The Stinal Countdown: Goosebumps SlappyWorld #6: The Ghost of Slappy

It's another foray into SlappyWorld and another encounter with its main character. And we still have (as of this post) three more Slappy books to go in this series. This one however does sound interesting at least. Given the dummy's shaky relationship with me, does this one stand a ghost of a chance? Let's find out as we cover The Ghost of Slappy.

This is a great cover. Yet another from Dorman's SlappyWorld run that I really think works. And it works so well because of the coloring, using blues and whites to give off that other worldly feel that's important given the title of the book. And while movie Slappy's not my favorite take on him, this cover does a good job in making him look freaky like a ghost, complete with the cold white eyes. One of my favorite covers and a great way to get you interested in this book.

Shep Mooney is a kid who's really, really paranoid. Particularly about the overnight in the woods he's taking with his sixth-grade class. That fear mostly having to do with his teacher Mr. Hanson who is a horror nut ready to bring on the scares. While that experience frightens Shep, he's more worried about the ghost in the basement named Annalee. His nine year old sister Patti doesn't believe his ghost stories, but given that Shep's afraid to go into the basement on his own, there's something down there that's got him afraid to go down there. Though points to Shep for following the advice of Goosebumps #2. 

Shep takes his silver bear charm, a gift from his grandfather that is meant to give good luck. And considering his grandfather died two weeks after giving it to Shep, maybe there's some truth to that. Shep heads down to the basement to get his stuff for the overnight, only to indeed be confronted by Annalee. The ghost reaches out to him, but Shep falls backwards with a thud, only to be met by his mother who of course doesn't see any sign of a ghost, openly mocking Shep over it like any Goosebumps parent would. 

With his stuff packed, Shep steps onto the bus, only to see the bus driver is a dummy! Oh, wait, it's Mr. Hanson playing his first prank which, of course, only scared Shep. Oh, and I'm sure by now you can guess who the dummy is. If that's not bad enough, Shep also has to deal with Trevor Pinkus, his former friend turned bully after Shep accidentally broke his leg. But at least for Shep he has his friend Carlos so he isn't totally ostracized. They pick up another girl named Courtney and try the dummy prank, but it doesn't work on her. Suddenly, the bus starts moving and the dummy's the one driving it. Mr. Hanson grabs the dummy and manages to stop the bus. Everyone thinks it's one of his pranks, but Mr. Hanson then says the six magic words to put the dummy back to sleep. 

After setting up camp, and after an awkward situation where Shep thinks a girl named Maryjane was smiling at him, Mr. Hanson finally tells the kids about the dummy. His name, of course, is Slappy. He found Slappy from his grandfather's attic and took him home. And after checking Slappy's Wikipedia page (yes, that gets mentioned again), he learns that the dummy is evil. The kids don't buy it, but he swears it's the truth. He tells Trevor to get Slappy since he's asleep, but the dummy is nowhere to be seen. This puts everyone in a panic since with Slappy around, who knows what'll happen? But they all go to sleep, while others guard the perimeter. That night, Shep hears footsteps, and worries it's Slappy. But it's just a rabbit. Just hope it doesn't offer Shep a job as part of a magic act.

The class heads home the next day, still spooked by the events of the previous night. Mr. Hanson apologizes for the unintentional childhood trauma and tells them that their parents may not believe them if they mention being scared of a living dummy. Well, at least he knows what parents we're dealing with in these books. Sure enough, Shep doesn't bother telling his parents. However, when Shep unpacks, he sees that Slappy is inside his duffel bag. Shep then realizes what happened. Slappy didn't come back to life. Trevor snuck him into Shep's bag then told everyone that the dummy disappeared. Gotta admit, kid really knows how to hold a grudge. 

Carlos eventually comes over and sees Slappy. Before they can think of what to do however, Patti shows up and wants to play with the dummy. She then reads the paper, but Slappy doesn't immediately come to life. After everyone leaves however, Slappy attacks Shep. Patti shows up, but just thinks Shep is wrestling with the dummy. As he leaves the house, Slappy screams that he's being kidnapped. He gets caught with the dummy by his parents and it's about that time. You know what time I mean. Yep, Slappy hurls insults at Shep's family, they think it's Shep doing it, Shep gets in trouble for it. Not as clever as the last Slappy book, but it's something. We're also like 70 pages deep into this 132 page story and Slappy doesn't seem very ethereal. 

