Choice Words: Give Yourself Goosebumps #05: Night in Werewolf Woods

Werewolves. Stine loves him some werewolves. That and maybe zombies. We really don't get many vampires. But werewolves are a monster that Stine has come back to over and over again. Granted, Stine really hasn't done a bad werewolf story, especially in Goosebumps. So it should come as no surprise that he wouldn't take too long to bring werewolves into Give Yourself Goosebumps. Does this book howl or is it just hell? Let's see the twists and turns at play as we spend a Night in Werewolf Woods.

I love the atmosphere of this cover with the giant full moon with the wolf underneath it. The other wolves however range from creepy to kind of goofy looking. It falls into the same issue the cover of The Barking Ghost has with making the cover dog look more silly than full on creepy. I also recently watched a video that made an argument that we should have a more anthro werewolf on these covers over plain looking wolves. I think it can work, but I also like the idea of having a wolf on the cover to add to the mystery. I think a full-on wolfman on the cover only works in certain situations, like The Werewolf in the Living Room for example. And here, I think going for a pack of ravenous wolves over just a wolfman still does the trick in selling the book's concept, so chalk this up as another Mark Nagata win.

As is the case with these books, given that the protagonist is often presented as the reader and no specific gender is given, I'll be using They/Them and "The Player" when I talk about our protagonist. Cool? Let's go.

The player and their family are going camping at WoodsWorld for the summer. That's the good news. The bad news is they have to spend time with their parent's friends Mr. and Mrs. Morris (no, not those Morrises) and their nerdy son Todd, who likes to say "Hey, hey! What do you say" and has glasses and a pewter figure collection. There's a campfire about to happen and the player is ready to go, when a trio of bully brothers, Jess, Buck and Sharky Murphy, accost the player and Todd, while stealing Todd's pewter figure collection. After his constant whining over it, the player decides they'll go to the campfire and confront the Murphys. But will the player ditch Todd, or bring him with them? That's our first branching path, so let's... oh wait if you bring Todd with you, he says he'd rather stay at the cabin, so you just go to the "leave Todd there" path instead. Okay fine, Bob.

The player leaves Todd at the cabin and heads to the campfire, where they meet their friend Lauren Woods, whose family owns WoodsWorld. At the campfire Sharky tells the campers about the woods being full of werewolves, and that it just so happens to be a full moon tonight, a werewolf moon so that might be concerning. They also mention that they buried Todd's box somewhere, leaving the player to either go for it or head back to the cabin. Our first ACTUAL split path.

PATH #1: A PEWTER HUNTING WE WILL GO

They continue the search, but soon find a note saying that the werewolves of WoodsWorld love to see red, they took Todd's box and that if they can't find it before morning it's gone forever. Also  Todd sneaks up on the player, scaring them, so he's along for the ride after all. Kind of makes the first split a bit pointless but oh well. The player and Todd find a cave and almost go in, but for the good ending, they don't. Instead, they get caught in quicksand while Todd observes the moon and starts to turn into a werewolf. The player manages to get free and snaps Todd out of the trance. They then realize what's going on. Anyone who stares at the werewolf moon turns into a werewolf, so the logical outcome here is to stay out of the moonlight. However, the pair soon run into a pair of werewolves who are inside the cave. And the way to get to the right path is by, of course, knowing Goosebumps trivia. And, fittingly, it's trivia on The Werewolf of Fever Swamp. What was the species of bird that the werewolf tore apart? Cardinal or Heron? Honestly it's been a while since I read Fever Swamp that I would have probably gotten this one wrong. But the answer is Heron. If you take the Heron path, the player and Todd are still about to be caught by the werewolves. Todd thinks they should howl, but the player thinks if they can jump over the bottomless pit, they'll be saved. The player jumps over, but Todd is unable to at first. But when a werewolf shows up, he makes the jump for it, with a branching path involving either saving him or not saving him. You have to save him for a good end, obviously.

