I like this cover. Not the most visibly striking, but still works. The lighting, the hazy sky, the feeling of a cold autumn night. And then there's the trio in skeleton costumes holding bags, in case you needed reminding that this indeed takes place on Halloween night. Probably would have creeped me out, but not to a skeleton picnic degree. While I like the first book's cover more, this one is still solid.
So we're taken to one full year later. We start with Brenda and her friend Angela Bowen fighting over a boy before it becomes a full on brawl with Angela ready to gut her right there and then. It it weren't obvious, this isn't an actual murder attempt, but rather a movie that Brenda, Angela and Traci Warner are filming. So we're moving from murder plot in a written essay to murder plot in a filmed movie, Stine? Brenda's brother Randy ruined the scene for it being too real and wants in, but then thinks it'll be too dumb for him given Brenda and the girls wrote it. Ouch. The story is called Night of the Jack-O'-Lantern, which of course makes me think of Goosebumps. Let's hope they don't cast a black person in it to strut like a "rapper on MTV". I didn't forget, Bob!
As for other things, Dina's been sent to a mental hospital and Halley is still living with Brenda and her family. Turns out that BOTH of her parents suck so much that the Morgans just got permanent custody. Also the two aren't getting along again because it's a Stine sequel. Where character development gets shot in the back of the head. Though again, IN FAIRNESS, Brenda did want to murder her for real, you can't blame Halley for eventually reverting back to not getting along with her. Halley and Ted are now an item with Brenda breaking up with Ted, which yeah, that's for the best since Ted sucks. And she's moved on to a boy named Jake which I'm sure in no way will commit infidelity. Possibly with Halley. What is this, an R.L. Stine book?
Brenda goes to the kitchen and sees Dina holding a knife! "Someone must have dropped it" says the girl who tried to murder Brenda. Yes, Dina is back from her stay at the institution and is just returning to school like nothing's happened. Dina calls Brenda her best friend, which even Brenda thinks is BS given she was almost killed by her a year prior. Dina says that she doesn't even remember what went down that night and that she really is sorry. But when Brenda rejects that apology, Dina then runs off with Traci saying that Brenda acted really cold there and maybe it wasn't fair to Dina. Oh god, we're doing this, huh? We're turning this around to being Brenda's fault? I mean in the whole landscape of the two books it technically is, but again, she's within reason to not want Dina in her life.
After that happens, the girls wonder what to do on Halloween. A party is out of the question after last year and even Stine's not that redundant right? R-right? Also, there's a maniac on the loose, robbing people and beating them up, so maybe Halloween will be cancelled. But that would also mean a shorter book and lord knows we don't need that. Then Jake shows up with his eye hanging out and his neck slit. It's all a joke obviously, with Jake having had his makeup done by Halley. Turns out that Jake was Traci's boyfriend at one point, so there's a later motive if we need it. Also, even Brenda realizes that ol' boyfriend stealin' Halley might be at it again.
The girls then head to the mall where Angela bought CDs and Brenda is worried about breaking them. "You can't break CDs, they'll be around forever." Stine, you... you CAN still break CDs. Also, this is like 1994 but disk rot also exists. They head to the gap where Angela pines over likely not being able to fit in the clothes. Stay in your lane, Bob. Brenda then loses her wallet and goes to find it before the two notice a large, fat man following them which, yes concerning, but I can already guess where we're going with this. But Brenda and Angela don't, believing him to clearly be the maniac in the news so they make a run for it, not before Brenda sees Halley and Jake holding hands, so that confirms that I guess.
Brenda is back in wanting to kill Halley mode, but Angela says they shouldn't do that in a crowded mall. When the large man approaches, the two drive off in a panic with them worried about being picked by him for some perverted reason. Or he has your wallet and again, given they're in a crowded mall, he couldn't fully, you know, attack you there. Or maybe he could. It is the 90s and lax security after all. Still, oh god, this is going to be a lingering plot in the book, isn't it? When Brenda returns home, she waits for Halley to return to confront her. She then attacks Halley and hangs her from the noose over the stairs. But this was all a prank, you see. A really, really fucked up prank. They lie saying it's for the movie, then Traci teases making copies of Halley's frightened reaction. I-I'm sorry, WHO am I supposed to like in this book exactly?
Brenda then tells Halley that she saw her with Jake and lays into her about how she constantly wants to take everything from Brenda. Halley cries and says that maybe she does, especially since Brenda has a functioning family. Brenda leaves before Halley says that she'll make Brenda regret this. To which Brenda gets all indignant for being threatened thinks it should be Halley who regrets first. How dare Halley threaten Brenda after she did the nice thing of attempting to kill her AND tried to kill her the year prior. She ain't Reva, but Brenda's trying to be in the conversation. Brenda confronts Jake who is all "So you know, huh? Whatever. See you." Look, Jake sucks, but by comparison to Brenda, maybe he made the smartest move.
