#kids horror

Monster Blood III is the sort of sequel you get when you start with a shoddy concept and then stretch it beyond any reasonable length. The Monster Blood books boast more sequels than any other in the original Goosebumps run, and it’s slightly baffling when you realize how none of them is particularly good. My theory is that the badass-sounding title and beautiful Tim Jacobus cover art of the first Monster Blood drove the book to best-seller status in spite of its weirdly bad plot. This brings us to this book. It was tedious. Andy and Evan, the one strong point of the first book, are stuck in a painfully stupid cycle in which they keep using Monster Blood in spite of its dire consequences. They have horrible ideas, and it’s hard to feel anything for them when things go awry. This time we add Kermit to the mix, who is a new kind of awful. There is nothing scary about green slime that keeps growing. It’s not even as gross as it could be. Also being a giant sounds fun, but that only happens for a relatively short section of the book. Most of it is Kermit being terrible to Evan and Andy. The ending could have been satisfying, but Stine has done similar twists and done them better. I also just didn’t care. Three books into a mini-franchise titled Monster Blood and we still have never seen a single monster from whom the blood supposedly originates. That, I believe, is the most unforgivable thing of all.

Score: 1

Check out my website blog my full review with memes, spoilers, and snark:

https://www.danstalter.com/monster-blood-iii/

This was the first Goosebumps book I read as a kid. I distinctly remember getting it for Christmas in 1994 and starting it that night. I loved it then, and I’m really happy to say that fro the most part it holds up. It struck a near-perfect balance of horror and adventure. From being chased by a creepy man to then being left by their tour group in a strange foreign city, there was a great escalation in scares with each scene. The memory loss bit was particularly frightening. I blame this book for planting the seeds of my first existential crisis as a young adult. My biggest issues in the book had to do with the actions of the adults around Sue and Eddy. The first and most obvious is the way the kid’s tour guide left without them. That place would be crawling with police if two kids went missing while on a tour. I won’t get into specifics on the rest because of spoilers, but you can read my thoughts on that after the jump. I was also a bit frustrated with the rushed ending and felt it could have been done better. A Night in Terror Tower stands out from the pack for the way it was based on actual historical events; the only other books in the series that do anything like that are Curse of the Mummy’s TombandReturn of the Mummy. Overall, it mostly lives up to my nostalgic love and was still fun to read in spite of knowing all the twists. A Night in Terror Tower is easily one of the strongest books in the series.

Score: 4

A full review with memes, spoilers, and snark can be found over on my wordpress blog:

https://www.danstalter.com/a-night-in-terror-tower/

Ghost Beach was almost as creepy as I remembered it being. It did a great job of making the beach scary, built an excellent atmosphere, and delivered some truly spooky scenes. That being said, the overall concept ended up being half-baked. Jerry and Terri were two strong main characters, but almost every other character had really unclear and contradictory motives. I was reminded of Welcome to Dead House, where I was left wanting a better explanation behind the creepy town and its people. It frustrating because with another round or two of edits I think this could have been one of the best books in the series. It had all the right elements, but it fell apart when it came to actually making any sense. These issues clearly didn’t bother me when I was a child, so maybe it’s less of a problem than I am making it out to be, but I stand by my rating. Ghost Beach falls frustratingly short of the book it could have been.

Score: 3.5

For more frantic questions about the politics of ghost communes and the science of dogs recognizing ghosts, I have a spoiler-filled review up on my blog:

https://www.danstalter.com/ghost-beach/