In the attempt to save Todd, both he and the player fall into the bottomless pit. They notice werewolves looming over the pit and Todd seems to be falling faster. The player apologizes for being so awful to Todd, which, I mean yeah, might be on track for worst player character in the series that I've covered. But Todd manages to rise back up, on a freaking pterodactyl. The player and Todd then wonder if they should fly up and out of the pit or keep exploring below. There's actually two different paths to happy endings with this junction, so we'll start with searching below first. They head down to the bottom of the supposedly bottomless pit, and down there is an elevator with an elevator operator inside. What? Also the elevator operator is evil and wants to turn the kids into one of them. The player and Todd have two options. Press the STOP button or the GO! button. Pressing Stop is a bad end, so the Go button opens the doors. Both the player and Todd jump out and continue to fall... until the alarm clock rings and the player wakes up back at WoodWorld. It was all a dream and Todd wasn't even with them this summer, so I guess it's a happy ending?

Well that end twist sucks and kind of reinstates the player as a piece of shit, so surely the second ending is better. So let's fly up. The pterodactyl flies out of the pit and drops the player and Todd at the feet of the werewolves. They soon find the Murphy brothers, trapped with the werewolves waiting for them. There's a path to help them or let them be food for the wolves. Good ending involves the latter, but instead of the Murphys just dying, they instead say that they were actually trying to find the pewter box for Todd. Todd manages to get the box back in time, but there's still werewolves waiting for them. The player grabs the box and pulls out a pewter figure of a sorceress with a crystal. They use the crystal to reflect the light of the moon at the werewolves which blinds them and sends them falling into the pit. So the day is saved, Todd has his figures back, and even the Murphy brothers aren't awful anymore. Mega happy ending for all. 

So we know what happened by hunting for the pewter figures immediately. What if we went back to the cabin instead?

PATH #2: BACK TO THE CABIN

The player and Lauren talk for a bit, worried about the howling noises they both hear. The player then heads back to the cabin to find Todd, and finds him crying into his pillow. That and a note, similar to the one in the other path, mentioning the werewolves, and the pewter box they need to find before dawn. The pair head out and find two sets of flashing lights in the distance. Red and white. The white path is the one to take here, and it leads the player and Todd to find Lauren who joins in on this adventure. The group find a bunch of holes and inside are boxes. However, none are Todd's pewter figure box, rather boxes that say SMART BOX and SUPER STRENGTH BOX. As the kids try to figure the boxes out, werewolves begin to approach. So the choice is to use one of the two boxes. The smarts box leads us to two ambiguous endings, so we're going with the super strength. Which is a box of Oat O's (Not Cheerios, please do not sue R.L. Stine Mr. General Mills). But eating the cereal does the trick and the player manages to life one of the werewolves and yeet it out of sight.

As the player and the others try to understand the situation further, a small troll shows up and says that the cereal was his and he was using it to make the werewolves stronger. Oh and he wants the kids as his slaves because obviously. The path has you choose if the player talks with Lauren and Todd, or the right path which is try to take the troll out. It doesn't work, and the player's strength is depleted and they're put in a trance. How does one escape a troll's trance? Doing push-ups of course. It turns out the player was able to avoid being in a trance and uses some mor O's to regain their strength and lock the troll in a box. The Murphys then show up, ready to bully Todd and the others, but the player gives them the O's to make them stronger, then sicks the troll on them who shrinks the bullies to nothingness. In all of the chaos they find the pewter box in a tree and run home for safety. 

Well that's one good ending that requires you to be pretty fit to push up. What if you're a fatass like me and can't? Well, the troll sends the player back to the cabin to search for the pewter box which contains the enemies of the trolls. You can search the cabins but it leads to a bad end, so instead the player searches the community center, even sneaking past their parents. The player ends up at the library and is given back their strength, which causes them to break open the door. To avoid being caught the player has to either go into the library or into the woods. For the first of the three good endings in this path, the player goes into the woods. This angers the troll who sends for hundreds more trolls to attack the player. Tying them down a la Gulliver. However, the player still had a crumb of the O's left in their teeth and eats that, which allows them to break free. The trolls all whistle and panic before disappearing, allowing the player to return home.

