Time to hang our hat in kid friendly Shadyside yet again. And we have magic on tap for this one. Which I am concerned about. Books about magic and hocus pocus have almost always backfired and given us books of middling quality. But, given that Ghosts has mostly been a net positive for me, maybe this'll work. Or maybe I'd rather just disappear. It's House of a Thousand Screams.
Suddenly, the house starts shaking as if a sudden earthquake hit. The kids duck as a lamp flies at them and shatters on the door. As Jill and Freddy get their bearings, their mother comes in to scold them about roughhousing. They try to explain things, but she doesn't believe it because Ghosts of Fear Street parents. Jill cleans up the broken lamp but notices that when it hit her door, it left no markings. She also notices footprints in a pile of talcum powder on her dresser. Tiny footprints. Either the house is haunted, or you have a rodent infestation. One or the other is plausible. And the latter is what Jill chalks it up as. Just a mouse. A mouse with humanoid feet, but a mouse no doubt.
The house has an attic which even Jill doesn't want to mess with. I mean the basement could possibly have a plant dad, but lord knows what's in the attic. The kids instead watch a VHS tape of Uncle Solly's act and he certainly was powerful. Making objects float, being able to produce a pig out of thin air and going through an invisible loop. They then notice a box floating on the table which even Uncle Solly looks distraught over. A strange wooden box with weird faces etched on it. Out from the box pops a creepy looking blue monster, which the kids think must be a puppet. The puppet begins to move as rings fly out of it. Blue creature with rings? What is it, a hedgehog or something?
The creature juggles the rings and bells for a bit. As the kids watch, Jill then notices that once again items in the house are floating, including some books that rain atop of them. Which is time once again for mom to scold them for making a mess and ruining all the books in the den. This is going to be the majority of the book, isn't it? Freddy is convinced this must be a bad omen, but Jill isn't willing to believe in anything just yet. Haunted house, sure. But a house of screams, in the quadruple digits of screams? Get outta here with that bunk. They're just on a fault line is all. A fault like that makes books float on their own, but stranger things have happened.
Jill heads to Shadyside Middle School for her first day and befriends Breanna and Bobby Taylor (or Bruce Codswallop the Third because this kid is like one of Homer's cousins who plays a millionaire at parties. At least he likes to). They show her around school and mention how some of the teachers are weird and creepy. At science, Jill seems to get that confirmation when Mrs. McCord eats a frog. Only she doesn't actually as it's all a joke to scare the new kids. Though wouldn't put it past me that Mrs. McCord at least licks a few toads. Jill finds it funny, but is determined to pull a prank back on them.
Jill and Freddy head home. Still convinced there's hauntings, Freddy took a book from the library entitled "Bumps in the Night: Real Stories of Hauntings in America". Jill still thinks this is all silly, but Freddy thinks this may be the work of a poltergeist. Well I hope for their sake they don't have any large freaky clown dolls nearby. The book says that there's really no way to just get rid of a poltergeist. Either you move out or you go insane. Freddy suggests they should tell their parents, but even Jill realizes what kind of book they're in and how that will go.
But they think maybe they should make a cherry pie for their mother given the grief they've already put her through. But as they prepare, something grabs Jill's arm from inside a flour container, while Freddy dodges dishes and kitchen utensils. It's another mess that their mom shows up to see. So the kids are once again not believed and now are both convinced that they need to find a way to get rid of the poltergeist. They say that they're tough because they're Texans then argue semantics over if Alaska is really bigger than Texas and if it should even count. Also they mention the Dallas Cowboys, Davy Crockett and the Alamo in case you need more proof.
They head up to the attic and look around, finding a lot of Solly's old magic props, including the puppet box with the latch tied up in hopes to keep it locked. As they're about to open it, something shows up behind them. A dressmaker's dummy which starts moving on its own and attacking Jill. In the struggle, Jill drops the box, causing it to open. When the dummy's subdued they're now even more convinced that something really wants them gone. When they check the box, all that's inside is a pair of glasses seemingly in the same prescription as Freddy's. As they argue over it, they see something scurrying around them.
Jill, wearing the glasses, sees what looks to be a six inch tall man covered in brown hair with bow legs and sharp claws. Suddenly the box then floats up and covers over Freddy, trapping him inside while the dummy and a bunch of books again start to attack Jill. She frees Freddy and the two flee the attic. They now know they have a poltergeist and that only the glasses can see it. They think that should totally be enough proof to convince their parents to move. It doesn't work, obviously and their parents just mock them for it because my god do the parents in these books just suck eggs.
