#Welcome to Dead House

[y2kbeautyandother2000sstuff]

Goosebumps "Welcome to Dead House" by R.L. Stine

1992

Found on Ebay, user arborhome

[staggbones]

Karen Summerset was one of the children who lived in dark falls at the time of the chemistry plant malfunction. Dark falls was a small, tourist community of everyone who knew everyone, it was tight knit. At least, until mysterious men began to show up. A chemistry plant was established, run by men in black suits. At first, they claimed that they were studying a chemical that could power hundreds of cities at a time, and then when the workers began to experience odd burns, they claimed it was to help American soldiers while they were at war. Along with the chemistry plant came noise and smog, the air was thick and visitors to the small, scenic town became slim, until they became none. Jobs were lost because of this, forcing more and more of the people that lived there to work in the chemistry plant to try to keep their families fed. Karen Summerset's father was one of the people working at the plant when it malfunctioned. With so many people working at a plant out of desperation instead of knowledge, it was bound to fail. It was almost like the men in black wanted it to happen. A cloud of noxious gasses was released into the smog over Dark Falls, trapping it above the small town. They thought things were fine, they were assured that everything would be fine... and then.. the burns appeared. Skin started falling from bone, nobody could keep food down, hair was falling out. These people were rotting before they were even dead.

[brokehorrorfan]

Cavity Colors has released three Goosebumps shirts designed by Yannick Bouchard, Jert, and Hillary White ($30) plus two enamel pins designed by White ($15).

[tlbodine]

Overthinking: Welcome to Dead House

Welcome to Dead House (1992) is first in series and proof of concept for what Goosebumps would become. To briefly contextualize the series: R.L. Stine (Bob to his friends) began as a comedy writer. He worked in magazines and television, helping to create the surreal muppet humor kid's show Eureka's Castle.

He started writing the Fear Street series -- a bunch of YA horror novels -- in the late 80s, at a time when horror was at its peak in pop culture and teen slashers were all over the movie theater. But horror for younger kids was a largely untapped market rife for the taking. (Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books blazed the way initially, between 1989 and 1991).

And thus, Goosebumps was born. The challenge? Writing books that would intrigue the middle grade set (generally readers between 8-12) and deliver them some proper scares without being too traumatizing. Where the Fear Street books often draw on tropes from 80s slashers, Goosebumps is more likely to emulate the kind 1950s pulp monster movies that Stine would have grown up on. Eventually, a pretty consistent formula would arise, and some favorite recurring elements begin here: siblings, a dog, an unfamiliar location, unhelpful parents. But in other ways, Welcome to Dead House is decidedly un-Goosebumps-like. We'll break that down, but first...

The Story

Welcome to Dead House is about Amanda and Josh, siblings who are rather reluctantly moved to the unnervingly named town of Dark Falls after their father (a writer eager to quit his day job and write full-time) inherits a house from an unknown great-uncle. He's excited for the opportunity to sell the old house and live off that until his career really takes off, and his wife is going along with that plan for....some reason. Hey, it was the 90s, maybe it could have worked!

Along for the ride is Petey, a white terrier who's normally sweet-tempered and obedient but will spend the rest of this book barking and growling at everyone he meets. If they'd just paid attention to Petey's instincts, this book's tragedies could have been avoided. Alas.

After a tour by the charming, handsome, (and utterly unpopular with Petey) realtor Mr. Dawes, the family moves into the big house. It's on a shady street, with tall trees looming over all the buildings, and a cemetery at the end of the block just past the school. Nobody ever seems to turn their lights on. We do eventually meet the neighborhood kids, though. There's a ton of them and they're very friendly but more than a little unnerving. Also, they keep telling Amanda that they used to live in her house. What's up with that?

We eventually figure out, after a few nights at atmospheric creepy haunting events -- figures seemingly appearing and disappearing on the stairs, giggling in the closet, curtains fluttering without a breeze -- that the neighborhood kids are undead ghouls. In fact, everyone in town is dead, courtesy of a toxic gas leak from a nearby factory. And in order to maintain their living dead status, they must annually sacrifice and drink the blood of a family. Which they do by luring them out with an enticing letter about inheriting The Dead House.

What a racket!

We find this out after, tragically, catching up with a now-ghoulified Petey. They had to kill the dog because he was onto them. Those jerks. Also, they're about to start the sacrifice with mom and dad. Luckily, the ghouls are weak to bright light, so the kids are able to free their parents by knocking down a tree (just go with it) and they haven't sold their old house so they pack up and leave right away.

Just in time for...new owners to show up at Dead House? Amanda tells them, "I used to live in your house." before they speed away, and surely that realtor couldn't have been Mr. Dawes...

