Point By Numbers: Halloween Night

It's late October which means it's almost time for Halloween. I was at first planning a whole month of blogs dedicated to the holiday. Didn't expect a hurricane to derail those plans. Irregardless, it wouldn't be right to not do a few this month. And, being the blog that this is, of course we're also covering some R.L. Stine. Been interested in this one and its sequel and needed an excuse to finally cover them for the blog. Though given there's a sequel to this, I'm already worried for what's in my future. Maybe the first is fine, or maybe all we're getting is rocks this year. It's Halloween Night.

This cover is fine. Does exactly what it needs to do. Sell the concept of Halloween and horror. From the Jack-O'-Lantern to the knife stabbing through it. I also like the blood red trickle from the knife, selling that needed murder vibe the book promises us. Good stuff.

Brenda Morgan starts the book off by putting on a really ugly, green mask. Sadly, this isn't a mask of the haunted variety, though funny how this was published same year as Haunted Mask, huh? Her friends Tracy Warner and Dina Smithers (who Stine describes as having a boyish figure. I'm going to have to make a thing out of Stine staying in his lane, huh?), are repulsed by it, but get a chuckle when Brenda says the mask is her cousin Halley's face. See, Brenda's got issues with her cousin taking her room while she's in the smallest guest room, at least until Halley's parents settle the divorce, then she's gone. She also acts all perfect around Brenda's parents, but makes fat jokes, or steals her clothes or other bratty behavior. Traci and Dina bring up that maybe Halley is like this on account of the custody battle, but Brenda brings up that it's really no excuse to be as rotten as she is. Valid point. If this were Reva Dalby, she'd just be calling Halley weak or something. 

While the mask belongs to her brother Randy, Brenda plans dressed at her Halloween party as a clown. The girls see Halley showing up with Brenda's boyfriend Ted, or at least her boyfriend for now. Halley asks to borrow Brenda's car, to "practice parking with Ted", to which Brenda accepts despite the implications. Maybe the clown costume is too on the nose. After Halley leaves with Ted, Traci makes a suggestion that maybe they should just murder Halley. As we pause on that statement, we move over to Halley and Ted indeed doing parking lessons. Though Halley is clearly trying to hit on Ted, who seems nervous about this situation and trying to deflect the conversation when he sees a bun truck and exclaims how that truck is filled with buns. I mean it's no "Are there any more potatoes?" but what really is? During the bun talk, Halley's actual driver's license falls out of her pocketbook, revealing the ruse. But she just kisses him anyway and I guess this deception becomes a moot point because R.L. Stine book.

Back to the murder comment. It's been a few days, but what Traci meant was that they write a murder mystery for their English project, with Halley as the victim. Maybe Ted as well, which Brenda still hasn't clued in on what's going on there. Have it at the Halloween party with people in costumes and alibis and red herrings while Ted and Halley get "murdered". Dina, who has been mostly on Halley's side due to also being a child of divorce, is creeped out by the idea of using Ted and Halley as the basis of a murder revenge story. But when the girls, including Brenda, finally catch Halley kissing Ted, Brenda is more ready to just murder Halley already. I mean, would be a shorter book at least. Brenda tries to tell her mom about this, but she won't listen to her because, I mean, what is she going to do exactly? Ground Halley? Less "lazy" parents, more "really having no stakes in this situation" parents.

Brenda then catches Halley making out with Noah, Traci's boyfriend. Thank god this isn't a Silent Night book or Stine would try to justify this as a reason to follow Halley as a protagonist, huh? Noah tries to get Brenda to not mention this and, at least for now, she doesn't mention it to Traci. After a writing session doesn't give the girls their big murder story, Brenda ends up scared by a Halloween cut out mask on the window outside her bedroom. Though on the back it simply says "See you on Halloween". She chalks it up as a prank by either Randy or Halley. Notably Halley, like she needs more reasons to despise her. 

As Brenda and the girls hollow out a pumpkin, they get attacked by a giant gorilla! Wait, what? No, Stine's not lost the plot yet, it's just Halley in her costume. Halley borrows the car again as the girls continue on their big idea for how to kill Halley in the story, with Traci's suggestion being stabbing her in the gorilla costume since it won't show the wound and just let all her blood pour out. Methinks that Traci's had this idea stashed for a while and the gorilla attack brought it back to the forefront. Brenda heads to her room where she finds another message smeared in blood, saying that they'll see her on Halloween. And not paint or anything, actual blood. So we can rule out Randy. Can't imagine a ten year old just got his hands on a big ol' bucket of blood. 