At chem lab, Halley accidentally drops a test tube that gets some sort of burning acid on Brenda's arm, which means that this is another thing to add to Brenda's list of possible Halley-related sabotages. As Angela and Brenda walk, they see Dina in the shadows, looking more sinister than she usually does, I guess. At home, Brenda finds a note sent for her with a picture of a Jack-O'-Lantern soaking in blood and a message that promises this to be her last Halloween. So, despite this shit happening LAST YEAR and Halley didn't do it then, Brenda suspects Halley did it now. She tells her mother, but she doesn't believe her because Stine parents, but also returns to the default taking of Halley's side, which, yeah, she did threaten to kill her last year. Brenda heads to Traci's and finds what looks to be the same markers and paper as the note, but Traci says that she didn't send anything threatening, these were just invites, that's all.
The pair head to Angela's house which is old and ramshackle. Inside they find a pair of coffins in the living room. And inside one of them is Angela, who scares the two of them. But it's just a joke. The weakest "just a joke" so far mind you. Her parents go overboard on Halloween decorating. So much so that they moved the furniture to the basement just to make room for the coffins and assorted scary doohickeys. The next day at school, Brenda notes a putrid smell in her locker. She opens it to find a decayed Jack-O'-Lantern because this is all this stalker has for a calling card, I guess. Oh and Brenda pukes. She blames Halley and Halley denies it. Sunrise. Sunset. Sky still blue. Water still wet.
At Brenda's later, the girls talk about what happen, and Angela mentions not being able to eat a pretzel because she needs to go on a diet due to her plump figure. STAYINYOURFUCKINGLAAAANE BOB! But more importantly, Jake and Halley are having a fight. And Brenda wants to tape it. However, when they do, Jake takes the tape that's actually for their film project and steps on it since he doesn't like being embarrassed. So now their attention is focused on Jake and they want to kill him... in the movie of course. If you look up the word "redundant", this book should be what shows up. So Brenda, who started the book with some PTSD from the incident last year is just all jazzed to do it again, I guess. Character development? What character development? Robert Stine wipes his ass with character development. There's 70+ pages left by the way.
So the plan is to lure Jake to Angela's house and do the fake murder prank, tape Jake's reaction, then send copies to the rest of the school. Good lord, Stine predicted Sam Pepper. They think they should tie Jake up and make him really think he's going to die. Jesus, Stine really did predict Sam Pepper. "Maybe it'll make Jake be a better person" says the three girls who are out to ruin someone's life. Brenda runs into Jake who wants to patch things up before kissing her, so there's her conflict for now, I guess. Later that day, Brenda discovers that Dina is in her house and now is friends with Halley. I mean, they have a bit in common given being children of divorce and both having reasons to hate Brenda. Perfect pairing if you ask me. Of course Brenda thinks that Halley did this all to upset her. Holy crap, I may have to reevaluate if Reva's still worst Stine protag because I'm ready to tap out of this book.
After a massive blow-up where Halley quite rightly shouts down Brenda for making all of her issues about Halley, Brenda leaves, only to see the man from the mall outside. Because this hasn't been resolved yet, she calls the cops. The man disappears before the cops arrive and Brenda just has no idea what he wants from her. If this is all for the goddamn end twist this book's getting an F because holy shit this book sucks. Later that night, another Jack-O'-Lantern filled with worms and blood on her bed. This is just the raw meat one all over again so even THAT's lazy. So Brenda attacks Halley over this yet again. Halley says it wasn't her, nor was it Dina. Maybe it was Angela or Traci, but Brenda says that's not possible, they're Brenda's friends. You know, LIKE DINA FUCKING WAS IN THE LAST BOOK YOU GOLDFISH-BRAINED BITCH AND SHE WAS THE ONE WHO STABBED YOU! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK THIS BOOK!!! 45 Pages. I can do this... Oh, and Halley says that she's still got her revenge planned because at this rate get it over with.
So back to the other reason to not like these characters, Brenda and the girls get their skeleton costumes, similar to the ones on the cover as they plan to scare Jake. Traci and Brenda will go trick-or-treating with Jake and lead him to Angela's house where they'll find her dead in one of the coffins. Then they lower the boom by tying him up and making him beg for his life, getting his peak fear on video. They do just that, eventually luring Jake to Angela's house, where Brenda notices a Jack-O'-Lantern just like the one from the Last Halloween note she got. Brenda thinks it must have been Angela really ramping up the scares. Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me...
