A Case of the Bumps: Go Cluck Yourself!

I called Revenge R Us the nadir of Goosebumps. I honestly think it's a book where Stine's worst decisions are all in one book. But I think when it comes to the most hated book in general for Goosebumps, it's easily Chicken Chicken. And given I'm also not a fan of the book, I can see where the general consensus is coming from. Because the concept sounds dumb on paper. Kids who are turned into chickens. For Goosebumps' form of kid-friendly horror it comes off a bit too kiddie even for the intended demo. And for those who have read it, it's a book that borders on being nothing more than a really convoluted parable about apologizing for your actions. But is this book really that bad? Could there be something under the surface that makes this book not as bad as it seems? Is it a case of decent idea, poor execution? Well call the colonel, because we're opening a nice big bucket of Case of the Bumps to dive deeper into this book to see if it's not just chicken feed.

#1: THE PLOT

Crystal and Cole's family move to the small farm town of  Goshen Falls to become farmers. It's not all bad, except everyone has a problem with the town witch Vanessa. And because she's the town witch, of course the kids in town play pranks on her, because stupid kids tempt fate. Crystal, Cole and another kid named Anthony accidentally bump into Vanessa, knocking her groceries over. Anthony high-tails it first before Crystal and Cole, who hear Vanessa whisper "Chicken chicken" at them. Suddenly, things get strange. Well, stranger than having a town witch. Crystal's lips harden like a beak. Cole grows feathers. They begin to act like chickens. They soon realize they have to head to Vanessa's to find a cure, as they eventually morph completely into chickens. Vanessa catches them and is about to throw them out of her house, but not before Crystal manages to apologize to her, which undoes the spell. They celebrate with soda, but when Cole burps, Vanessa whispers "Pig pig" because I guess she just gets very easily offended.

#2: VANESSA

Vanessa as a villain is frustrating. One of the many things that's frustrating about this book, but still frustrating enough to single out. You can understand her frustrations though. She's constantly being victimized by the town, namely the kids in town. Putting water in her mailbox, knocking her over. Constant stuff that makes you side with her wanting to get revenge. The book wants to present Vanessa as the problem, the big evil of the book, but when it's the kids being the ones making her life a living hell, then yeah. Her casting spells on them is justified, even with Crystal and Cole, who really didn't do much to her, just knock her groceries over and not apologize. I'll get into why the whole book hinging on apologies is annoying in its own right, but let's start with Vanessa being vilified for no real fair reason. Other than what, dressing in black in a farm community? I get her appearance being a reason people might fear her, but by all accounts she doesn't come off all that evil, and definitely not someone deserving of such abuse.

I think the best comparison when it comes to Stine work is Fear Street's Cataluna Chronicles. A mess of a book trilogy where the villain, Catherine Hatchett, is persecuted for being a witch and a source of bad luck in her 1698 community. And after the town tries to hang her, she escapes and causes pain and suffering intentionally. And the three book set themselves up like Catherine is the villain that must be stopped when, really, no. If people had just left Catherine alone, then nothing would have come of it. It's only after everyone tries to kill her that she lashes out. And that's the same with Vanessa. And it may have been Stine's intent to show that she's actually not so bad and easy to get along with, only to completely fumble the bag on that with the "pig pig" twist. Because then she just becomes vengeful witch who's easily offended. If the twist wasn't just that, then I think the book could have presented Vanessa as someone that isn't as bad as the kids in town make out to be and maybe, I dunno, they'd leave her alone. And that's what makes her frustrating. Cool witch woman who just wants to be left alone, only for her to also just cast spells on people because she's bothered by burps. Dammit Stine, can you write one awesome witch character without ruining them or retconning their existence?

#3: WORLD APOLOGY TOUR

Goosebumps isn't a book series that's focused on morality tales. It's not a series set out to really teach the young reader much of anything. That's not to say some books don't have plots that feel like they're focused around morality. The Haunted Mask is an example of doing a story about revenge and how it can literally turn you into a monster and it's done quite well. And then there's, of course, Revenge R Us, which does a similar idea of how wanting revenge is bad and makes you bad, but does it poorly because the person that Wade wants revenge on his her abusive older brother. There's a few other examples, but even they don't have the plot hinge on morality being what makes the book work. Chicken Chicken unfortunately hinges the entire plot on morality. And it's not even one that's all that great. It's "say you're sorry". It's mind your manners. A good lesson to learn, but one I think kids reading this book would probably already be aware of. 

It doesn't help that it becomes evident super quick that this entire book is going to stretch itself until we get to the apology. And that everything that happens to Crystal and Cole is their own fault because they stalled on apologizing to Vanessa. So yeah, there's some great moments of horror in this book that I'll get to, but you can't enjoy it because you're sitting through this book, knowing how this whole situation could be resolved, watching these two kids be stupid and not come to that foregone conclusion, realizing they kind of deserve it, then you get the apology, it seems substantial, only for the book to immediately make that apology not matter by having them screw up again, and for Vanessa to overreact. So the book ultimately hits you with a twist that makes the whole experience and even the apology pointless when they make it clear that Vanessa is too thin skinned to take any apology at face value and thinks that all kids with bad manners need to be punished for even the slightest of transgressions. I get Stine wanted a cute little "here we go again" twist, but what we get just puts the exclamation point on what makes this book so frustrating.

