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taiblogcomics · 7 years

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THEN WHO WAS PHONE? (Repost)

Originally posted to Xanga on December 6, 2012

Hey there, sacred artifacts. Well, it's been a while. I'm sure we're all better off for it, but eventually that time had to come again. And so, here we are. It's time once more to read a ridiculous children's horror novel by R.L. Stine. Since we already covered books three and four in the Hall of Horrors line earlier, let's move right along to Goosebumps Hall of Horrors #5: Don't Scream!. Just don't do it, man!

This book sure has a cover:

That disembodied mouth really needs to see an orthodontist, let me tell you. In fact, I'm not even sure that lower jaw has any human teeth at all. Surprisingly, this image does happen in the book. It's not indicative of the story in any way, but it's there.

Our protagonist for this go-round is Jack Harmon. His one-dimensional character trait is being picked on by bullies. His most frequent tormenters are "Big Mick" Owens and Darryl "The Hammer" Oliva. Darryl is never referred to as "The Hammer" anywhere but the first page, but this is such a cool name that we're going to keep using it, quotes and all. Today they're twisting Jack's arm, stealing his Red Sox cap, spitting in it, and then getting off the school bus. This is how we're introduced to our main character, guys. Certainly a sign of good things to come!

Jack slumps in some random seat, disappointed he can't be as lucky as you blog readers and be spared all the description of the spit in his hair. As an extra bonus, the story kicks off right away with Jack finding a cellphone in the seat. And if you're wondering, yes, it's specifically a smartphone with "all kinds of apps". Jack doesn't think to check the address book or anything, he just turns it on and puts it to his ear. To his surprise, he's immediately greeted by a girl's voice. Possible references to make jokes on:

A) The Ring 2) Calling D) When A Stranger Calls ?) [reader's choice of phone-based horror story]

The girl on the other end introduces herself as Jack's new best friend. I'm going to save myself some trouble and reveal now that her name is Emmy, since she doesn't actually get a name until late in the book. Jack at first thinks it's his younger sister's babysitter playing a prank. What the heck kind of babysitter is this that this is your first thought? In fact, her name is Mindy, not Vicky or Rosalyn. Jack continues trying to insist it is Mindy, at which point Emmy snaps and says she's not Mindy, and Jack better not make her angry. He wouldn't like her when she's angry.

So if she's not Mindy, the girl must be Jack's pal Eli. Eli wears the hat of "improbable electronics geek" in this story, including a voice changer that clearly Jack thinks can make him sound like a girl. See, Emmy, if you had introduced yourself at the beginning instead of three-quarters of the way into the story, you could avoid this whole thing. This was just a clumsy way to introduce us to characters without introducing the characters, wasn't it? As it is, Jack gets tired of the whole thing and tries to hang up. Unfortunately, turning the power off doesn't make the creepy voice go away, and Emmy continues to talk to him. Hanging up on people is rude, Jack, maybe this haunting will help you improve as a person~

Jack is at first terrified and confused, but then he gets a great idea: get off the bus and leave the phone behind. Ah, Goosebumps: where a main character's intricate plan equates to a real-world person's common sense. Jack puts this daring plan into action, only to be thwarted by an incidental character throwing the phone out the window to him. Wow, what if this had been different circumstances, where the owner cared and she missed? In fact, why did Jack bother to catch it? You knucklehead. Everything that happens now is directly the fault of your hand-eye coordination. Jack then starts screaming at the phone, saying how it can't call him because he switched it off. Passersby give him "this kid is a lunatic" stares.

Jack gets home and starts fiddling with the phone some more, despite it containing the threatening voice of a disembodied girl. He checks the section labelled "My Photos", and finds it's all full of pictures of him and his family. And, like, not candid shots either. Though that would've been a good, creepy, "holy shit, real-world stalkers" bit. No, it's just more supernatural nonsense that is never explained or mentioned again. Jack decides this is the best thing to freak out over and trots downstairs to show the phone to Mindy. Mindy's in the kitchen making mac-and-cheese for little sister Rachel. Jack doesn't want any, which baffles Mindy. "Everybody likes mac and cheese after school." And if you don't, you're an America-hating commie Martian!

Jack decides to tell everything to Mindy, and Mindy is appropriately skeptical. She picks up the phone herself and begins asking into it for the girl. There's no response, and Jack looks like an idiot. Ah, a Goosebumps protagonist in their natural habitat. Rachel chimes in that Jack is always a liar, and I've used flimsier excuses to post the Applejack meme.