They go inside, but see no sign of Angela anywhere. Brenda does run into Dina in a witch mask though. She also runs into Halley. Both were also invited to the Halloween event by Angela. They then head back to the coffin room to find Jake stabbed to death. They find Angela tied up who says that it was the fat guy from earlier. But before they can go, Traci notices the camera was still turned on in preparation for the big prank. So the killer is on camera. To which Angela finally reveals that, shocker, she was the one after Brenda the whole time! But it's one of Brenda's friends, Bob. How could one of them be the killer, Bob? HOW COULD ONE OF THEM BE THE KILLER BOB, BRENDA SAID IT COULDN'T HAPPEN, BOB! Angela says that it was all easy. Not because of how easily Brenda ignored the pumpkin warning, but who could believe that the killer was the new girl, Brenda's poor, CHUBBY friend. Christ this book...
Oh, and this is because she wanted to date Jake but Brenda wouldn't let her because I guess we needed that to be a reason. Oh and she killed her parents, and she's the maniac. Angela is about to kill Brenda when Halley makes the save, which makes Brenda realize that maybe Halley does like her and maybe she likes Halley too-BLOW ME WITH THAT BULLSHIT, BOB! Anyway, Halley hits Angela with the Jack-O'-Lantern which causes her to burn and be easily subdued. As they leave, they run into the man again and wouldn't you know it? He was trying to give her back her wallet the entire time. That's our twist ending, folks. I'd throw this book across the room, but I'm reading it via my computer and I'm not going to throw my PC at the wall. Tempting as that may be. And so our book concludes with Brenda saying she loves Halloween, but Halley would rather they talk about Thanksgiving. Nothing scary happens on Thanksgiving. Oh thank god there's not a Thanksgiving Night book.
Christmas on a cracker that was a bad book. Like, a book that could be in the running for perhaps the worst book I've read so far. And given that involves such luminaries as Revenge R Us, Babysitter III and the latter Silent Night books, that's not a good accolade to have. I say it every single time it seems but Stine and sequels do not mix. On the rare occasion something good comes out of them but all of the other occasions show the absolute weak points of his writing. Either extreme redundancy that's masquerading as new or ignoring any possible character growth for the sake of convoluted nonsense. And this book's got all of them and more. I can't believe I've now read like three books in a row where the book boils down to "the non-skinny girl is the killer" but here we are. Aren't we lucky? Again, it's not impossible for body issues to play a factor in a villain's motivations but this one feels the most forced of all of them. Like Stine had no idea what to give her for a motivation and went the lazy route.
Brenda sucks. Above and beyond the level of mere sucktitude to her own stratosphere of pure suckiness. Like, she was bad last book, but this book manages to be the killing blow of any possible redeeming qualities. At no point can you feel bad for her. She's this conceited maniac who constantly thinks the world is out to get her. And not even because of her nearly dying the previous year. That stops mattering immediately once she starts to again think that Halley is out to get her again despite having to be proven wrong the year prior via Dina's attempted murder. And even if the threats were Halley, she still deserves them for constantly treating Halley so horribly. Aside from taking Jake, there's really no reason to hate Halley at all. It no longer becomes Brenda being unfairly piled on, she is the one who creates her own dilemmas. She is the nucleus of every awful thing that happens in these books.
Not to mention her completely ignoring the possibility that Angela could be the villain. Seriously, I hated this book before that moment, but when that moment came I absolutely abhorred this book. Why? On what grounds would Brenda NOT think it was Traci or the new girl that, let's be honest, is in the exact same role Dina was in the last book? Doing what is akin to the exact same threats that Dina, not Halley, was doing in the last book. Both that and her just not looking at the Jack-O'-Lantern as a warning sign just broke me mentally. That may now be the zenith of the absolute dumbest moments Stine has put to paper. Because that's not just insulting to whatever salvageable scraps of Brenda's character, that's insulting to the reader.
So... is she worse than Reva Dalby, then? Is she Stine's worst protagonist? Ladies, gentlemen and those who prefer other pronouns, I stand here to say that we indeed do have a new worst protagonist. Brenda Morgan is indeed worse than Reva. Like, Reva sucks. She's cruel, manipulative and never learns her lessons. Brenda is obsessed, murderous and dumb as a post. And at least Reva had a personality, as bad as it was. Brenda has no personality other than "must kill Halley." And no, I don't buy for a single second she suddenly cares about Halley in the end. Because that's what happened last book and look what happened one year later. Lather, rinse, repeat. 176 pages of some of Stine's worst habits on full display.