#4: KENTUCKY FRIED NIGHTMARE FUEL

And it's all so frustrating because I think this book has some of the best body horror that Stine's ever written, not just in Goosebumps. The chicken transformations are genuinely creepy. The detail of the hardening beak lips on Crystal, or the feathers constantly forming, and despite their best efforts to get rid of them, they keep growing back. And then there's the scene. The siblings heading to Vanessa's house as the effects of the transformation speed up. Their eyes shrink to tiny dots and move to the sides of their heads, their heads narrow. They continue to morph into strange chicken humans. It's rushed, because of course it is, it's Goosebumps, but it's easily the best part of the book. It's the freakiest visual Stine may have ever given because visualizing these humans with weird chicken heads is something that I do think works for horror. Granted, this book came after Animorphs debuted and if you want actual horrific morph scenarios, that's the book series for you. And I'm talking stuff like the fly morph, where K.A. Applegate goes into great detail the entire process of a human turning into a fly. Now that's some nightmare fuel that tops even Stine's best attempt. 

But while there's great body horror, my problem is that nobody reacts to it. Certainly not Crystal and Cole's parents. When they're bobbing around like chickens and clucking, nobody really reacts to it as being pretty weird stuff for these two kids to suddenly be doing. And I get that's the by design "Because Goosebumps Parents" way of things. But when nobody gets a chance to react to the nightmarish situation, then it feels like what this book really feels like. A gimmick. And one that the book doesn't feel confident in really having fun with. And while it scores for good horror in terms of transformation, it feels like it doesn't leave the impact it should. It really does suck that even when Goosebumps has a great idea, Stine somehow manages to fail in making it feel special. The curse of the outlines in full force.

#5: WINNER WINNER, CHICKEN THINNER

It's not hard to see where Stine got this idea. Well, part of it at least. This is clearly a take on Stephen King's Thinner. In that, a lawyer runs over a Romani woman, only for her father to later say "Thinner" to him in court, which in turn causes the man to start to lose weight uncontrollably. And given that we had a book before this which involved kids gaining and losing weight in a concerning manner (Say Cheese and Die—Again!) I could see Stine not wanting to make it completely obvious whose work he was lifting. So he turned it into kids turning into chickens. That part I can't fully get where he got the idea from. Stine was sick around the time he wrote the book, so part of me can kind of see him not being of the most sound mind when writing this, which doesn't excuse the book in general, but I think it makes more sense how he could just lift Thinner and come up with something far wackier for kids.

#6: COULD THIS BE FIXED?

I've always said that I think every Goosebumps book has a germ of a good idea. Even the biggest failures. Even something like Revenge R Us. It all comes down to how Stine executes the book. And, for a lot of cases, that execution is lacking. And with Chicken Chicken in particular, it landed with a thud. There's just a lot to the book that does feel like it could be fixed. First off, I'd have Crystal and Cole be awful with really little shades of gray. Bad kids who need to be taught the lesson of apologizing and not treating witches like crap. Vanessa should be presented as a good person who is misunderstood by the community, especially with the kids who mess with her. Have the inciting incident be something worse than knocking over groceries. A prank that goes too far and forces Vanessa to have no choice but to cast the spell on them. Have the effects of the spell matter. 

Have Crystal and Cole's parents notice the ailments but taking them to the doctors gives no answer as to what's wrong with them. Have the siblings be the ones to realize that they went to far and have to apologize. Keep a lot of the finale intact but make it clear that Vanessa is someone who didn't want to put the spell on them, but felt she had no choice. Have the book end with maybe Crystal and Cole leaving Vanessa's place with her, only for the other kids in town to pull another prank, to which she then says Pig Pig. Make the twist work more as maybe Vanessa's tired of being pushed around and even if Crystal and Cole get a pass, she's not done getting revenge on awful kids. Having the horror have more urgency, having the characters have an arc, and building Vanessa up as sympathetic to a point, would fix some of the issues the book has. Because while yes, a morality book is lame in concept, if executed right, it could work. And, unfortunately, it wasn't the case here. 

#7: FINAL THOUGHTS

They can't all be winners. And with Goosebumps that's a constant truth. But with Chicken Chicken it's a very sobering truth. A weirdly conceived Thinner parody that has good body horror that feels too rushed to really land, along with ultimately being a story about good manners that doesn't even land that parable well. Leaving you with a book that feels like a bunch of ideas that just don't land. Stine being sick could at least explain why this feels so messy, and apparently early drafts were worse. But it still doesn't fully excuse this book for being one of the weaker books. Goosebumps' 50s are a weird flux of quality. Some of the best books, some mediocre books and some often deemed the worst in the series. And, arguably the beginning of the burnout period that Goosebumps would undergo as 1997 would be the beginning of the downturn in sales. So even if this book would have been good, it feels like it would have been lost in the overall shuffle. 

Maybe a better book would be regarded as a true hidden gem of Goosebumps. Maybe in a perfect world R.L. Stine pulls out a real gem of a body horror story for kids, complete with a strong finale and great twist. Unfortunately, the result we get is perhaps the biggest case of Goosebumps laying an egg that doesn't involve an alien egg blanket. Some books are unfortunately just meant to be considered bad, and if that's the fate of Chicken Chicken, I guess that's simply its unfortunate fate.