It's time to wrap up the Thrillogy for Nightmare Room. It's been an interesting saga of books. Mild Survivor parody mixed in with a story about witchcraft and perhaps the absolute worst parent Stine has ever written and hoo boy, is that a feat. But now we have to journey once more to the island to finish things with Katherine once and for all. How will this all end? Well, let's find out with No Survivors. This is a Big Brother household.
April Powers receives a mysterious envelope from something called "The Academy" inviting her to compete for 100,000 dollars in an event called the Life Games. However, when she arrives on the mysterious Caribbean island, strange things keep happening as if she's somehow cursed or actually has magic powers. Could it have something with a girl named Deborah who in 1680 was accused of witchcraft and stranded on an island? Could that be connected to the strange female figure that seems to be haunting the place? I mean probably, it is Stine after all. The first part ends with April and her Life Games teammates Anthony, Kristen and Marlin being stranded on the island as the head of the event, Donald Marks, leaves with everyone else.
But it was all a part of the game and it turns out that April and the others win the money. Yet it still seems as if Marlin has disappeared. The mysterious woman on the island is revealed to be Katherine, the mother of Deborah who was the one getting her daughter blamed for the actions in 1680, only for Deborah to turn the tables and strand her mother on the island. And, conveniently, April suddenly gains a blue crescent mark on her face like Deborah did. When she returns home after winning the contest, April begins to get more visions of Katherine, though every time her friend Pam is nearby. She's also invited back to the island for a reunion event and brings Pam with her. When they see the others, there's no Marlin. And waiting for them on the island is Donald Marks who has promised Katherine that her daughter is coming and she'll finally get her revenge.
We open where we left off with Donald Marks talking with Katherine that after 300 years in hiding, Deborah is coming back to the island, and Katherine will get her revenge. Marks asks that when she gets her revenge, she'll let everyone go, to which Katherine promises, but, like, we know enough about her that it's obvious she ain't promising shit. Made more obvious when she decides to write [[TITLE OF THE BOOK]] on the cave walls. We then cut back to the island a little later and with the reunion of sorts. Again, three of the kids from the games aren't there, including Marlin. Pam is there, of course, which the book says that April doesn't consider Pam a friend. Like, I get it at this point, especially with April's suspicions, but there has yet to be a reason in this whole saga for April to treat her like crap. Like, even the popularity leeching, for as obvious as it is, hasn't been THAT bad.
Marks shows up and tells everyone that this isn't just a reunion, but they're holding the Life Games again, this time with cameras rolling. And this time it's everyone for themselves. Also there's a witch on the island and if she catches you, you're out of the game. She'll eliminate one player per day. The game continues until there's one player left. The other kids laugh it off while Kristen and April take it serious given their plight. That night, the two try to tell the other kids that the witch is real, but they all laugh it off, including Anthony because he's the worst. Pam also thinks April is saying all this to be the center of attention for the cameras. The girls drop it for now and April walks out for a bit when she sees a snake who hisses her the title of the book.
The first challenge begins which is a footrace to the other side of the island. Any path is fair game but the first winner gets ten points. April and Kristen talk about the witch when they think they see her on a tree branch, only for it to be a crew guy in a blue shirt setting up a camera. Ah we're leaning in on the awful chapter stingers for this one I see. They then pass a parrot that squawks [[TITLE OF THE BOOK]] then falls over dead. But this is no Monty Python skit, it's just a fake bird again being used to scare the contestants. The girls are last in the race with Pam being the winner. But one of the contestants, a boy named Clark, never shows up. That night, Donald Marks lights a torch in Clark's name. Each night a new torch will be lit until there's one player left. April is more focused on checking the caves for clues, but when the two girls make it, the nearby kelp latches on them and starts to choke the girls. But we'll have to pause this "baby's first bondage fetish awakening" for another trip to 1680.
