To celebrate the rapidly approaching Halloween, we’re going to each be reading (different!) books from the classic 90s children’s horror series Goosebumps. We’re getting Spook-tacular, ya’ll! Even though the Goosebumps books aren’t really bad per say, we thought it would be fun to revisit this series with new, English major eyes and see how they’ve held up over the years. And, most importantly, it gives us all a break from reading about Christian Grey’s penis!
Ariel: Night of the Living Dummy
I have a serious problem when it comes to horror…anything. Horror movie previews frighten me beyond belief, yet I find myself eagerly awaiting their release just so I can read the plot summary online after they come out. Though I’m not actually watching the film, these plot summaries are often enough to keep me awake at night or give me nightmares.
Back in the day, Goosebumps used to scare the ever loving shit out of me, and yet I couldn’t help but read them. You know which one haunted me for life years? Fuckin’ Night of the Living Dummy and all the sequels. So this is serious business for me. I’m facing old fears and going into this hoping I’m like, “Oh man, this wasn’t scary at all. Little Ariel, you were stupid.” In reality, though, it’s probably going to strike terror into my heart again. We’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to find out!
Side story, When I was in like second or third grade, I went to the library with a friend, and he and I fought over who got to take this book out. I may have won that battle, but the price I paid in terror was a high one. The happy ending is that me and this kid are still friends today!
Matthew: Say Cheese and Die!
As far as I remember, I owned something like all of the Goosebumps books when I was a kid, but only actually read one of them because they scared the living shit out of me. But I remember still being a huge fan all the same? Kids, man. They’re dumb.
We thought it’d be fun to do some horror for October, but since neither Ariel or I are big horror people, the only well-known horror novels that came to mind were Goosebumps, because apparently both of us have maintained an eight-year old child’s understanding of horror. We’re both children of the 90s, and so felt the much-beloved horror-lite that is Goosebumps was well worth exploring. Since this is a fondly-remembered series for us, and many others, we’re taking a slightly different approach here and we’re not going to be tearing these novels apart like we do the other books we read. But come on, this book is titled Say Cheese and Die!. Seriously, how can we not have fun reading this? Say it with me: Say Cheese and Die!
Reader beware! You’re in for some novels that aren’t about Christian Grey’s penis!