Dummies. Mummies. Neither have been my favorite things in Goosebumps. Granted, both have had their moments, mainly in Series 2000, but otherwise it's never super incredible. So, what happens when these two meet? Will it be a Reese's cup of quality or a terrible taste? Let's see with The Dummy Meets The Mummy!
Another really good cover from Brandon Dorman. Like I've said, most of SlappyWorld has seemed to bring back the quality of work we were seeing pre-Most Wanted. I love the design of Arragotus, our mummy for the book, specifically in the look of the mummy wrap. Though he looks more cartoony and cutesy than some of Dorman's other mummies. And then there's Slappy who gives off a frightened expression, making it seem that even he doesn't know what to do about this guy. I also love the greens used in the background and the cloudy, dusty haze. It's so eye catching. Definitely one of the best.
Dr. Klopfer and his assistant Bella Wortham, along with video crew to document the discovery, enter the pyramid and find the sarcophagus of Arragotus. However, when he opens it up, no mummy. But the coffin is lined with the words "ABASEEGO MODARO LAMADOROS CREBEN". Suddenly, a mummy bursts from a different sarcophagus. It grabs Dr. Klopfer and straight up rips the mustache off his face, then starts clawing what's left of his face. Well this went from one to twelve thousand in a heartbeat. Bella manages to read the words again, putting the mummy back to sleep. Cut to a few weeks later and, you know, despite the facial reconstructive surgery, Dr. Klopfer still decides to take the mummy away from the pyramid, so long as it's not near him.
We cut to some time later and to a kid named Aaron Riggles who is coming home a bit late to the annoyance of his parents and his sister Kristina. He was a bit late because his school was visited by a puppeteer named Mandrake the Great. Mandrake decided to give Aaron one of his puppets. Or to be more specific, a ventriloquist dummy. Gotta admit, prologue chapters aside, we're getting to Slappy super fast here. And yes, of course it's Slappy.
Slappy hurls insults, but in this case it's not a situation where the kid gets blamed, they all just think he's got voice clips installed or something. Okay, clever take on that. 26 pages in and not much to complain about yet. But Aaron still does get in trouble when Slappy continues his rude banter. And then he pukes green liquid on the dinner table... okay I retract my previous statement. The family tell Aaron to take Slappy back to Mandrake, but when Aaron calls Mandrake's phone number, he's told it's a wrong number. Not wanting to deal with this much longer, Mr. Riggles puts Slappy in his case and promises they won't have to deal with the dummy anymore.
Cut to our next part, and another character in Cathy O'Connor. The actual protagonist of this book. Her father is Mr. O'Connor, owner of the local museum. And Cathy is going to have her class visit the museum for an overnight. I've often wondered, is this a regular thing? I've never had to do overnights in places like museums or other establishments of that ilk. It just seems like a thing that's really common, so I'm guessing it's more a plot device than something that's the norm? Eh, back to the book. Cathy has a nine year old sister named Shannon and a cousin named Logan in her class. Mr. O'Connor is particularly excited because his museum just got a mummy. Take a guess which one? That's right, Arragotus!
As they prepare for the overnight, Mr. O'Connor shows the kids his preserved insect collection that he's going to use for a scavenger hunt. I mean, it's all well and good, but let's not forget what happened to Gabe. Suddenly they hear a knock at the backdoor of the museum and see a case dumped on the step. It's a dummy. So we have our dummy and our mummy in the same spot at least. They decide to display him later while they work on the decorations. Cathy and Shannon see Slappy talking, but instead of the madness earlier, this time it was just a prank by Logan. But Slappy says some more stuff which freaks them out. They see some papers in Slappy's chest which mention that he's an evil dummy created by an evil wizard and there are some odd words as well. After Slappy continues to taunt the kids, Cathy reads the words aloud. It causes Slappy to go back to sleep. They try to tell Mr. O'Connor, but he doesn't believe them because... well Goosebumps parent, duh, but also they put him to sleep before he saw any of the commotion, so it's not his fault?
Cut to the night of the... err... overnight. Slappy is still subdued in a glass case for now. We got other issues to deal with. Namely the fact that Shannon said the words on the sarcophagus and now Arragotus is alive and not very happy. He grabs Mr. O'Connor and throws him into the sarcophagus, knocking him out. Cathy gets knocked around too, but before the mummy can choke out her dad, she grabs a shield and rams into the mummy, saving Mr. O'Connor in time. The mummy then grabs Cathy, constantly saying her name. She manages to grab a pyramid model and jab it into his chest. She manages to read the words and put the mummy back to sleep. Panicked, everyone thinks it's best to cancel the overnight. Unfortunately, the class has already arrived.
Deciding that it's too late to cancel, they keep the overnight going. Mr. O'Connor tells us the history of the museum. How it once belonged to the Tyler family. The family went bankrupt and left town before the bankers could catch them. However, they pulled a Home Alone, leaving their youngest son William behind by mistake. But when the family return, no sign of William. Mr. O'Connor tells the kids that he thinks William still haunts the museum to this very day. Then Logan shows up to scare them since this was all a part of the festivities. They check out the mummy and Cathy panics when another girl named Candy jokes about Arragotus coming to life. At least Slappy won't come to life, huh?