Jill heads to her room, only to be attacked by a giant yellow blob. Well that escalated. And it turns out that it was just her bedspread that must have been brought to life for a brief moment. She sleeps in Freddy's room, but when she wakes up, she sees the glasses are in bed with her. The two then hear noises downstairs and start strapping up for war. A baseball bat and a tennis racket. Surely those can defeat a ghostly being, right? They spot the creature, which now constantly says "peeps" and try to attack it, only to soon discover that they aren't dealing with just one poltergeist but dozens. In all shapes and colors. As they peep, suddenly a louder growling noise comes from the walls, causing the poltergeists to scatter. So, yeah, they're not the biggest thing to worry about.
They run back to Freddy's room and lock the door. But the door soon opens on its own to reveal... nothing. Uh-huh. But it's enough for Freddy and Jill to now need to keep watch during the night just in case. That doesn't work either as Jill falls asleep on her shift. So instead the new plan is to stay in close proximity with their parents in case another haunting happens. If they see it, they must believ-their parents head out for the night so that plan is foiled. The kids watch the video of Uncle Solly again and with the glasses notice the poltergeists in the video. They're more tame and cute than the ones they've seen IRL.
It's enough for Jill to finally clue in on everything. Uncle Solly's magic wasn't his own doing, but the poltergeists. And when he told them to "take care of the little people", he meant taking care of the poltergeists. That one day this would be their responsibility. They then see the creatures all around them, seemingly making sad peeping noises. Clearly they loved Uncle Solly too. And when Jill and her family moved in, they thought the family were intruders that they needed to get out. As Freddy gets his magician outfit, Jill manages to get on their good side by giving them some junk food, which truly is the case of and solution to all of life's problems. Freddy does some magic tricks that don't work which also gets the creatures to start to like him as well. It's all a nice cute moment. Pity then that they all spot an angry blue monster coming towards them.
It's the creature they thought was a puppet before, but it's certainly no puppet. Not even a Muppet. Jill throws an Oreo at it and the creature eats it, only to puke it out immediately. The creature goes to attack Freddy but Jill stops it, only to end up with an injured leg in the process. Freddy goes full Gambit and throws playing cards at the creature, which he can't see, but can smell because it's a very stinky blue monster. The little creatures try to subdue the monster, only for one of them to be eaten whole by it. Jill tells Freddy to get away while he still can, and eventually manages to convince him to leave. This turns out to be a bad idea as the creature shatters the glasses. And then starts licking Jill which I'm almost certain someone found their first fetish with this book.
Jill manages to grab some flour and hit the monster with it, now revealing it without the need of the glasses. She then manages to smack it with a roller, seemingly knocking it out, but it wakes up pretty quick and continues its attack. Suddenly, the little creatures show up with the box. Freddy is also back, now with a baseball bat and a Dallas Cowboys football helmet. He smashes the bat over the creature which gives enough time for the little creatures to lock it back up in the box. Freddy and Jill are relieved and say they should bury it in cement whenever a new house is built nearby. Everyone celebrates and the little creatures even clean up the house for them just as Jill and Freddy's parents return home.
At school the next day, Mrs. McCord tries to write on the chalk board, but every time she grabs some chalk, it breaks immediately. Jill says that this was her doing for her comeback prank, then thinks about what prank she has planned for Bobby while one of the creatures sits on her shoulder.
Jill and Freddy are fine enough siblings. Jill can be a bit of a brash bully to Freddy in certain places, but they have a strong rapport with each other that makes you want to see them overcome the creature. It's amazing how Ghosts handles sibling dynamics far better than Goosebumps proper. The rest of the cast feel just there, especially the school characters as they really exist to justify the twist. Very Superfluous Clay. Also, we have annoying parents who don't believe their kid, which is fine in doses, but it happens so much in the book that it does drag it down. Part of me thought the parents were going to be revealed as behind this, but it would be tricky to answer why they would be trying to get their own kids in trouble. Far easier to write oneself into a corner that way.
Scares are okay in this, though ramp up once we get to the attacking creature. Though I will say I also just think of Nightmare in 3D with this creature that's invisible unless you either have the MacGuffin to be able to see it or just have the power to have always seen it. Also, they felt like they were just there to be something that gets destroyed in the end. Aside from that and the parents and maybe a little bit of feet dragging in the middle, there's not much I can really be mad about.
House of a Thousand Screams tries to be multiple things and actually succeeds in making them work for the most part. Save for some predictability in the plot and some wheel spinning, it's still a rather fun book with a cute happy ending. The most positive mid-tier book I've read so far for Ghosts of Fear Street. Although we really didn't get a thousand screams in the house. But I guess House of a Thousand Peeps weren't going to sell. Or they'd get in trouble with the marshmallow company, who knows? House of a Thousand Screams gets a B.
It Was Acceptable in the 90s: Friends, Joey Tribbiani, Matt LeBlanc crushes, VCRs, Video Tapes, Gremlins Parodies, Overt Texas Pride.
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