. Harrison shows up to tell the kids that these dummies are going to be used in his new film "I Married a Dummy", while they can also be extras in the film. 

As they take the dummies to the attic, Luke feels one of the dummies grip his arm extra tight. But nobody believes him, especially his dad. Mr. Harrison says that the dummies are valuable and after filming, he'll sell them. One to an owner in Pasadena (unclear if it's an abominable snowman or not) and the other to an owner from Beijing, China. Luke is a bit weirded out about separating them, but Mr. Harrison says that dummies aren't brothers. They place the dummies in their cases and make their way back downstairs when Luke, Kelly and Jamal hear a tapping noise. It's as if one of the dummies is trying to escape. Since Mr. Harrison is a Goosebumps parent, he won't believe the dummies are moving on their own, so the kids use a phone to record the footage. 

But suddenly the two dummies begin to move on their own. They introduce themselves as Slappy (duh) and his twin brother, the seemingly less cruel Snappy. In fact, Snappy constantly scolds Slappy whenever he gets too harsh. However, neither are too thrilled at the idea of being separated and they plan to take it out on Mr. Harrison. Slappy then takes the phone and destroys it. In the scuffle, a china statue of Edgar Allen Poe gets destroyed. Mr. Harrison comes back up to the attic only to see the dummies lifeless and the broken Poe. So, even with two dummies, it looks like the same formula. 40+ pages in and that optimism I had earlier is starting to dissipate. 

Mr. Harrison is already annoyed and tells the kids that if they do anything with the dummies again he'll kick them off his film. That night, Luke has a nightmare where he thinks he's seeing double, four dummies! He wakes up to see a shadow in his room. After tackling the shadow, he sees that it's Kelly. The kids go up to the attic and get attacked by the dummies. Slappy forces Snappy to help him trap Luke in a glass case while they make Kelly film for them. Slappy is still determined not to be split with Snappy, even when Luke and Kelly tell them that it's clear that Slappy doesn't even like Snappy. They eventually get Mr. Harrison, but once again he falls victim to Goosebumps parent syndrome. Thinking this was all some sort of game to make him believe them. Just a silly little "your son is literally about to suffocate in a glass case" game. 

The next day, while Mr. Harrison is talking with producer Simon Benedict over the movie, the kids see Slappy and Snappy walking around outside. But instead of fighting with the kids again, Slappy gives them a proposition. Because, you know, Slappy has proven himself to be trustworthy so far. But these are stupid kids, so they accept. Luke wears a microphone and is instructed by Slappy to say something to Mr. Harrison. Before I tell you what that is, take a wild guess. Given the history of every single dummy book I've covered, what do you think is about to happen? If you guessed Luke is going to be forced to hurl insults at his father and Mr. Benedict, you're correct! Credit to this book, it's at least set up differently. This angers Mr. Harrison enough to finally take the dummies to the studio. And with Luke, Kelly and Jamal (remember him?) now barred from going, this means Slappy can enact his plan.

Luke, Kelly and Jamal try to dissect how messed up it is that Mr. Harrison won't believe them. It's almost like some author has one and only one character trait for parent characters or something. But their woes become oh noes when Jamal notices the propane tank for their drone is missing. They quickly realize what Slappy's plan is. He's going to blow up the studio. They head to the studio and get barred from entering, but it turns out the driver just lets them in anyway. Convenient! After almost being caught by guards, they make it to the trailer with the dummies. They try to get an answer from Slappy or Snappy, but neither dummy will move. After Derek the puppeteer arrives and shoos the kids out, they can see Slappy mouth the word "Boom". And then he got in position and said "Adam Cole, Bay Bay!" Hey, I'm a wrestling fan that also reviews books, you get what you paid for, which is nothing.

After a fake out where there's a loud boom on set, the kids find Mr. Harrison, who is pretty peeved about them being on set and still focused on the dummies. They tell him about the tank, only to learn that he took the tank. He was concerned that it was too close to the house, so he moved it to the back of the garage. They're sent home, but upon making it back, they see the dummies followed them. Slappy attacks Luke while Snappy is upset about all the violence. Snappy pulls Slappy off Luke. Enraged, Slappy begins to brawl with Snappy until they run off to the back of the garage, where the propane tank is. Slappy throws Snappy into the tank which causes it to explode! Well this book took a turn for the insane.

So, yeah, big explosion. The garage is in flames and the kids are pretty shaken. The explosion causes Slappy to straight up "Team Rocket's blasting off again" as he's just blown far away. Suddenly, Mr. Harrison shows up, and not in a good mood. The kids try to explain, but he tells them that he saw everything. He followed them home and saw the dummies attack each other and blow up the garage. 

He grabs Snappy and is about to throw him into the flames when the kids stop him, telling him that Snappy was actually good and tried to help them. They can tell because Slappy has evil green eyes and Snappy has black. After Mr. Harrison leaves, Snappy thanks them for saving him. Oh, and he was evil all along. Turns out that, somehow, he's the more evil of the two and he and Slappy did this to screw with them. So technically the title did not mislead.

This one was odd, but probably goes in the win column as far as Slappy books go. It suffers from all the same tropes we've seen in these books before. Though granted, there are a couple decent deviations like the way they do the insults bit. And I like that this is the second Slappy book in a row I've covered where in the end, the parent does believe their children, having seen the fracas go down. Another plus is that the opening having a backstory for the creator of the evil dummies is something I've kind of wanted for a while. It's also nice to see Mr. Wood mentioned after all these years. And the ending, twist aside, might be one of the crazier endings to any of these books, and that's saying a lot given the ground I've covered. 

But there are still problems. The aforementioned tropes, very bland protagonists, the twist you could see coming from miles away. The book builds on Snappy being the good one for that obvious twist, but doesn't really do much until the end with him other than just having him wag his little wooden finger at Slappy. In the end, this one probably ranks in the higher middle area as one of the better Slappy books. It again doesn't reinvent the wheel with this character, but does enough to at least let this book feel unique and different from the formula. So, light recommend it is. It's not incredible, but it's easy to snap into.

STORY: GG.5

SCARES: GG

TWIST: G

ENJOYMENT: GGG

OVERALL: 2.5 Gs