Deborah leaves the ship and stops at Plymouth, England before heading back to Ravenswoode. Because surely this village of paranoid witch burners are going to just welcome you back with open arms and buy that "Nay, t'was me mater who bewitched thee." Especially while she still has the spellbook and all. And sure enough, when Deborah makes it to town she's greeted with a pitchfork in her face. But she casts a spell to turn it into snakes and freeze Lemuel, the man who threw said pitchfork. She then passes a black cat and thinks that it can't mean more bad luck, because I guess she left her brain on the island as well. She then finds her home has been burned down because, again, WHY WOULD YOU COME BACK TO THE ASSHOLES WHO EXILED YOU? Like, I kind of get it, but honestly, why would Deborah believe that she could just come back like nothing's wrong when it was the village, not Katherine, who chose to send her off to the island?
And that's enough for Deborah to realize that "For some strange reason, I feel like I'm not welcomed back to Asshole Town" and wanders off. She soon runs into a man named Robert Hoskins (Wait, Bob Hoskins?) who offers her food and lodging. The next day, Hoskins finds that one of the cow calves is two-headed and the rest are dead. She leaves and heads to home of a woman named Alma Parkins, where she sews clothing for her four boys. The next day, the boys now have their mouths stitched shut. So it's clear that despite ditching her on the island, Katherine has still managed to curse her. So I guess it really didn't matter in the end where she went because she would always be screwed over. And that's that case here as Deborah gets blamed, caught and is to be hanged as a witch. The next day, she's set to be hanged and her last words are "I SHALL RETURN!" Probably more like "I SHALL RE-UURRRKK!!!" given they hung her and all.
And we return to our regularly scheduled April and Kristen being strangled by living kelp. Before the two die, Pam shows up and the kelp loosens. So, again, April is thinking this is Pam's doing, but Pam claims she knows nothing about what they're rambling about. Later that night, the two run into Donald Marks who says he saw them wandering at night and that "she's" watching them. We then get a scene of Katherine having a seagull land on her. And as soon as there was a mere mention of an animal, I knew where this was going. Katherine monologues to the bird about "her little bird" being on the island, then, as if on cue, she tears the bird's head off. Why is this suddenly feeling like a scrapped Fear Street Super Chiller that Stine pasted into a Nightmare Room trilogy?
Next challenge is swimming where April gets caught by a strange current. After washing up on the beach, she is found by Pam and the others. Pam ties for first. Later that night, April and Kristen decide to check the caves again. Only this time, they're caught by Pam who is now going to join them whether April likes it or not. Again, for the record, aside from the camera hogging and such, Pam really hasn't done anything wrong and April now thinks that she's jealous of her relationship with Kristen. They then see the seagull's head described in gory detail because Stine was PENT UP. Then they see the woman in the cloak to which Pam calls her mother. Oh, does that mean Pam is really Debo-it was all an act. This cloaked woman is the witch actress for the show and Marks had Pam call the woman mother for added effect. And a girl named Kendra is the second missing player.
Next competition is rock climbing, where one kid falls and bloodies his knees up something bad. Oh, and Pam tricks April into looking the other way then uses that to get the win. Okay, aside from the whole thing before, this might be the first bad thing she's done and even then, it's more on April's fault for being an easy mark. April mentions it's supposed to be a fair race, but Pam says it was, but April needs to learn how to compete. Which, I mean, yeah, she's not wrong. Freaky witch curse or not, it's still a contest. Still like 40+ pages left for things to change, but I'm still on team Pam here. April and Pam try the cave again, and once again Pam is coming with them so T.S.
They head through the cave, dealing with bats and rats, but a lack of cats. They then find Marlin and the other missing kids, thin, cold and not knowing who April or the others are, only that the witch is looking for her daughter. Suddenly a giant web falls on the girls, trapping them. And to make things worse, the web is filled with bugs. April manages to break it somehow and the three make a run for it only for Pam to fall and break her ankle. April touches it and it instantly heals, to which Kristen is the first to clue in that April's the witch's daughter. The three try to convince the other kids to leave with them, but they stay still, saying they want to stay. So, not going to look a magic gift horse in the magic mouth, the three run for it and escape the cave. Only now an avalanche of boulders is heading towards them. But April manages to stop the rocks from falling on them.