Traci soon sees Halley with Noah, so now she's also ready to get rid of Brenda's cousin. But with her being there for another three months, good luck. Brenda then sees that Halley took her car. She tells her parents, but they turn this into Brenda being mean to her cousin. Oh. Good. It's one of THESE books. She then has a nightmare about the Jack-O'-Lantern she made earlier coming to life with the same Halloween warning. After rekindling things with Ted for the moment, Brenda pretty much feels more confident in believing that if Halley was gone forever, maybe things would finally be back to normal. 

The girls continue working on the story, with Dina still thinking it's a bad idea to use Halley's real name in this, and since every story needs a plot twist, they decide that Dina should be the murderer as well. The plan in the story is to have Brenda trade her clown costume with Dina's monk costume, so that everyone thinks Brenda's the murderer. Stine, I swear... After that's all said and done, Brenda checks her room and sees the Jack-O'-Lantern is lit. And inside is a decapitated bird. Wouldn't be Stine without animal murder. As well as a message promising Brenda will be next on Halloween. Oh and Brenda pukes as well. I mean, granted, headless fried Tweety and all but... She blames Halley, full on calling her evil with Halley pulling the "what did I do to you?" card, which also means that Brenda's parents take Halley's side because dead animals, vomiting, bad parents. Stine with the hat trick! 

But, given that Brenda is convinced it's Halley, she's not budging. As she talks with the girls over lunch, Ted shows up and bothers Dina, making a crack about her height and that she should join the basketball team. Maybe the idea to kill him too isn't fully unwarranted. To add to the list of reasons to kill Halley, Halley crashes Brenda's Geo by running through a stop sign. So that's all she can stands she can't stands no more, Brenda attacks Halley, trying to strangle her before being pulled off by her parents who again blame Brenda for everything. So now Brenda is convinced that this story they're about to write, it's about to be based on a true story. Dina calls Traci who says she saw Ted back with Halley. They don't tell Brenda yet, which given Brenda didn't do the same for Traci, it's warranted I suppose. That night, Brenda wakes up with rotten meat and maggots in her bed. Feels like a dip in impact from the fried bird but it's still effective.

At the homecoming dance, Brenda spots Halley with Ted, which Noah also sees and the two boys brawl outside to Halley's delight. Brenda runs off and later that night calls Traci and Dina to say that this has gone on long enough and says it's time to kill Halley. I mean, I hope so. We're 120+ pages into this 190 page book and we've been dragging our feet on this. Brenda wants to enact their murder plan by killing her at the party. Only instead of the clown costume, Brenda will dress as Frankenstein's Monster and everyone will have thought she was dressing as a clown, but that will really be Traci while Dina will wear Traci's peacock costume. It's a plot that is as wonderful as it is convoluted. So a Stine idea is what I'm getting at. Dina and Traci are still on board, but even they note that maybe Brenda wanting to legit kill her cousin might be a bit, how can I put this bluntly, deranged? Dina opts out, but Traci stays on. Also, while this plan already has flaws, they aren't good at hiding it either as the book constantly brings up that Brenda's room is connected to an air vent that can be heard downstairs, where Halley is. Woopsy-Doodle!

Brenda prepares for her big attempted murder but talks with Randy first who is playing Prince of Persia on the computer. Wow. Stine knows a game other than Battle Chess. Even he thinks that Brenda's taking this all out of proportion but Brenda's past convincing at this point. All this chatter is wasting valuable stabby time. She heads to the mall and sees a contest for a new Corvette, as well as Ted and Noah now being pals despite the fight. Ted tries to apologize yet again for what's happened and you know, fool me once shame on you. Brenda invites Ted to the party with one caveat. To dress like Frankenstein's monster (or just Frankenstein since Stine of course would do that). So the plan is now to kill Halley while dressed as Frankenstein's monster and have Ted take the fall. I mean, there's the flaw in Brenda and Ted not having the same frame, but whatever. 

