The Stinal Countdown: The Nightmare Room #04: Liar Liar

Fourth time into the Nightmare Room. It's so far been an interesting journey into one of Stine's more unique book series. But we're entering parallel universes and talking morality tales. Could be good or a mess, but given Nightmare Room has so far bucked the trend of pure predictability, we'll see. No Jim Carrey here, but it's time for Liar Liar.

Definitely the least intense cover so far, but still pretty decent regardless. I like the concept, this sort of mirror image thing. The focus being the illusion of the boy/boys in front, giving off a three-faced look that also works as an optical illusion as both sides could be the dominant side. You'll focus so much on that that you won't notice the two identical houses and moons in the background. Decent stuff. Not "sticks with you" level, but for what the book is offering, it does the trick.

Ross Arthur tells us that a kid once told him that everyone has a twin. And sure enough, Ross has seen his own twin. An exact double. Four Krusties. But before we get to that we push backwards. We learn that Ross is the son of the head exec at the movie studio Mango Pictures. We also learn that Ross has gray eyes that are almost blue. Also Ross is a pathological liar. Constantly making either hackneyed claims or weak excuses on everything. He mentions to his friend Cindy Matson that he forgot to go to Urban Outfitters with her because his tennis instructor got injured. No, wait, it's the dog he doesn't own got sick. He also neglects to tell Cindy that despite saying he'll go with her to a pool party he also offered to go out with a girl named Sharma Gregory. Archie-level awkwardness to ensue. He also says that he doesn't have an essay for his teacher Miss Douglas because his computer exploded. Yeah, that's the ticket! When it comes to lies, this kid's are rich and white.

Ross heads to his acting class with his dad, who is pretty much the epitome of the out of touch white Hollywood studio head who thinks he's hip. He asks Ross if he mailed a specific envelope to which Ross lies and says he did because this kid really can't stop. They stop at a rival studio and while alone in the office of a producer that Mr. Arthur is trying to sign over to his studio, Ross plays with one of the producer's Oscars before dropping it and breaking it. He lies again and gets away with it. At home, he antagonizes his younger brother Jake even again lying, claiming not to have taken any of Jake's "Japanese Comic Books". Don't worry, Stine eventually learns what Manga is, but this is just charmingly goofy. Mr. Arthur learns about the broken Oscar and isn't too happy about losing a potential producer. Oh, and his son being a pathological liar too I guess. Jake suggests cutting off Ross' hands because that's what people in other countries do (okay calm down, Bob), but Mr. Arthur suggests something much worse, grounding a rich and white kid.

So now Ross is grounded, meaning he can't even go to the big pool party being hosted by a kid named Max that sounds like a helluva shindig. Instead he's playing a "Nintendo Wrestling Game" with Jake. Oh, you might think this is a good one like Wrestlemania 2000 or WCW/NWO Revenge, but I bet it's like WWF Attitude or something. But even he gets tired of it and just decides to sneak out of the house. We meet Max who is this big, muscular kid who isn't into sports. Cindy and Sharma show up and Ross is about to BS them both when they throw him into the pool and almost drown him. But as he gets away, Ross notices someone under the water. Someone that looks exactly like him, seemingly shouting "GO AWAY".  He tries to get others to notice, but nobody believes him. He heads home and despite being in his swim trunks and soaked, he still tries to lie to his mother about where he was because he doesn't have an off switch. Ross tries to ask if he has a twin, but his mom jokes since one Ross is enough.

That night, Ross hears a commotion downstairs. He sees the Ross he saw from the pool now talking with his mother and not being believed. But when he goes downstairs, he sees nobody. At his tennis practice, he again sees his doppleganger again telling him to go away. But nobody else sees the double yet again. He talks with Sharma who doesn't believe in any evil twin but that perhaps it's Ross' ghost. He also notices the where he was standing suddenly looking like it's on fire. He returns home to which his mother mentions his karate lessons, which Ross doesn't take along with the brussels sprouts that he doesn't like. He goes to his room to find a Gi in his closet. When he goes to put on new clothes he feels his head ache like an electric shock going off. So clearly whatever's happening is messing him up.

Ross' mother sends him out to get fresh milk, to which he again sees the other Ross not far away. But it's just a stranger. A stranger that then grows strange snake-like limbs and whose flesh falls off his face revealing clumps or red meat and purple veins, all while screaming in agony. Okay. That happened. He arrives at the store where a kid is buying a Zigfruit bar but goes instead for a Four Musketeers bar, which even Ross notes are things that do not exist. He gets the milk to the counter when it suddenly melts and bubbles a sour smell. The clerk panics and kicks Ross out as other kids freak out at the sight of him. He returns home and is forced to do his Karate with Mr. Lawrence despite him not remembering ever doing so. He runs off again and gets caught by the other Ross who tells him to go away and stop trying to steal his life.

