NNtG: Bone Chillers #07: Frankenturkey II

CONTENT WARNING: SOME TALK OF BUGS, NOTABLY MAGGOTS. SO FOR THE WEAK CONSTITUIONS READING THIS, HERE'S YOUR HEADS UP. KAY THANKS BYE.

Happy Thanksgiving... still! If you're reading this on the post date then yes, BOTH Frankenturkey books are being covered. Because you don't just take one helping. You fill yourself up until the tryptophan sedates you. So, a whole whopping three books after the first one, we have a sequel already. That has to be an academy record for any of these books. Like, the Dummy books maybe but it's Slappy. At this point it doesn't feel like that's even something to consider. And I really did like the first book. Hoping for something decent, but I've read the synopsis and I'm worried. It's Frankenturkey II!

I like this cover, but less so than the first. It's another Tim Jacobus turkey monster, still creepy looking and all. And the wires and bowl over the head along with the sparks do a good job in selling that this is indeed a Franken-Turkey. But it just feels like a second verse same as the first. Like a cover draft for the first book. Still decent, but less punchy.

Kyle and Annie Duggan's parents decide to get a turkey for Thanksgiving. The kids call it Gobble-De-Gook and take a liking to him. They try to trick their parents (and a bully named Jake Wilbanks) by making a fake turkey while they hide the real one to keep it from being killed. The fake gets struck by lightning and becomes a deadly Frankenturkey that attacks them. Eventually they stop the Frankenturkey, Kyle and Jake become friends and they get to keep Gobble-De-Gook. And they all lived happily ever...

We start the next book by learning that Gobble-De-Gook's dead. He got loose from the chicken coop and got hit by a truck. I am going to hate this book, aren't I? 

It's been six months now and Annie can't quite get over their pet turkey's death. Kyle kind of has, given that he was a "stupid turkey". While tasked with cleaning out their old toybox, they find a wishbone that belonged to Frankenturkey. Why in the hell they kept that is kind of disturbing but still. It gives their father a chance to tell them about the old wishbone myth. The one where two people split the wishbone and whoever gets the longer end gets to have their wish come true. Annie wishes Gobble-De-Gook would come back while Kyle wishes Jake would come over since he's not really believing in magic. Turkeys brought to life by electricity? Sure. Now magic wishbones? GET OUTTA HERE! 

Regardless, they split the wishbone, only for it to split cleanly in half. Kyle's end of the wish comes in with Jake showing up. Later that night, Annie soon sees a turkey in their pen. Could it possibly be Gobble-De-Gook back from the grave? Yes. Literally it seems with a rather disturbing image of the turkey decaying, its wing falling off, both eye sockets empty and feathers falling out. How was THAT not the cover? She gets Kyle and sure enough both are seeing a zombie turkey in their yard. And oh, it's actually much worse. As in maggots in the eye sockets worse. Look, at least Annie got her wish, but GOOSEBUMPS #12...

So now Kyle begins to worry that this isn't the zombie of Gobble-De-Gook, that it's Frankenturkey back. But how is that possible if they ate Frankenturkey last year? I mean, hello. MAGIC WISHBONE. Kyle even suggests that it's the spirit of Frankenturkey in the corpse of Gobble-De-Gook. They tell Jake about it who is amped to see this turkey corpse. But regardless, Annie wants to protect the turkey just in case it's the one that actually liked them. They take Gobble-De-Gook to the cave again and leave him there to be safe. But not before Annie sees the turkey's eyes growing back. Described as a film forming over the maggots. Yeah, that disclaimer is there for a reason. Hell, this is already feeling grosser than Back to School if you can believe it.

