It's time to wrap up the Un-Bumped Six, the standalone books released after Stine left Scholastic and Goosebumps came to an end. Not really sure where this one's bound to go, but hopefully I picked a strong enough finale. It's time to go beyond normal blogging with The Creatures from Beyond Beyond.
COVER STORY
STORY
So, the first line in Stine's introduction is him telling us that this book is strange, which given a lot of Stine's work has my interest piqued and my concerns raised. Evil dolls and alien lizards are on the menu and, well, that's Stine to a T. He then talks about the creation of Slappy (thankfully no, he's not in this book) and brags about his B-movie poster collection and his love of monster movies. So, we have an amped Stine for this one. Let's hope that bodes well.
Randi Freeman and her twin brother Tyler have arrived at their vacation home with their family. Randi notices that her room is filled with creepy old dolls. She's not fond of dolls, but realizes she can't do much about that. Turns out that Randi's family take these summer vacations every year to different houses in different states. And this year it's a place called Blairingville. Or Boringville as Randi proclaims it. Well, it's not near Pitts Landing since Pitts Landing is the Pitts. Randi shows her mother and their other younger brother Alex the room and hopes she can get out of sleeping there, but no dice.
Randi doesn't play with dolls, she makes that clear a lot. She then notices a strange boy doll with a green and white shirt, jeans and black and white sneakers. She thinks it's creepy, and also thinks it's moving. She drops the doll and suddenly begins to notice that it's growing. Tyler enters the room to see this incredible growing doll who then grabs Randi by the wrist. The doll then speaks wondering who Randi is and what he'll do to her. Suddenly, their mother shows up and the doll returns to normal size.
The next day, Randi and Tyler try to get more answers as to what the hell happened the other night. They then hear a scratching noise coming from a closet. One that has an ominous "Off-Limits" sign on it, so of course it's gotta be opened. The kids are going to leave with Alex, but then head back upstairs only to find that the creature in the closet was a cat. They also find some strange pink oval thing with blue spots and studs. Like it could be an egg, but we're still too early to figure that part out. And there's also like some strange diamond-shaped remote and a frisbee that has the same colors of the doll. In fact, everything is strange and metallic and very alien. Tyler plays with the frisbee and, like the doll, that too grows in size.
That night, they grab the doll and roll it up in a quilt as it grows. The boy doll wakes up and isn't fond of being trapped. He introduces himself as Brad Mills. He says that he's a normal kid, but he's been turned into a doll by aliens that will come back and do the same to the twins. You see, these aliens shrink kids by putting a strange patch on their necks. This is to ensure they have a bunch of kids for trading to other aliens. Why? So they can eat them of course. Essentially human children are akin to live lobsters you can pick at the restaurant.
Brad tells Randi and Tyler that he was brainwashed by the aliens and if he tried to escape he would activate a beacon to signal the aliens to return to get him. And sure enough, there's a flying saucer next door. They free Brad from the quilt and the three head into the off limits closet with Alex who is barely awake. The door won't stay shut, so they need a better place to hide. Too bad for them they can already hear the aliens downstairs. They slide down a tree and make it to the ground where they see the aliens. Pony-sized lizard creatures with giant fangs and, Stine describes them as space lizards—WITH LEGS! I... lots of lizards have legs Bob. And if you said Space Snakes with legs, those would also kind of be space lizards. I know, I know. Blowing my issues load early.
The kids run out to the street, the notice the aliens running away. Brad tells them that it's because they're not in disguise so they'll be noticed. He then suggests the mall will work since there will be lots of people there. They make it into the arcade where R.L. Stine brings up the Addams Family Pinball Machine. Okay Bob, you're winning me over again. Brad then tells the kids that the aliens make replica human bodies and switch their thoughts into them. And just at that moment, Tyler, Randi and Alex see their parents. Randi wants to tell them, but Tyler changes the subject, which makes her confused. The family return home and notice the front door open. Mr. Freeman enters the house and it's kind of quiet for a while. They go inside and notice no aliens, but a smelly mess.
Tyler then tells Randi that he thinks they should film the aliens and use it for their vacation movie. Randi is against this, but since Brad seems into the idea, they're going through with it. They ask about Brad's parents to which he learns he's been stuck as a doll for two years and his family is definitely long gone. Randi finds it odd that Brad seems fine with not contacting his family, thinking maybe it means he's not to be trusted. Randi thinks to tell her mother about it, but Tyler tells their mother a different story again, screwing with her plans again. She then notices that Brad is using a pendant to hypnotize their parents. When t hey go outside, they notice what looks like a footprint of the aliens. It's there that Randi sees Brad's face. His real face. His alien lizard with legs face.