So that's the woods, what about the library? The troll whistles its hypnotic whistle at the player, sending them smacking into a bookshelf that turns around, sending them into a hidden room. No way back as the bookshelf won't revolve anymore and there's a set of stairs and a wall to break. And the player just so happens to have strength again. The path is the stairs, where the player's strength drains. But they overhear Todd and Lauren down below. The player thinks they're going to turn on them so they could go back up, but the good endings rely on reuniting with Todd and Lauren. The three could go back upstairs or through an underground tunnel. Stairs for both good endings with both hinging on if Todd and Lauren are behind the player or not. If they aren't, then the player just... wakes up. Yep. Another "It was all a dream" ending, which you know I hate. But Todd's here this time and the player is actually cool with that, so it's more likeable than the other. 

The final good ending path has the player give Lauren and Todd some of the O's. However, there are other O's in one of the pockets that might not be super strength. The left pocket has the O's, which give the three the strength to face off with the trolls, who also eventually get sick of their leader and throw him in the lake where he presumably drowns. The Murphys show up and are proud of the player, Todd and Lauren, so they give Todd back his Pewter box and it's another mega happy ending.

Before we get to the bad endings, we have two more endings to cover. The ambiguous ones. What if we took the Smarts box instead? The Smarts box contains a box of Cherry-O's, PLEASE DO NOT SURE R.L. STINE MR. GENERAL MILLS. Eating the cereal makes the player smarter. But they still have a werewolf to deal with. The player wants to capture it, while Lauren and Todd suggest running. Running is the option here. However, the kids end up running into a colony of fire ants. Either go through the ants or face the werewolf again. Facing the werewolf sees that the werewolf also ate the Cherry-O's and is now super smart and polite. That's good. What's bad is there's more werewolves. The player comes up with the idea to use jawbreakers on the wolves which hurt the wolves long enough for the player to escape, but is still stuck trying to find the box. But oh well, that's the end. Facing the fire ants has the player give the Cherry-O's to the fire ants who gain intelligence and thank the player for them. The player and the others apologize for bothering the ants and continue their search for the box. But oh well, that's also the end. Bob's ready to peace out.

Six good endings, two ambiguous ones. That leaves us with fifteen bad endings. What horrors befall you on your wild and wolfy trek? Let's find out.

#01: The player gets the trivia question wrong and... turns into a paper lantern? And there's other paper lanterns of people trapped forever in the woods? 

RATING: 2. It's memorable but whaaaa? 

#02: The player and Todd continue to howl to keep the wolves at bay. All night long. 

RATING: 1. I get that it ultimately kills the chance of getting the pewter box, but so long as they last the night they'll survive. So it's not that dark a twist. 

#03: The player misses Todd who falls into the bottomless pit.

RATING: 2.5. Obvious outcome but still works for a dark enough way to off Todd.

#04: Pushing the STOP button stops the elevator, but the player and Todd are then turned into evil elevator operators.

RATING: 2. I still don't know if Stine ever smoked any weed but this makes me wonder...

#05: It turns out the werewolves like the Murphy brothers. The wolves go to attack the player and Todd who start to run for it.

RATING: 3. I like that it comes from the option to save the Murphys. That doing the good thing in this scenario ultimately would screw you over. I approve.

#06: Entering the cave, both the player and Todd fall down a slide and are caught by the werewolves, ultimately being turned into werewolves themselves. 

RATING: 3.5. I like this one because hey, we actually have a twist involving being turned into a werewolf in this book about werewolves. I do wish the book had more of that, but what we get is still good.

#07: The player gets caught in a tunnel of waves, which soon leads them to being caught by the Deep Woods Lake Monster. 

RATING: 3.5. I like the build to it. Several pages of the player trying to survive, only for the inevitable outcome to ultimately screw the player over. Good dark ending.

#08: The player returns to capture a werewolf, but it turns out that it's the neighbor's dog instead.

RATING: 0.5. Wait, what? Why is the neighbor's dog here in the woods? And, I mean, it doesn't mean the search for the box would just end there. But I guess to Stine it does. Weakest one of the book. 