Annie has a dream that night about Gobble-De-Gook looking like his old self again. Only that he's missing a wishbone. Which should make it obvious which turkey we're dealing with, but Annie's so overcome with joy that she'll give that turkey the wishbone parts if it means he'll be back to normal. Or as normal as a turkey corpse can be I guess. She wakes up to find the wishbone missing, then her footprints outside, meaning that maybe she didn't dream this happening. Or did and her subconscious did the work for her? Either way, the next day she finds the turkey whole again and back to normal, so she keeps him as a pet once more. Well, at least keep the pen closed this time, methinks you aren't getting a mulligan. 

Later, as their dog Trouble is barking at Gobble-De-Gook, Kyle makes a sarcastic remark about Trouble acting like a cat, to which Annie says she wishes the dog would act like a cat, and sure enough, Trouble starts acting more like a cat and eventually meowing. So, magic wish wishbone turkey is our plot then. You'd be surprised to hear me say I've read worse. Also, their parents don't notice the meowing dog because they're parents. But they are intent on once again killing the pet turkey, since screw Annie's attachment. Even Kyle's cool with it because I guess we're just thermo-nuking any character he had last book. Though hey, I get it. He both doesn't think it's Gobble-De-Gook and him being fine with killing the turkey is more of a "please understand" thing from their mother, so not as thermo-nuking as much as heating in the microwave. After Kyle talks about fattening up the turkey, Annie wishes it was Kyle who would fatten... OH GOD NOT THIS AGAIN! 

Yep. She wishes Kyle would fatten up and Gobble-De-Gook would start to get thinner. So a Jack Sprat wish. And sure enough, Kyle starts to eat everything in the house and gets fatter, to which his parents think it's just him being a growing boy. And Annie specifically said that Kyle should fatten up FOR THANKSGIVING DINNER, meaning that she just turned her parents into cannibals. Remember when the first book was just about a killer fake turkey? Can we go back to that? She then thinks that she didn't want that, it must have been Gobble-De-Gook possessing her to do it. Dude, don't pass the buck on your blunder. No, but that's actually the twist here. It's the will of the turkey.

Annie gets Jake to come with her to see the situation. Sure enough, Kyle's downing opened cans of beans and boxes of cake mix, all primed and ready for cooking, while Mr. Duggan asks him to check if the oven or grill will work better for the cooking. Also he's making stuffing. Look, we're way past Little Pet Shop of Horrors to think we'd be topped in "what the hell", but here we are, baby! So to stop this, Annie and Jake think to steal the wishbone from Frankenturkey (yeah, we're not even calling him Gooble-De-Gook anymore). To which they have to lure the turkey back to the cave and Jake will throw rocks on it like he's Ken Patera at a McDonald's. Look, Ken Patera even denies that happened, said an ex-employee did it, but Ken Patera was an Olympic strongman. Come on, my dude. Also, our one wrestling reference!

They manage to get Frankenturkey into the cave and drop rocks on the bird, seemingly killing it. They celebrate until Jake is unable to control himself and wishes for  Frankenturkey to come back to life. With the turkey back up and running, Jake and Annie head to his place to learn that his parents are off to the Duggan house to eat Kyle and are readying the axe to cut his head off. 

WHAT THE FUCK AM I READING?? 

So, Jake manages to get the axe and says that he's going to finish off Frankenturkey once and for all. While the parents chase after him and Kyle preps his head on the stump primed for the killi-This is a goddamn fever dream of a book. Before Kyle can be beheaded, Annie makes the wish in time to get everyone to cut this out. The wanting to kill Kyle part not the actual killing of Kyle. No. Wait, it's not Thanksgiving yet and they can't kill him now since there won't be any fridge space-AM I TRIPPING ON SOMETHING BECAUSE THIS WAS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED TO READ TODAY. 

That night, Annie confronts the turkey. Before Frankenturkey can attack, Gobble-De-Gook's body starts to fight back until it eventually dies, with the wishbone falling out. Mr. and Mrs. Duggan and Kyle show up, back to normal (I guess, though Kyle's still fattened), and they all leave the pen, all while Trouble gnaws on the wishbones. Cool. So the book ends with the dog potentially choking to death? Magic wishbone my ass, Bone Chillers!