So, yeah. Brad's been lying this whole time. And now he has psychic powers to read Randi's mind. He reveals that the aliens came to take him away, but he didn't want to leave Earth. So now Brad is controlling her mind, making her do whatever he wants. So, lizard people. Mind control. Stine's on some Infowars crap again. Lordy. Brad's body is starting to fail him. It's only supposed to last one year. But at the end of the mission, he wound up "shrinked" and ended up as the prototypical Elf on a Shelf for two years. He needs another body that can keep up the human life. He plans to create a new body using the tools in the closet and since he likes Tyler, he'll use Randi instead.
Tyler shows up, and it gives Randi a chance to try to grab the shrinking patch, but Brad stops him in time. He then uses his mind control to make her suffer so she can't speak about it either. So she can't warn Tyler or her family, especially since they're under Brad's spell. He gets the tools from the closet and goes into the empty house next door to start construction of his new form. He sets up his tools, including a strange flower-like seat that he sets Randi on. The flower seems to wrap around her momentarily before he frees her and starts his list of needed items. Also a clump of hair falls off his scalp as the body is decaying faster and faster.
Brad gets all of the family's genetic code, then needs a bunch of random items like lots of ground beef, spring water and vitamins. They get the items as Brad continues to decay. He then has Randi back on the weird chair where she's there for a while. In a tank is the early stages of the new body that's far from ready. We then get a scene where Brad forces Randi to eat a lot of lasagna and this book's definitely reaching weird fetish levels and I'm not keen on that, Bob. The next day, the body in the tank is nearly fully developed. Just lacking skin, but it's definitely alive. But not fully ready, even with Brad's body getting worse and worse. But Randi may have come up with an idea to get rid of him.
Randi gets some control of her body and checks the lab again. The body is now even closer to creation and is a weird DNA mixture of Randi and Tyler. Randi tears at the cords connected to the tank and tries to break it. Liquid pours out of it and it seems that the creature inside is dead. but of course it's not and it escapes, ready to attack Randi. It grabs her, but doesn't hurt her, so much as touch her face. Turns out that the creature is mindless, but as harmless as a baby. She tries to teach the monster to use the pendant to hopefully hypnotize Brad. Unfortunately Brad shows up, not very happy. Though, truth be told, he did drop the ball on keeping his mind slave in check.
Brad tries to attack her and uses the pendant in hopes to kill her, all while his body continues to decay. Suddenly, the monster attacks Brad and removes the pendant, causing Brad's body to eventually decay even faster. He says that all he wanted was to live on Earth before he turns to Ash.
TWIST ENDING
The book ends with Randi deciding that she likes her new monster and wants to keep it. That she hopes that her parents will allow her to adopt the monster to be the triplet of the family. Real Goonies ending here, huh?
CONCLUSION
Well, Stine was telling the truth. It's definitely a strange book. Unfortunately it's not exactly a good one either. That's not to say there's not some cool ideas within it. But you can tell the exact point where Stine lost all interest in any of the early stuff and went full mind control fetish. Granted, never to anything extreme, but it's definitely a case where it gets uncomfortable to read, which also works given this is a horror story. And the last act and the stuff with the monster is some fun stuff. I like the twist that the monster's actually really nice and loyal to Randi.
Speaking of Randi, she's a fine protagonist. Not much to her aside from her doll hatred. Tyler and Alex just exist, especially as we get to the second half of the book. Brad's a decent villain, though kind of dumb. He lets Randi off the mind control leash long enough for her to screw him over. Not to mention given his body's falling apart, he may as well have just taken over Randi's body and waited for the monster to be made. Simple as that. But, we instead get some really strong moments of gore with just how much his body turns to goo. Visuals that do come close to Welcome to Dead House in my eyes, so a definite plus.
I really want to like this book, but just feel that too many ideas were in this one and a lot of them just get dropped overtime once Stine goes full bore on the body swap stuff. Reminds me of The Barking Ghost and that is never a compliment. I think if Stine kept this one on course and didn't fully veer off the road, we could have had one of the better books, but in the end feels like it's beyond saving. The Creatures From Beyond Beyond gets a B-.
FINAL THOUGHTS: THE UN-BUMPED SIX
The Un-Bumped six is an interesting time for Stine's work. A case of him coming out the gate after leaving Scholastic and seeing what he still has to offer after eight years of monthly kids horror works. And the offerings are mixed to say the least. Nothing super awful, but some that definitely feel like they just exist. We have one that's just a book he wrote years prior, another that was a scrapped book, three that likely were a scrapped compilation and another that definitely feels the most roughshod and haphazard that it does feel like that late era Stine pumping out something. In the end, I'd say only one book ended up disappointing me while I found one of my favorites from Stine and four Superfluous Clays. Not bad. Though it would have been interesting to have seen a Stine of this era continue with Goosebumps Gold, I'm glad we got what we got. Can't fully complain I guess.
RANKING:
#1: THE ADVENTURES OF SHRINKMAN
#2: ZOMBIE TOWN
#3: MY ALIEN PARENTS
#4: THREE FACES OF ME
#5: THE 13th WARNING
#6: THE CREATURES FROM BEYOND BEYOND
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