The next day the other Ross tells him that Ross' life is in danger and he has to leave before it's too late. See, Ross has become such a liar that his lies have somehow manifested into truths and it's broken the fabric of reality as we know it. As such, Ross ended up in an alternate universe where the other Ross is the Ross of that reality and all of the lying is doing more damage. So, somehow Max's pool acted like a portal that took Ross into the other dimension. Look, Stine wrote about a beach house as a time warp so it's the least out there idea. Also, to keep this less confusing the Ross we're following will be called Ross Prime. Now the other Ross is trying to get rid of Ross Prime before he dies. Ross is an intruder, meaning that not being from this dimension, everything he touches he corrupts and destroys. Now knowing he has these corrosive powers, Ross tries to touch the other Ross, but it doesn't do anything since it seems to come and go, not just whenever Ross Prime pleases. Be a pretty short book if that were the case, huh?

As for the pains he's been feeling, those are signs that Ross Prime isn't of this world and they will continue to intensify before he is finally erased. Ross Prime runs out of the house before being bitten by a Dalmatian that's normally nice to him. Then the dog's flesh starts to peel off and it becomes a lifeless husk. No matter what dimension, Stine's gotta kill an animal. Ross runs off and sees some cops arresting an "intruder". A blonde tattooed man. Ross then sees the man start to turn see-through and ultimately fade from existence. So now Ross realizes that this is going to be his fate sooner or later. He rushes to Max's pool, hoping the portal is still there, but the pool has been drained. 

Ross Prime returns to the other Ross who says that since Ross Prime is nothing but a liar who always lies because he's just a full on liar liar pants on fire, and that's what caused the rift in reality, then maybe if Ross tells the truth from now on it'll change things. Maybe even be what snaps him back to his correct reality. But that also doesn't seem to work. His mom won't believe there's two Rosses, and when he tells the story to Cindy, she also doesn't believe him. Nobody believes him. And not really in a "Because so and so Parents" thing either given they have reason to believe he's full of crap. And like, this isn't even his world so even another dimension is sick of his crap. Got to really suck to be treated like a pariah in two dimensions. 

Ross Prime thinks maybe the loophole is that the real Ross believes him, so that'll work, but since he too is a liar, that doesn't work. Ross Prime begins to feel super weak and begins to see his body fade. The other Ross tells him that there's a portal in the room above the garage and tries to shove Ross Prime inside, but Ross fights back. The two Rosses brawl to their pool and fall inside, and things seem to snap back to how they were before. Ross is then saved by Cindy and the others as he's suddenly back at the pool party like nothing had happened. 

Ross returns home to see Jake with an exposed skull! No, wait. It's just a mask. Ross is just happy that everything's back to normal. Until he sees two more Jakes and learns he's in another alternate universe with triplet brothers. Maybe he should've let himself be erased.

I swear I thought somehow we were going to have a robot story of some kind. Like that everything Ross sees after the pool incident was because he was malfunctioning. So props to Stine, I got something I wasn't fully expecting, a morality tale. And one of the better attempts at it. Ultimately this is a story about Ross' constant lies catching up to him. How he has to learn that lies just make things worse, in this case somehow causing a cosmic rift of some sort? I ultimately wish the lying stuff mattered to said cosmic rift more than it did. It's mentioned as the trigger that caused it, but it also just feels like it's there to be a reason for the shift and nothing else. You could base the concept on anything and still have the idea of Ross having these corrosion powers and having a time limit to how long he has to live.

There's a lot on the table that ultimately feels rushed and messy. Particularly when involving Ross' corrosion ability that comes and goes only when the book sees fit to have it matter. On the plus side, some of the most disturbing stuff I've read in any of these kids horror books. Be it the melting face or the dog that literally turns to bones. It's such a cool visual that I wish we got more examples of it. I also just wish the intruder idea was examined more and how this dimension is aware of it beyond just its Ross. It's what makes the arrest scene interesting since Ross Prime isn't an isolated case. But that's usually Stine's flaw. Great concepts but not enough to really make things work.

Ross is intentionally frustrating. He's a pathological liar meaning that all he'll do throughout the story is lie and get himself in deeper trouble. And while not the deepest reformation, he does try to redeem himself by claiming to never lie again. But, like I said before, I wish the book tied the lying stuff better so that we can get strong examples of him sticking to that. It's like if you did the Christmas Carol and the spirits had less to do with Scrooge's life and just were more random yet Scrooge still changes without the journey to get there. There's just a real feeling of missing threads that I wish Stine put more effort in. I wouldn't call it hitting a wall, but driving off the road and shakily making it to the destination.

In the end, I'm mixed on Liar Liar. There's a great idea within it, but a lack of things to make all of the connections work better. Maybe have real examples of the lies twisting the fabric of reality and less of just going full alternate reality on it and you'd probably have a better morality tale. But I wouldn't say it's the worst book ever as there are some decent moments. So a very middle-ground book skewing low middle. Nightmare Room has so far delivered on great concepts with lacking execution. Hope this isn't where we're going as we delve deeper. Liar Liar gets a C. 

IT WAS ACCEPTABLE IN THE 2000'S: Xena: Warrior Princess, Urban Outfitters, Tom Cruise comparisons, Rich white men trying to act "urban", "Jake the Snake", Planet Hollywood, Nintendo (presumably 64), Wrestling video games, DVDs, DVD Players