So, I go into these blind as you may know. the story section is pretty much my reactions in real time as I go through the story. It works for me because it can both keep my train of thought running and to feel genuine in how I interpret the story. Also, like I said, I knew about the wish powers on account of the book's back synopsis, but even with that information stored, I don't think I expected what I got here. I have read I Live In Your Basement!, I have read The Dummy Meets the Mummy!, I have read Little Pet Shop of Horrors. I have read some bonkers books for this blog that have taken turns so absurd that I can't really fully process them. But honestly, this may be the champion. This book broke my head throughout, but once we got to the point that Kyle was willing and ready to have his head cut off, there was no going back. Screw Slappy's laser eyes, THIS is now our zenith. 

I said early that I thought I'd hate this book and I... don't entirely? Look, the plot is dumb. Magic wish zombie turkey feels like an attempt to add more supernatural elements that weren't as present in the first book. But it's at least interesting enough as a sequel plot. Not to mention the visual image of the dead Gobble-De-Gook is legitimately freakish, including the maggot discussion. And for as much as it broke me, I kind of love that climax for how batshit it gets to a near cartoonish level. The kind of over the top horror I was kind of hoping for in these sorts of books and rarely get. So, if Bone Chillers has succeeded so far in anything, it's in offering plots with turns that can sometimes go beyond my expectations to create some of the most genuinely unpredictable books I've read ever.

But, which works better? The more to the point plot, or wacky magic? It depends on preference overall, but for as much as this book wowed me in ways I still can't fully comprehend as it's also stymied the hell out of me, I still think the first works better. The plot is more thorough, the characters more interesting, the conflict feeling more like a threat. There's better tension in the first book and more of a better build to the final showdown. Here, it does feel an awful lot more chaotic. More to the whims of what Haynes thought would be more interesting to read. Still representing the chaotic conflict that Bone Chillers still feels like, even seven books in. And that's just what the tonal sense of the series wants to be apparently. 

On a character standpoint, Annie is the focus now and is more important overall to the story than last book. She's likable, but also a bit too naive to think that Gobble-De-Gook is just normal Gobble-De-Gook again even though all logic points to this being Frankenturkey using the turkey corpse as a puppet. So some idiot ball, but never to the point of pure frustration. Kyle kind of sucks now. Any of the character he was given last book pretty much gone. Not sure if it's how he coped with Gobble-De-Gook's death or just how he acts anyway, but it's lame to see any shred of decency cut from the character. Jake feels more Superfluous Clay this time. With him no longer the side-antagonist he isn't given much to do until the climax. And Frankenturkey is a decent villain again, but the magic element still feels forced over the looming threat it was last book.

Something just feels off with this whole situation. Especially in that this is a sequel released three books after the first. This feels like a tale of two drafts. One a more straightforward tale about a Frankenstein's Monster turkey, the other a more off the wall story about a magic wishing turkey who makes all the wishes evil. A real feeling of Betsy Haynes not being comfortable with either, but put the former out first, then threw together a book out of the latter to fit as the sequel book. So it really feels like an Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show situation. You want a real, more down to earth book (with a monster turkey but shush) or something completely off the wall and swarming with magic wish turkeys? 

For me though, I think while I like the first way more, I think this one is still just okay in the end. Such a weird, disturbing book that, even if you went in without the reading the first that it's at least worth a look for all the chaos within. A generally freaky story that is both creepy and actually funny. Even Stine can barely hit that off. I worried about the fat Kyle stuff and despite being down with being killed, it didn't go down the worst routes, so no need for a disclaimer there. So a recommend in the end, even in more of a "burning wreckage you can't take your eyes away from" sort of way. Frankenturkey II gets a B-.

And that brings us to the end of this look at Bone Chillers and Frankenturkey... which is what you probably expected me to say. This is Thanksgiving and there's still another helping of turkey to talk about. We've seen both of its written incarnations, let's see how Frankenturkey made it to television.