As April tries to grasp if she could be the witch's daughter, Katherine shows up, as does Donald Marks. Marks reveals the truth to April and the others. He was sailing on his yacht with his wife and kids when they were captured by Katherine. She hungered for the "breath of life" which I guess is her way of staying alive for 300 years. So she had Marks create "The Academy" and lure kids to the island for Katherine to devour. But once Katherine knew her daughter was on the island, she had Marks lure her back. And, being Katherine, she lied about freeing anyone. She then turns Marks into a seagull. Surprisingly she doesn't rip his head off. She then points to April and calls her Deborah, when Pam and Kristen pull an "I'm Spartacus" to try to help April. But it soon turns out that Kristen WAS Spartacus... I mean WAS Deborah!
See, Kristen was the reincarnation of Deborah the entire time. She arrived on the island, intent on finishing things with her mother. But to get Katherine off her trail, she placed the crescent moon on April. So, awful move, but necessary in finishing her mother off once and for all. And even April is like "Yo, DICK move, Kristen." Though Kristen never meant any harm to happen to April. Deborah was hanged for the actions of her mother, but thankfully that spellbook had a spell that allowed her to return from the dead and seek her revenge 300 years later. Katherine then turns into a giant snake while Deborah turns into a giant spider with her human head. Katherine's cloak falls on them as they fight and they end up falling out of the cave and over the cliff, both vanishing from sight.
Marlin and the other kids show up, their memories back, though no memory of anything witch-related. A human Donald Marks also returns, telling the girls that all of this was totally just special effects for a TV show. Kristen and Katherine? Just actors. The fall over the cliff? They're totally fine in a very "I can see their parachutes" sort of way. April and Pam begin to leave the island on a boat when April looks back to see the island entirely frozen. Pam wonders if anyone will believe them, but April says who knows? It is a TV show after all. Also they're friends now which yay, I was right to like Pam!
Though, it was super obvious this was Kristen as Deborah. Pam was made too much of a herring to ever be taken seriously. And it would have to validate April's harshness towards Pam which would be terrible to be honest. For structural purposes, it all works much better to have it be Kristen who was the manipulator this entire time. From the moment of the confrontation last book ending with April suddenly having the blue crescent mark, it became obvious what's going on. That Kristen was Deborah and, while she does think of April as a friend, still manipulated April into being the decoy while she finished her mother off. I mean, it's understandable, but after all of the backstory making Deborah to be a good person beset by the actions of her mother, her doing the same manipulative actions her mother did does sort of destroy any redeeming qualities. So it's not as sad when she dies in the end... or doesn't die, I guess?
The last act of this book is the strongest part where all of the notable action pieces and story wrap ups all work properly and are given just enough time. Slightly breakneck in some cases like Marks' story, but otherwise everything ramps up just right to lead to a great action set piece in a Stine story, which he can be middling on most of the time. The horror also works really well. A rare case of the ramping up of blood and gore working in favor of the story and not just entirely cheap shock value, save for the seagull. And in this book there's a lot of great horror moments. The two-headed calf, the killer kelp, the stitched mouth kids, Deborah being hung, the craziness in the cave, the final battle. It's a rare case of Stine putting everything in properly.
And that's how I really rate this conclusion overall. Proper. No lingering threads that aren't intentional, a satisfying enough conclusion and a feeling that everything wrapped up just right, leaving you satisfied for reading all three parts. A rare case of Stine saying that he had a lot of ideas for a story and for once acting on those and indeed giving us all of his great ideas in one story. If Nightmare Room taught us anything it's that the old weirdo still has it. Or at least was finding it again now that he was divorced from Scholastic.
R.L. Stine started this trilogy of books saying that this was a story he really got into and felt it to be too big for one book, hence the Thrillogy concept. It's rare to really ever know when he's being genuine. We get a lot of Jovial Bob, but rarely as much Genuine Bob. And a lot of the books he does often praise are ones I usually don't care much for. That was evident in a lot of Fear Street. So to see a story on paper that he's enthusiastic enough about and that it's three books long, I feared the worst. This was Bob overhyping again. This was a great idea in his head, but spins its wheels, falls apart by the end and I can see a wall in the distance, surely he's about to hit it. And, in a rare unicorn moment, he doesn't hit the wall. Granted, there's a shade amount of spinning, but the jalopy manages to not fall to pieces. He sticks the landing with one of his better stories.
