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'Tis the season for haunted houses and horror films, and the man responsible for all your childhood night terrors is still up to his chilling old tricks. After nearly two decades, Stine is reviving his best-selling “Fear Street” series with Party Games, another soon-to-be-classic creepy tale about a teen party gone terribly wrong. Tonight at 7pm at Barnes & Noble Union Square, he’ll answer your questions (“You gave me insomnia for a month” doesn’t count) and read from the book; as per usual, the reading is free but a copy of Party Games will get you priority seating when the event space opens at 5pm.
To honor the fearmonger’s new book, we dug deep into our repressed memories and came up with some of the craziest, scariest and most absurd moments from Stine’s incomparable Goosebumps series.
The Girl Who Cried Monster (Book 8)
To prove to her parents that their local librarian is, in fact, a turtle-chomping, bulging-eyed monster, Lucy has him over for dinner. Only, her family members are all monsters, too, and, in one of most twisted scenes in the series, the parents eat the librarian. Shudder. Even monster cannibalism doesn’t seem quite right.
Deep Trouble (Book 19)
While visiting his uncle (the questionable Dr. Deep), Billy goes for a morning swim, during which he is attacked and almost killed by a hammerhead shark because no one ever let the boy see Jaws. But is this the end of Billy? No. He is saved by a mermaid. Now, we don’t expect the Goosebumps books to be realistic, but that deus ex machina is really pushing the limits.
Be Careful What You Wish For… (Book 12)
Goosebumps books often don’t end well, frequently resulting in haunting cliffhangers. In this one, an old woman (and rather unskilled practitioner of the dark arts) has granted Samantha three wishes, which don’t turn out at all as Samantha wants. Given a final fourth wish, she tries to undo her mistakes. The twist? Another girl gets three wishes and turns Samantha into a crow. The end.
Night of the Living Dummy (Book 7)
Twin sisters Lindy and Kris have come into possession of two utterly horrifying ventriloquist dummies, to which they give the quite unfortunate names “Slappy” and “Mr. Wood” (ew). Of course, Mr. Wood comes alive and begins to wreak havoc. All of which is standard, albeit disturbing, order until he tries to STRANGLE THE FAMILY DOG. That’s over the line.
Welcome to Camp Nightmare (Book 9)
There’s no end to the horrors in this book: From poisonous snakes and disappearing children to a wild creature called the Sabre, Stine stuffs his tale with a lot of grisly details. But the scariest part? The man in charge of Camp Nightmare, Uncle Al, who won’t let the campers call their parents, never mails their letters home and, over all, seems to enjoy their fright. And nothing is scarier than realizing that the people we should be able to trust are actually against us.