Shep tells Patti that she woke Slappy up with the paper, but she still doesn't believe him. When he goes to get Slappy out of the garage, he sees the garage has been opened and no sign of the dummy. Shep follows the trail of tiny dummy footprints and sees that Slappy has gone to the nearby cemetery. Slappy tells Shep that he's going to be Slappy's new slave before the two start brawling, the dummy really laying in some hard wooden strikes. Shep looks for the paper, but no sign of it. Slappy then gets the upper wooden hand and knocks Shep into an open grave, allowing him to make his leave. But Shep grabs the dummy in time and sends him falling into the grave, cracking his wooden head in the process. And... he doesn't get up. Slappy's stone cold dead. Well, that was a quick book. Oh wait, still about 40 pages...

Shep goes to school the next day and tries to hit it off with the Maryjane girl from earlier, but he sees Slappy outside. He heads to the parking lot and sure enough, there's Slappy. But when Shep goes to grab him, his hands go through the dummy. We're finally at the title of the book at the latter quarter of it. Slappy tells Shep that now that he's a ghost, he'll haunt Shep forever. So, now Shep has two ghosts to deal with, in cause you forgot about Annalee. That night, Slappy scares Shep from outside his bedroom. When Shep grabs for the dummy, his hands again go through him, since I guess the kid hasn't realized that yet. This causes Shep to fall out the window and onto the roof. He manages to save himself from falling and gets back to his room with no sign of Slappy.

The next day, Shep heads to Carlos' birthday party. Wow, I bet nothing bad will happen there. It's an outdoor party with horseback riding and everything. Shep gets put on a horse named Lightning. Things go well until Slappy shows up and scares the horse. Now stuck to a panicked horse, Shep fears his doom. He also realizes he forgot to bring his lucky bear, so that makes things a bit worse for him. The horse runs into the party and destroys everything and, of course, Shep gets blamed. Tired of all this, Shep comes up with an idea. Maybe if he can put Slappy back together, the ghost will disappear. He returns to the open grave and takes Slappy back home. After he glues that head back together, sure enough, Slappy's back to life and now strangling Shep. 

Suddenly Annalee shows up. She tells Shep that she is about to do a very good deed. She takes the paper and shreds it up. You see, the good deed wasn't for Shep, it was for Slappy. Turns out that all that fear and telling her to go away bothered her, so she gave Slappy a happy ending. She disappears and Slappy resumes... killing Shep, I think? 

The Ghost of Slappy isn't too bad. I do respect that it at least sets up Slappy causing mayhem much earlier than usual. And having him be the problem of another character before Shep is a nice touch. And while we get a lot of the Slappy tropes, I think they were better handled here than usual. The book is also pretty violent in places as well, though normally par for the course with Slappy. And the twist is pretty good. Definitely a pretty dark twist. Not to the level of Son of Slappy, but given we don't even know what Shep's fate is, I'd say it's still super effective. 

I do wish we got to the ghost stuff a bit earlier though, not 90 pages deep, but what we get for the remaining 40-some still does an okay job. Though, let's be honest, most of this stuff doesn't feel any different if he wasn't a ghost. The only time it kind of works is the horse scene, but otherwise, it feels like an undercooked gimmick that Stine could have done more of. Though if Slappy can still exist as a spirit, what's stopped him from continuing to haunt his victims? Definite plot hole on that one. As for scares, minimal, but effective enough for Goosebumps. Shep's just okay as a protagonist, playing him up as an easy-to-scare kid works for the story. You don't have much of a reason to hate him and you do feel a bit bad for his fate at the end.

Overall, in terms of Slappy books, this one is another in-the-middle. Better than some, but not in the same realm as something like Slappy's Nightmare or Bride of the Living Dummy. But I'd still recommend it. It's a decent read, even if you are revisiting some old haunts.

STORY: GGG

SCARES: GG.5

TWIST: GGGG

ENJOYMENT: GGG

OVERALL: 3 Gs