#09: After escaping the werewolves, the kids return to the cabins. However, when the player wakes up the next day, they discover Todd has been turned into a werewolf, ready to attack.

RATING: 5. Now that's how you end a werewolf story. Even the little addition of the whole "Hey hey! What do you say?" bit as he's now a snarling beast really sells how screwed the player is. One of my favorite twist ends to these books so far.

#10: The troll keeps the player under their spell and all the kids can say is "GYZACCK!" 

RATING: 2. Not bad. The "the end" line also being "GYZACCK!" is a fun little touch. Not really super dark, but makes sense given the players are screwed.

#11: The troll has already turned the Murphys, Todd and Lauren into trolls and now the player is going to be transformed into the new troll leader.

RATING: 2.5. I like this one. Why the player is the new leader comes off as odd but I guess maybe that was their intent from the beginning to find a new leader for them. And the player ultimately being cool with it does serve as a fun twist.

#12: Eating the wrong O's turns the kids into fishes, and the troll sends them into Deep Woods Lake.

RATING: 2.5. Of all the things to do for the screw-over with the O's this one was pretty solid. 

#13: Smashing a mirror with the troll's reflection turns the player and Lauren into clones of Todd. 

RATING: 2. Fun twist, but man this book really wants you to beat up on old Todd, huh? Did someone named Todd really piss Bob off when he wrote this?

#14: The troll manages to take full control of WoodsWorld, turning the player and all of the other humans into his slaves. 

RATING: 2.5. One of these endings had to be this one and I think it works quite well. 

#15: The player finds a doctor, but that doctor turns out to be a werewolf. 

RATING: 4. I like this one, it's a dark enough swerve and hey, all the troll stuff and the book remembers that it's called Night in WEREWOLF Woods.

BEST ALTERNATE ENDING: I'D RATHER BE DREAMING

WORST ALTERNATE ENDING: DOG-GONE AWFUL

This book is good, but I'd say it does suffer from feeling the most reserved of the GYG books we've covered so far. Never having a chance to have fun with the werewolf concepts as much as you'd hope. Like, no real path where the player becomes a werewolf, only a couple of endings that lead to either the player or Todd being werewolves. The bad endings, save for a couple, also feel really reserved. No real super wild deaths in this one, just more implied ones. So it ultimately feels like a book that sticks a bit too much to its general idea without really going to crazy. Maybe with the magic cereal paths. Those are definitely weird, even for some of the stuff we've gotten in these books. Why does a troll have magic cereal? Is this Stine's attempt to take a shot at Lucky Charms? NO SERIOUSLY MR. GENERAL MILLS PLEASE DO NOT SUE ROBERT LAWRENCE STINE! The book also does a bit too much beating down on Todd. He's nerdy and all, but never really in the book does he do anything to warrant the hatred of the player. It's why one of the good endings annoys me. The one where the player wakes up and Todd's not at camp, so it's a happy ending. It sort of falls into my issues with Help! We Have Strange Powers! in how Jillian and Jackson just felt like they were being assholes to the Lerner twins. For as nerdy and awkward as they were, they weren't bad kids and we were following bullies more than heroes. And that kind of feels like the case here.

Of the two paths, I think Stine had more ideas in mind with the troll and cereal one that it does become the most interesting one of the two. So much so that it almost feels like he wanted to do Night in Troll Woods instead of Werewolf Woods, but werewolves would sell much better. The werewolf path is fine, but doesn't feel like it's given as much time to really get started compared to the troll path. The werewolf path gives us the best ending though, and the troll gives us the worst. So it at least wins there. No gimmick mini-game in this one, the trivia question is a bit more obtuse and the big interactive path being a physical exam are also a bit mixed here. I hate that I'm coming off like I didn't like this one. I really do like it. It has some great atmosphere, the horror within both paths do work, and there are some solid bad endings. I just wish that the werewolf element was more prominent compared to the troll/cereal stuff. But this one was still a fun read and another easy recommend. It's not my favorite of the GYG books, but it's still good regardless. Night in Werewolf Woods gets a B.