"Hey, I never read any Goosebumps books when I was a child, even though I'm totally the kind of person who would enjoy them."
And then I said "Well there's nothing stopping me from going out and reading them now, as an adult, who is probably still the kind of person who would enjoy them. Hey, why don't I read EVERY GOOSEBUMPS BOOK EVER."
And because I am friends with a bunch of enablers, I was encouraged. Thanks, friends!
So now I'm going to read every Goosebumps book, in order of release, one a week, until I finish them. Or get really depressed and give up on life. We'll see. And maybe I'll find a way to turn my reading of spoopy children's books into Marxist propaganda, because that's another thing I like to do.
I mean, not just spoopy children's books specifically. I can turn almost anything into Marxist propaganda. I know this because I said I could, one day, and again, I am friends with enablers of my own personal madness.
Anyway. So the first Goosebumps book ever released is Welcome To Dead House, first published in 1992. I think I read some kind of later edition, though, because stuff is mentioned as happening in the early 2000s and nobody mentions how that's weird or in the future, so I guess the dates were goose-bumped forward a bit for later audiences? I dunno.
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| Magenta is definitely the spookiest colour |
'Welcome To Dead House' is the unusually moist story about Amanda Benson and her family - brother Josh, mother who I don't think gets a name, and father Jack - who are notified that their father's great uncle who he has never heard of has died and left him a whole house in his will. Jack, sees nothing unusual about this and, presumably between sending money to exiled Nigerian princes, packs up his family and all their belongings, quits his job, and moves them to the small town of Dark Falls and into their new, totally free, totally not haunted mansion.
But it turns out inheriting a random house in a random town from a random relative you've never met is a little suss, and indeed the whole town of Dark Falls is a little suss. It's very dark and cold, there's lots of shadows but not many people around, and the Benson family pet dog Petey, normally a well behaved little guy, seems to hate the town and everybody in it he meets.
Pro tip for you all, in case you ever find yourself in a horror movie or novel, if your normally well behaved dog starts barking a lot, GTFO ASAP. Always trust dogs.
Amanda struggles to sleep, has bad dreams when she does sleep, and keeps seeing mysterious children running around her new house and hearing disembodied giggles and whispers. Frequently she finds her clothes have been moved or scattered about while she's not looking. Between the disappearing children, ghostly whispers, the one time the kids in the neighbourhood do what looks like an attempted murder, Amanda thinks maybe Dark Falls is a bad place.
Unfortunately for Amanda, everybody around her has yet to unpack their brains from the move, and her parents gaslight the shit out of her every time she says something, until even she begins to doubt her own experiences. Turns out she was right, though, and everybody in Dark Falls is a zombie ghost (or maybe a ghost zombie) and every year they con some random family into moving into the Benson's new house before killing them. And then that family also become ghost zombie zombie ghosts and the vicious cycle continues... for reasons.
But don't worry. Amanda and Josh manage to murder the fuck out of every zombie in the town and then move back to their old house. And it all ends happily ever after. EXCEPT MAYBE NOT OMG TWIST ENDING.
The ending reminds me of the Christopher Nolan film "Inception". You remember how (SPOILERS BEGIN) Leonardo DiCaprio finally reunites with his family and before he hugs his children he spins his little top thing and it wobbles but doesn't fall and the film ends and you're meant to be all "Is he still dreaming after all?! WHO CAN TELL." (SPOILERS END) and it's a terrible scene and the movie should have stopped before it wasted your time with that ambiguous nonsense?
'Welcome To Dead House' pulls that same shit.
And it's bad.
The prose is nothing special, of course. But this is a spoopy children's novel for children, so I really can't judge it for being simple and using small words like 'if' and 'it' instead of big words like 'Constantinople' and 'Timbuktu'. There are also some minor errors of continuity which aren't huge but definitely made me stop and go "Huh?" and that made the narrative feel a little clumsy in ways that "It's for kids!" isn't a valid excuse.
Also, as mentioned, the book is just bizarrely moist. Every other page something is being described in terms of how damp it is. As far as weird fixations of horror authors go, I prefer reading about wetness than, say, the way Stephen King gets weirdly hung up on describing what character's penises are doing, but, still... Why? Why all the fluid?
All that said, it was still enjoyable. The tension at points genuinely had me gripped and some of the frightening imagery was surprisingly intense and scary. Graphic macabre body horror is not something I was expecting, but, hey, I'm always onboard for body horror.
The ghost zombie zombie ghosts were also a neat idea. I call them that because they don't really fit into either category. They're very much their own monstrous thing and I give points for creativity to horror authors doing something unique with their monsters.
So that's that. All in all, a fun time. An enjoyable novel, goose warts and all.
One Goosebumps book down. I don't even know how many there are, or how long this will take, but I'm genuinely looking forward to reading more and continuing with this random exercise in not-nostalgia. Join me next week as we bump more geese with 'Stay Out Of The Basement'.
2 comments:
Marxist take though?
Well, I wasn't going to... But since you asked. Just quickly.
The Dead House is a metaphor for our dynamic position in the class struggle. By inheriting the house, Jack Benson is able to quit his job and live off the wealth gained by owning land (they now own two houses). That one moment elevates him from home owning proletariat to bourgeoise.
A large portion of the Dark Falls population also came to join the community in this way. Inherited wealth has elevated all of them. But now the only way for them to continue their existence is to cannibalise newcomers. It represents both the purely consumptive nature of the bourgeoisie and also what is called 'the tendency towards monopoly' where capitalists grow and corner the market, in part by consuming the competition.
The Benson Family's victory of murdering the town is called into question in the final moments, but their escape is secure. All they had to do was abandon their wealth and return to their previous life. They are class traitors, but that allows them to live.
A fair warning to all Bourgeoisie who may fear the revolution.
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