The kids go on their scavenger hunt when a loud noise is heard. Cathy and Logan think it's Arragotus, but no. Just a knocked over statue of... Stephen King? What? Mr. O'Connor then shows the kids Slappy, despite, you know, the warning that the dummy's alive and given the mummy incident, do we want to tempt fate? But as he gets Slappy, one of the kids freaks out. That kid being Aaron Riggles, who knows from experience that the dummy is evil, given it was his dad that dropped Slappy off to the museum. But, again, despite everything that's happened so far, Mr. O'Connor has now decided that things are just hunky dory. He then sees a paper with some words that he reads out loud. Not the Slappy spell, but Arragotus.
Cathy tries to calm Aaron down, thinking things will be fine. They aren't fine as she sees Arragotus moving once again. She tries to warn the kids, but they all think it's just Mr. O'Connor in disguise. The mummy attacks the kids. Mr. O'Connor manages to get everyone to go to higher ground while he, Cathy, Arron and the others deal with the mummy. That's when Aaron gets an idea. Slappy has powers, so why not wake him up and maybe he'll stop the mummy? Boy, for a kid in a state of panic over Slappy minutes ago, Aaron sure got a wicked case of the stupids.
Slappy is brought to life and, shocker, doesn't feel like helping anyone. Arragotus then grabs Slappy, hoisting him in the air and throwing him like a marionette javelin. And then Slappy shoots his eye lasers at Arrago... wait, let me say that again. He shot... his EYE LASERS? Slappy has freaking heat vision?
WHAT.
THE.
HELL.
STINE???
So, uh... yeah. that is a thing that happened. Slappy has an optic blast attack. Turns out it's pretty poor because it doesn't affect Arragotus at all. And then Slappy brings to life a three-legged dinosaur skeleton. WHERE WAS ALL THIS IN THE LAST TEN SLAPPY BOOKS? I mean, at least we got the telekinesis stuff in the first SlappyWorld book, but this whole book just went off the deep end. Oh, the conclusion is going to be an interesting section. So, the dinosaur skeleton fails as well, so Slappy then awakens all of the bugs from their amber to attack Arragotus. I feel like I'm on crazy pills right now. That also doesn't work. Then Shannon decides that maybe tickling the mummy will do it. And since that was a thing she was talking about the whole book, that's what defeats the mighty Arragotus.
Everyone thinks it's safe, but they still have to deal with Slappy. Cathy decides to put him back to sleep and reads the magic words... of the mummy again by mistake. Kind of a limp twist after all of that.
I honestly have no clue what the hell I just read, but let's try to at least break it down. Let's start with the most sane first then try to dive into that climax. I'll give this book a lot of credit right off the bat. It feels super fresh in comparison to almost any other Dummy book. This book is almost devoid of Slappy tropes. Even the one they do use, the rude banter, is smartly used. I also like how we set things up, starting with how both of our antagonists ended up in the museum. From the shockingly gruesome Arragotus scene to Slappy's introduction. It feels like right off the bat Stine uses every page he can to build to the story.
And even in the third part there is hardly any filler. Everything plays its part to the bigger story. It's also a really good use of Slappy, who is in full on heckler mode, with some of his lines actually being decent. Cathy is also a decent protagonist, but doesn't stand out. But given the book is focused more on the chaos between the two monsters, she was never meant to be more than a character leading us into the insanity. Ditto with Aaron and the others.
So, let's talk about that climax. I find it interesting that in these later books, Stine has actually put in the effort to build on Slappy's abilities more than in previous stories. Not only the super vomit, he has telekinesis, a strange burning nosebleed, he can become a ghost if his body is destroyed and now he has laser eyes. Slappy has laser eyes and I don't know what to think of that. I don't even know if Stine knew what to think of that. Now, granted, this is SlappyWorld, a series hosted by Slappy. Most likely he would embellish his abilities. These are his narrations after all.
With this series though, I can tell that even Stine knew that sticking so close to the formula was going to get old quick, and that Slappy as is isn't that interesting, so we give him super powers. But since this is Slappy and he almost always sucks and is easy to defeat, none of those powers actually matter in the end. Honestly, as odd as the tickle solution is, I don't mind it. It's the twist I do mind though because I just think it felt like Stine had no idea how to conclude this story after putting all of that effort into the battle itself.
So, what we have is a weird one. One that's actually scary in places, is shockingly violent and gruesome, has some amazing moments and feels like one that Stine had fun with. It would be silly not to consider this a win for the Slappy books. This series started with such a flat beginning and the last three Slappy books have been these unexpected surprises. I can only hope we have more of that momentum to come.
STORY: GGGG.5
SCARES: GGGG
TWIST: GG
ENJOYMENT: GGGGG
OVERALL: 4.5 Gs
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.