Brenda returns home with Halley confronting her and breaking down to a teary mess, saying that she didn't mean to cause any harm. Coming off as rather remorseful for everything. The car, her attitude, stealing boyfriends. All of it. Brenda claims to accept her apology, but regardless, she's still dead meat. We also get a quick scare with Randy pretending to be stabbed by using fake plastic blood because we need some padding and because... we'll get to it. The party finally arrives and sure enough, someone in a Frankenstein's Monster costume stabs someone in a gorilla costume and then disappears. But when the teens finally realize that the gorilla's been stabbed, the Frankenstein removes her mask to reveal Halley underneath. And Brenda was in the gorilla costume and murdered. And underneath the clown costume was Traci, meaning Traci murdered Brenda. Wait... what?

So they were legit going to kill Halley, but Halley had switched costumes with Brenda by force. But Halley claims innocence. Everyone then suspects that if she didn't do it, then it must have been Ted. But Noah says that Ted never showed up. Then Brenda stands up and says Happy Halloween because she wasn't actually killed. She used the fake blood that Randy used earlier. She then reveals that someone did actually try to kill her and it was Dina. See, it was Dina who sent the threats. Dina was also made privy to the costume swap plan because of the convenient vent issue. Being a child of divorce like Halley, Dina felt abandoned by Brenda. Shut out of her life. And when she saw that she planned to do the same to Halley, well that was enough for her. Dina tries to stab Brenda, but trips and falls on a Jack-O'-Lantern. As she tries to escape, the cops arrive. And so the story ends with Brenda and Halley getting along now. I... I mean, despite this positivity Brenda still wanted to murder Halley so... happy ending? Questionable ending? 

So... there's two of these, huh? Not really the strongest first words to use when talking about this book, but they are the ones that popped in my head. Not to say this book is the baddest of the bad mind you, but it suffers from the fate that most longer Stine books have and that's a lot of wheel spinning and a slow pace, even for Stine. It might also be his clunkiest mystery, which is saying a lot. Of course the villain is Dina. The minute he details that she's tall and has a "boy-like physique", the writing was on the wall. Possibly in blood. The problem is that Stine clearly didn't have any conceivable way to make Dina's motivations matter other than adding the divorce element and Dina suddenly feeling abandoned by Brenda, which screams Stine hitting a wall. Or a stop sign like Halley did. There's also the plot hole of if Dina cared so much about how Halley was treated, why make it look like Halley was making the threats? That's just putting Halley in more danger and possibly getting her killed more quickly. 

The pacing in this book is slow and not all that interesting, with the main scares feeling like many that Stine's done before in different books, only with a Halloween spin on it. And when it takes three quarters of the book for anything exciting to happen, it makes this one of my least favorite Stine Point books. I mean, it's still better than Babysitter III, but that's no tall task. So you're just sitting through this book with reasons to hate Halley and waiting for the Dina reveal. I feel they also really rush Halley's redemption. I mean, she still did bad things and she still stole boyfriends. While nowhere as bad as a Reva Dalby, she still doesn't feel as deserving of that redemption as the book thinks she does. Evident of the wall hitting in that Stine lacked any real reason for Brenda to not actually kill Halley, so flimsy last-minute mea culpa it is then.

Brenda is odd. She starts as a likable protagonist and you see her side of the story, but she also still becomes obsessed with Halley to the point of wanting to kill her for real. So she doesn't become a character that can fully be redeemed either. And knowing there's a sequel with her as the focus makes me less enthused. Dina is frustrating as the villain, but you can see her side of the issue given that, yeah, Brenda kind of sucks as a friend. Traci exists as an obvious herring. Ted and Noah both suck, especially Ted. And Halley is frustrating but maybe not deserving to actually be killed either. Not the worst cast of characters, but far from my favorite crew. 

So, what we're left with is a book I'm frankly disappointed with. A lot of neat ideas, but a glacial pace to get to the fireworks factory. You could shorten the book by 30-40 pages and lose nothing. It's not the worst book ever and HAS a neat idea, but just never comes together for that satisfying conclusion. Hope the sequel's better, but this is Stine after all. I expect no treat, only tricks. Halloween Night gets a C. 

IT WSA ACCEPTABLE IN THE 90S: Seventeen Magazine, Luke Perry, Geo cars, Clint Eastwood Films, Guns N Roses, Super Nintendo, CD Players, CDs, Prince of Persia, Busy Malls, Freddy Krueger, Cindy Crawford