You could argue that even by 2001 the concept of "Survivor parody" was already old hat, but I can see why Stine chose to do it. It was a phenomenon at that time. It, for better or worse, became the launching pad that made reality television, especially the game show variety, into a massive medium. I like the concept of the Life Games. That it's really a trap that lures kids to be killed by an evil witch. That Donald Marks is being essentially held by magic gunpoint by a witch who was never going to make good on her word. And only once Katherine realizes Deborah is still alive is when she starts to make this more serious. I do have to wonder why Katherine couldn't leave the island. Like, even on a boat or anything. I don't recall that being a thing that Deborah caused when she ditched her there, so it comes off more as plot convenience than a solid reason. But it's also one that never kills the book either way, so it's fine.
April is an alright protagonist. Starts the book kind of unlikable for how she treats Pam and it's only until way late that she realizes that Pam is just fine. You do feel bad for April's plight, especially once you realize she was a pawn the entire time, regardless on if Kristen meant that she cared about April or not. Pam is an interesting side character. In any other form of this story from Stine she'd be a villain or a bully. And granted, she does have her moments in the contest, but otherwise she feels like such a script flip for this kind of character. Yes, she's very fame-obsessed and has a competitive side to her, but she also does feel like someone who wants to be April's friend. April treats this like something forced upon her where to Pam, I think it's genuine. And it's exemplified when Pam is willing to protect her when Katherine shows up. She could have cut and run at any time, especially when her ankle was healed, but she stuck her head out even when it could have been her death. A really likable side character in a Stine book? Now that's the real shocker.
And then we have Kristen/Deborah and her mother Katherine. The actual driving force of the story. Katherine is an incredible villain for a Stine book. There are no shades of gray with her. She's a monster who revels in the suffering of everyone, even her own daughter. She never wanted Deborah, but knew that keeping her around would be perfect. Deborah would be Katherine's patsy and once time came for Deborah to be killed, or in this case exiled, it would all play to Katherine's favor as she could have just left her daughter for dead and moved on to another town to make more people suffer. So her being foisted by her own petard is actually satisfying.
Deborah is a sympathetic character. She was her mother's pawn and because of it, she was eventually killed. So you get why she wants that revenge. But what ends up being her downfall in terms of keeping that sympathy is how she made April the fall girl for most of it. April is in the right for being angry about all of this. It doesn't matter how Deborah actually felt about April, in the end, Deborah did to April what Katherine did to her. Emotional manipulation. And if this had failed, April and Pam would both be killed, along with other potential casualties like Marlin and Marks. And I think that's actually a smart way to do it. That the need for revenge can corrupt you and turn you into a monster, almost no better than those who wronged you. Ho... Holy crap, by proxy it makes this trilogy another example of a better version of REVENGE R US!!! With less creepy implications. Although the kelp bondage scene and how it's described was pretty suspect...
The rest of the cast just exist. Marks as a pawn to the story, everyone else involved with the Life Games just being there. Anthony stops mattering after book one. I guess he was too redheaded and angry for Stine to keep focusing on. The superfluous-est of Clays. I wish Marlin felt more important than just a damsel. It's rare, especially in this era of Stine, to have a black character actually be written as competent and not a total stereotype. One earring aside, he wasn't strutting like a rapper on MTV so it shows that Stine learned. He can be taught! But it does suck that he just falls to the background and needs to be saved other than being any sort of notable character.
So, overall, I really liked Thrillogy. It feels like it does almost everything right and feels like what Nightmare Room really could have been. And it's another example I can give of the uptick in Stine's quality with the series. He was starting to find his groove with these. And it sucks because as of this blog I only have two more to go through. And we'll talk about why that is later on. It's a ramping up of the Goosebumps formula that actually works in all the right places. Nothing feeling too out of place or too "try-hard". Just a perfectly balanced horror thriller that just so happens to be parodying the biggest TV show at that time. So take a bow, Stine. You stuck this landing. I still have two main books left to see if you stick the entire landing.
For ratings:
Fear Games gets an A
What Scares You The Most? Gets an A-
No Survivors Gets an A+
And Thrillogy as a whole gets an A+. Easily one of my favorite reads for this blog so far.
Also yes, I did catch that the witch was named Katherine and that April lived in Applegate. Not sure if this was an entire reference but you're not that slick, Stine!
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