Overthinking It

I read Welcome to Dead House the first time out of the library. I was already a dyed-in-the-wool Goosebumps fan at this point, so I read it with a kind of reverence, as if it were an ancient tome and not a book that had come out less than five years before I read it.

I have, since, always remembered it as the only Goosebumps book where a character actually dies.

In fact, in my memory, all of the characters die. That's the way I've remembered it for thirty years: the parents are lured to a party with all the neighborhood ghouls. There they are dead and turned. Petey is found dead and turned. And in the end, the kids have joined the rest of the community in perpetuating the cycle.

"I used to live in your house."

I had, apparently, completely forgotten the climax where we rescue the parents. What I had remembered instead was the truly chilling line from Mr. Dawes: "It's time to join your parents. It doesn't hurt to die."

Now, this would not be the first time I have rewritten the ending of a childhood story to be darker than it actually was. We all recall that I spent many years firmly believing that The Velveteen Rabbit ended with the titular stuffed bunny being burned alive in the trash heap. But in this case, if Reddit is any indication at least, I'm not the only one who thinks Stine's ending is at least ambiguous.

I think the ending I remember is certainly a stronger one, even if it's likely too dark for a Goosebumps book. It's already brutal that we kill Petey, and that the kids discover him, smelling like a corpse, with red eyes and a total disinterest in them. It's certainly for the best that they didn't find their parents in a similar state. (So why do I remember so certainly that they did?)

The book is at least purposefully ambiguous about the survival of Mr. Dawes. This is perhaps justified in that Amanda, our narrator, is frequently letting her imagination get away with her. Her natural-born anxiety is the main vector of scares for the first 2/3rds of the book. She's constantly getting herself worked up about things that aren't really there. Or is she? Because she's not really wrong about the ghost kids in her house. Her instincts actually seem pretty spot-on. I hope she lives long enough to learn to trust her own gut feelings.

I have many unanswered questions about the mechanics of the haunting in this book. They seem to be physical beings that can touch you and interact with the physical world well enough to play softball. But they can also seemingly appear and disappear at will inside the house? And the beam of a strong flashlight is enough (in the book's most horrifying sequence) to melt a ghoul's flesh off and render him to dust (not before his eyeballs pop out and roll away) but the dog isn't affected by the flashlight? Is it because he's newly turned? Are the rules different for dogs?

Also like. How does this entire town work. Is it just their neighborhood that's full of ghosts? Are there ghouls working at the grocery store? Who manages the utilities? Aside from Mr. Dawes, we never see any other adults, although presumably they must be there at the end in time to kill(?) them all (?) with sunlight??

At one point, George Romero wrote a screenplay for a film adaptation, and I am deeply saddened that we never got to see it made. I'm 100% Here For This.

If You Liked This One, THESE Will Really Give You Goosebumps

If you enjoy the idea of a young heroine rescuing her clueless parents, may I pointed you toward Neil Gaiman's Coraline (book or movie) or the Miyazaki film Spirited Away?

(I know Gaiman is persona non grata. But Henry Selick's film adaptation is top-notch. Your choice whether you feel comfortable supporting that).

For the specific horror of a beloved pet becoming an aloof, living corpse, there is of course Stephen King's Pet Sematary.

As for stories about haunted houses, there are too many to count. For the vibes of this particular book, though, may I direct you to the OG 13 Ghosts, directed by William Castle in 1960. It has essentially nothing in common with the 2000s film of the same name. Instead, it features a family who get the opportunity to change their socioeconomic status by moving into a home they've seemingly inherited, only to discover it comes with more than a dozen ghosts...and that's the least of their worries. Compare and contrast with Sinister (2012) in which an author's insistence on moving his family to a haunted house is their undoing.

When was the last time YOU read Welcome to Dead House? Do you remember the ending any differently than I do?

[decrepitdeer]

This book was so brutal for no reason-

I'm planning on doing some of the other Goosebumps books, but we will see!

[lostsomewhereinescapism]

I just completely randomly remembered the existence of this character and thought: “damn, I have to draw him.”

[bookcoversaroundtheworld]

Welcome to Dead House - Slovenia

Amanda and Josh think the old house they have just moved into is weird. Spooky. Possibly haunted. And the town of Dark Falls is pretty strange, too. — But their parents don't believe them. You'll get used to it, they say. Go out and make some new friends. — So Amanda and Josh do. But these creepy new friends are not exactly what their parents had in mind.

Because they want to be friends...

...Forever.

[caribeandthebooks]

June 2024 Reading Wrap Up

I read 4 books and got 2 kindle challenge achievements this month!

Now let's look at the breakdown :)

Reading Challenge Progress: I committed to reading 30 books in 2024 so currently I'm ahead by 4 books!