"'Course some girl talks to me through the phone! Ah get loads of calls from girls every day!"

Jack shamefully goes back to his room, and Emmy chides him for trying to show her to the babysitter. Jack counters with the notion that he could just give the phone to his parents and ask them to find the owner. Emmy is quiet for a moment, then electrocutes Jack. Why, of course a phone's battery has enough charge to reduce a person to twitching spasms! Also, completely reasonable reaction, and a sure route to friendship. Emmy threatens to do it again if Jack doesn't listen to her, and even threatens his sister. More friendship!

Eli shows up now, having been summoned by Jack earlier. Eli is described as a little chubby and wearing cargo pants with pockets full of junk and T-shirts with jokes that aren't funny on them. Finally, an accurate description of what a kid would wear. If you were wondering, today's shirt says "I'm with brilliant" and points up at Eli's face. Wow, they weren't kidding about the "not funny" bit, eh? Now that we've had some accuracy, are you ready for irrelevant nonsense that I'm going to rant about anyway?

Eli also shows up playing a handheld video game system. It's a touch-controlled game with glasses-less 3D graphics. Why, it's the... Digi-GameFreak 4. What. C'mon, guys, these books have referred to the Wii by name before. And this book came out in January 2012, only a couple months before the 3DS hit the market. Did you really have to make up some generic bullshit system that doesn't exist? Also, stop saying "game-player". Nobody calls them that. They're handhelds or portables. I normally wouldn't mind so much, this is pretty standard for Goosebumps to make up fake things (see: any time comics are mentioned), but they have specifically mentioned the Wii by name before, as I said. It just feels horribly inconsistant

Jack explains the whole story to Eli, and he's a little more believing than Mindy. In fact, Emmy even obliges him a "go away, Jack has a new best friend", and Eli has to think about that for a while. Eventually, he comes to the conclusion that the phone has two SIM cards in it. And a second set of receivers and speakers, too. I'm not sure you can get all that junk inside a thin little smartphone and have it still function, and even if you can, that's a really elaborate and expensive prank to play on a middle schooler.

Jack considers this, then decides that even if this is a thing, Eli can't open it up because of how shocking Emmy reacts. Eli comes up with another plan. He'll put the phone in a box, and then he'll put that box inside of another box, and then he'll mail that box to himself. And when it arrives, he'll smash it with a hammer! Or, to save on postage, he'll just skip to the last step and gets a sledgehammer out of Jack's basement. The phone is quickly reduced to its component parts and splinters of plastic. Emmy doesn't even have the decency to scream.

Well, book's over, right? Not quite.

Satisfied that his technical knowhow (i.e. breaking stuff) has triumphed, Eli decides to play his bullshit video game some more. Oh, but this turns out to be a dumb idea. Emmy has moved from the broken phone to the handheld. So, she's basically the Cyborg Superman now. And boy is she miffed. And thus, she electrocutes Eli so badly that the game melts. Um, wow. The fact that he even moves after that is kind of unbelievable. The only damage he incurs are various burns on his hands. Jack's dad (Peter, I hope) walks by and notices the smoldering wreckage. He comments that games shouldn't overheat like that, it could be dangerous.

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Eli stays for dinner, Emmy stays forever, and Jack's dad decides they should all go to the big electronics store after dinner. Dad has an itching for a new HD TV (you know what HD is, Stine/ghostwriter, but not the 3DS?), and he invites Jack along. Jack decides to yet again tell everyone about the phone and the girl inside it. His parents are horrified that he would wantonly smash a piece of electronic equipment that didn't belong to him, and they're kind of skeptical about electronic ghost girls, too. His mom shows her general ignorance of modern technology by suggesting the idea that he just didn't turn off the phone good enough, so Emmy just kept talking. They then demand to see the ruins of the bullshit handheld game.

Dad looks over the device for a minute, asking the girl to speak up. Then he hits it against his palm as if it lost its picture or something. This causes the handheld to let out a deafening screech that keeps on screeching. Eventually it subsides, and everyone is in quite a bit of pain. Dad decides "That player is defective. It's dangerous." Please refer to my previous Pinkie Pie clip. Conveniently, Eli bought the thing at the same place Dad intends to buy his new TV, so he's going to show it to the manager while there and get it replaced for Eli. He then herds the two boys into the car with him, and Jack wonders what the worst Emmy could do if she found out where they're going. Eli replies, "She could blow up the car." Yes, you're being very helpful.

