Goosebumps #1: Welcome to Dead House by R.L. Stine
Welcome Stack Worms!!
Alright, time for the first book in the Classic Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine. Now, I'm 92% sure that you have heard about, if not read or watched, Goosebumps. Currently, they are nostalgic for people who grew up with it, but others see it as super cheesy and bad. But what people don't know about me is that I love cheesy/bad horror books/movies. Yet, there is one thing that the old and young agree on: the original covers were the bomb!
SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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TRIGGER WARNING:
- The dog dies
PLOT:
Amanda, 12 years old, and her brother 11-year-old brother, Josh are forced to move to Dark Falls; so that their father can start his writing career. While the house is gloomy it's rather large, so Amanda decides to give it a chance. Bratty Josh doesn't and neither does their little terrier, Petey. In fact, Petey doesn't like anything about this town, especially not the people. Could it be because the citizens of Dark Falls are dead?!
Okay, yeah the townies are dead. They have to drink fresh blood once a year to stay alive. Amanda and her family are next. However, they figure out too quickly what's going on. Then again, if you're neighbors are afraid of light, don't want you to be in the graveyard, and can fucking fly you should be able to guess they're not human.
How did this come about? Thanks to a plastics factory accident, a yellow gas escaped and killed the town. Now, they're...vampires? ghouls? Not, zombies. Original? What was the yellow gas? When did it happen? Those are not answered.
Thoughts:
This had a creepy atmosphere. The house is my kind of house. Big, dark, mysterious, and FREE! I wasn't a fan of some of the characters. Amanda was okay, kind of a blank slate, but I figured that would be the norm in a Goosebumps book.
I wish the other books I've read so far would have been this good. It got graphic! In two separate instances, the book describes people's skin melting and bones disintegrating. Plus, so far, this is the only book where the dog bites it.
There are a few issues I have with the story. I think Dead House shouldn't have been the culprit of the dead people in the town, since it seems to be the center of the plot. It's the house that people live in before dying. Maybe having the house being the vampire where it sucks out the life force of the family. Then they must take the life force of others to continue life. Maybe the house is controlling the citizens of Dark Falls because it feeds on darkness and death. Or feeds off the number of people around them. Basically, the house should have been parasitic.
The timeline is wonky. The story leads us to believe that Compton Dawes died in the factory accident, but he died in 1980. Yet, another girl died in 1972. And from what I'm getting is that the gas didn't back the already dead. Otherwise, there'd be walking skeletons, right? It doesn't go into if the yellow gas has a healing factor. The ending sort of confirms my headcanon as Mr. Dawes is alive. However, Amanda's family isn't attacked again. This shows that the town did indeed perish in the sunlight. Mr. Dawes probably was able to hide. Or he has immunity to light which is why he was the lure to get people to move to Dark Falls.
Also, if you heard voices in your room would you just try to go back to sleep? No. I don't think you would. Amanda does. Me I'd either be thinking I need to up the dosage on my meds or calling for the salt.
I know that was a lot to think about for a Goosebumps book. It's Goosebumps don't question it? Anyway, I've decided I won't write about every book that I read in the Goosebumps books, just the ones I consider to be 4 stars. Such as this one. That's all for now. Toodles!
Bug
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