Top Genre read as at June 2024: Fantasy

My first read for June and 16th read for the year was One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig. Rating: 4/5

This was a fun read and I'll definitely be reading the second book. I think the magic system is unique and pretty easy to understand and I also liked the snippets that started the chapters. Thankfully I forgot what other books this was compared to on BookTok so I was able to go into it with only the expectations from the synopsis and the same. I find that a lot of the negative reviews were a matter of expectation management. I think it was quite well done and appreciate it for the debut novel it is.

Book #17 was Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein Rating: 3.5/5

I enjoyed this read, could have had a bit more jungle justice in my opinion but this will do. The book covers a very sad story and lots a sad themes. I saw some reviews where people didn't like the writing but I think the writing is what made it not be explicitly horror and also represent the Trinidadian culture.

Hungry Ghosts helped me obtain the Weekend Lit and Solstice Story Time 2024 Kindle Spring Challenge achievements.

Book #18 was Welcome to Dead House by R.L.Stine. Rating: 3/5

Every now and then you gotta go back to the classics. I enjoyed this read, short and to the point. I will definitely be picking up the other books in the series, all 60+ of them lol.

Book #19 was So You Want To Be Villian? by ErraticErrata. Rating: 4/5

This is the first book of the web series called A Practical Guide to Evil. I very much enjoyed the read and the characters and am looking forward to continuing the series at a later date.

....

And that's it!

See you next month but in the meantime, what have you been reading?

[acosmicvoyager]

ca

[subbyfoxelf]

[tv review] goosebumps 2x20-21 “welcome to dead house” (1997)

yeeeeeah the book is wayyyyy better.

the episode doesn’t really do a great job of building up a spooky vibe before revealing the truth, the subplot with the wreath that supposedly protected them from being attacked by the townsfolk was pretty silly, and the gore was toned way down because, y’know, kids show.

literally the only positive thing i have to say about the episode that wasn’t something that was just imported over from the book is that the ending with petey turning into a zombie (while the canine actor is clearly just super happy and thinks he’s doing a great job WHICH HE IS) is unintentionally hilarious.

c-rank

[3cheerzforvenom]

Reblog if you agree

[ace-and-the-rpg-horrors]

is it just me who's genuinely confused why the show tries to tell us that Charles apparently has anger management issues? because that sort of suggests that he regularly lashes out, to an unreasonable extent, to the point where he's causing unnecessary harm. but i really can't see that?

there's two points where the other characters are scared by his anger. firstly, the Case of the Devlin House. and second, when he attacked The Night Nurse. from what i remember, that is it. those are the only two events where he seriously lost his temper

and both of them were... incredibly justified?

the Devlin father was an abusive and controlling person who reminded Charles way too much of his own father. not to mention, the timeloop they were in meant that Charles had to watch this awful man kill his wife and daughters again and again. Charles was in no way wrong or unjustified when he tried to attack him. he was furious at the violence against an innocent woman and two girls, as most people would be

and as for The Night Nurse, she was a genuine threat too. she was going to send Edwin back to Hell. his best friend and the person most important to him. Charles, once again, acted with the intention of protecting others. he was violent in his manner of pushing her off the cliff, but he really didn't have a choice. it was either get rid of her, or quietly accept his and Edwin's fate. Charles wasn't about to do that. he's a good friend

so, considering that both of his outbursts were during desperate situations in which he was acting in defence, i really struggle to see Charles as someone who's got "a rage problem." we only see him act out when he is pushed right to the edge. his anger is not irrational at all

[feelingthemode]

template by @/internationalcoma

sillies :3

all these ships are canon except glimmadora, zagan & norma, ralsusie, washimi & gori and dracugoona !!

[slimey-wallz]

I had the biggest, chunkiest, art block I've ever had in my WHOLE EXISTENCE. So I scavenged through Tumblr to get inspo, for like 2 hours or something, and I came across this AWESOME person, @sketchquill, who just HAPPENED TO HAVE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OC EVER, and so one thing led to another :) 💕

w/ long hair 💕✨

Can't forget the little guy!

When I finished this I realized that I could have been working on my inbox requests and refs. *Sigh*

[rise-april-art-challenge]

Tournament starts on MONDAY! Tune back in to start casting your votes for the goodest boy!

[benoits-neckerchieves]

It has come to my attention from my long-haired Benoit Blanc post that some of you have been missing out on some stuff & I must rectify this immediately

Dream House (2011)

Various public appearances in 2023 and 2024 (Sept, Nov 23’ and Jan, Mar 24’).

Casino Royale screen test (2005?)

The Invasion (2007)

And probably more; this is just off the top of my head at 2am sooo yk probably missing stuff.