Though it's not like Traci, Angela or even Jake were that likable either. Jake is your stock jackass boy with an anger problem. Though you could argue for however angry he gets in the book, what they had planned for him wasn't equivalent at all. They went out to film the fight with him and Halley. They stuck their nose in his business. They tried to embarrass him and he retaliated by destroying the tape. Another issue that's the fault of Brenda and Traci more than it is anyone else. Traci exists mostly. Not so much Superfluous Clay, but not as integral as before. I hate to make the comparison, this book doesn't deserve the comparison, but she's the Tomoyo to Brenda's Sakura. Here to hold the camera and film the action.
Angela is frustrating. Frustrating not so much for being the villain but for her reasoning to be so lame, even for Stine. Boy crazy and fat. That's her motivations. That's all Stine could come up with as motivations in a 176 page book. A 176 page book that would rather focus on the most obvious red herring of all time and not build a motivation for the actual villain. Dina isn't given much stuff to go with, which is also frustrating. Like, not even much for red herring stuff. Which given Stine was already doing poorly with the mall guy, maybe it's for the best that we weren't stacking more stuff there as well. But she also has no reason to really be in the book, especially the more the incident from book one doesn't matter. So Dina is the Superfluous Clay in this case.
Finally, in the character department, Halley is easily the only likable character in the book. Granted, stealing Jake wasn't cool, though maybe she did Brenda more of a favor there. She's the character with the tragic history, the only true sympathetic character and the one character that feels like the more likable protagonist. To make yet another Silent Night comparison since that's been the whole connecting fabric of this review, she is this book's version of Pam. The more likable character who gets treated horribly by the book's actual protagonist and the one that I'd much rather follow. The character that was supposed to be treated better by the protagonist in the sequel, but that would require character development and not clinging to the status quo like this book does.
Now, on to the red herring of the book. By all accounts, Brenda is right in how she reacts to him. He is a creepy older guy following her. And with the book establishing the maniac (Honestly JUST for an excuse to make this guy look more sinister than he was) I can buy that legit fear of a stranger both following her and even finding out where she lives. The problem is that this is such a clunky addition to the plot to add forced scares. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't a super obvious swerve. The fact that it begins a page after Brenda loses her wallet, it makes Brenda look dumb to never once consider that he found her wallet. So you have to wait all book for the most obvious outcome. Maybe having Brenda lose something and not notice that it's missing leading to the chase would have worked so much better and wouldn't just shout out to the world that this guy isn't the villain.
None of the scares work well either, primarily on the fact that they all feel like retreads. Halloween-related threat after Halloween-related threat, all with the Jack-O'-Lantern motif that feels like at least a neat calling card that could have worked if, again, Brenda didn't just devalue any effectiveness it could have had once she sees the Jack-O'-Lantern at Angela's house. So when your threats become ineffective, it also makes your villain just feel even less of an actual threat than Stine intended. In that one moment, it makes the entire book's mystery progression pointless. If the protagonist stops treating this like a threat, then why should the reader? Like, Stine is not a good mystery writer and this may be the most damning piece of evidence yet. Though hey, no animal death for once. I wish that was enough to be a silver lining but hell no.
There feels like no passion at all was put into this book. Hell, the first book felt that way. But man does this book really feel like it was made to make quota while also cashing in on a popular enough book. It's the ultimate killing blow to any sequel that Stine writes. A lack of passion or at least a lack of trying to come off as having passion. It proves my point that sequel books shouldn't exist. Stine's strengths are when he comes up with something original (to him I guess) and not trying to put the effort into retaining the integrity of the original while working on the sequel. It's like the scene from the Simpsons of Stan Lee trying to fit a The Thing action figure into a Batmobile. Broke, or made it better? Well, the answer here is a definite broke. And when the character in the book seems to care less about the events of the year prior, then that's just as telling on the author who wrote it.
So overall, this is the easiest F I've ever given to any book. While not as concerning as Revenge R Us and not as tedious and lacking as the Silent Night books, the Halloween Night books are far more enraging. At least to me. The first one was mostly existent, but the sequel managed to drag the first down into hell with it. Not Stine's most toxic book, but without a doubt in the running for his most frustrating book. At least for me and this blog. If you enjoyed these books, I apologize for all this. But clearly this wasn't for me. It's the candy corn of Stine books. Some might like it, but most find it to be gross and unenjoyable. How fitting a legacy, huh folks? Halloween Night II gets an F.
IT WAS ACCEPTABLE IN THE 90S: CDs, CD Stores, Busy Malls, Oakland Raiders, Camcorders, Geo Cars
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