Unfortunately for us, Emmy does not blow up the car, and the story continues. In fact, pretty much nothing happens at all. They get to the store without incident, and the defective video game is turned in to the manager. Eli and Jack dare to hope they are finally free. This is an incredibly dumb thing to do, because almost immediately all the lights and televisions flicker, and a giant pair of lips appears on each screen. Hey, there's that cover image. The lips start announcing that Jack can't outwit her and she'll always be here. People are confused, and it goes away as suddenly as it happened. Wow, this was such a climactic scene that it needed to be on the cover, yes?

Anyway, Eli gets his new handheld, Dad mistook the sale date of televisions, and they leave almost without incident. Then Dad suddenly remembers what else they should be doing: he buys Jack a cellphone. You know, the very device you were just deeply upset with him for destroying 20 minutes ago at dinner. Dad says it's high time he had one, so I guess destroying equipment is a rite of passage in the Harmon family? Hey, try wrecking the car next, Jack. After lengthy paperwork (one of the true horrors in the book), Jack has his own phone and is at home. Suddenly, Emmy starts talking to him through the phone, telling Jack not to worry, she's still here~

Jack thinks it's high time for some damn answers. He wants to know exactly who Emmy is (who still hasn't been named at this point, remember), and she's reluctant to say anything. Eventually she fesses up to being an AI glitch. Just an experiment in artificial intelligence that somehow got an electrical glitch and became a sentient digital lifeform.

Welp.

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Anyway, Emmy (finally named now) is a living virtual pet, basically, and she can manipulate electricity (or "digital signals", as she says) to attack or move around. They're what keep her alive. But being alive isn't enough for her. She wants companionship. She's sure other digital people like her exist, and Jack's going to help her find them. In fact, he'll do whatever she wants or she'll hurt him. How fun~ All this aside, shouldn't this be a sci-fi book, and not horror?

Next day at school, Jack tries to text this to Eli, but Eli reports he didn't get them. Eli is intrigued by this whole artificial intelligence slant, and believe me, he's the only one. They head for class, and class is uneventful. That is, until Emmy starts detecting a signal. Another digital person is nearby, and she wants Jack to go retrieve it. Yes, in the middle of class. Jack refuses, of course, and Emmy threatens to burn all the flesh off his leg if he doesn't. I'm no leg expert, but that may hinder the retrieval of electric friends, you know. Either way, Emmy orders Jack to steal the laptop. Jack protests that he's in the middle of class, but she doesn't care. In fact, she finds him highly disobedient, and demands a show of obedience or she'll flashfry his pants. "Stand on your head, Jack," she commands.

Jack, not wanting the book to be any stupider, refuses. He gets a big shock for his trouble, and yelps and falls out of his chair. The teacher asks what the commotion is, and Jack claims to have been stung by a bee. The teacher dryly replies that it must've been a very big bee for him to make such a fuss. Hey. Hey, teach. Fuck you. You ever been stung by a bee? It fucking hurts. I'd like to see you not yelp and jump when stung. Hell, maybe he's allergic and is now dying. But no, you gotta be a snarky bitch about it.

Despite all this, Emmy still demands headstands. The chapter ends, and it cuts to after class, where he has clearly done a headstand. Mick and "The Hammer" are riding him about it, and Jack says that the bee sting just made him loopy. Everyone in this school is nuts, and I'm even including Emmy in that. Seriously, Emmy, you haunt technology, and this is the best you can do? There's more generic harassment, Mick expresses interest in Jack's digital watch, and Jack threatens to tell the bus driver, and she'll throw them off the bus. They laugh and say she can't do that, she'll lose her job. Um, hi, dumbshits, that's exactly what she can do. She won't lose her job, that is her job. This is completely ridiculous. It's like the author lives slightly left of reality. Handheld video game with touch controls and 3D graphics? Some other brand. Bus driver enforces rules? Lose her job. Bruce Wayne's parents shot in alley? Becomes the Joker.

The next day, Jack hides in the school so he can steal a laptop with a digital person inside. I totally just typed that sentence. He doesn't even wait until nightfall when all the teachers have left. No, just 'til, like, five. All the kids are gone, but there's still plenty of adults around. Yeah, I feel good about this plan. I'm excited by this. Well, long story short, due to this plan being super dumb, Jack is caught with laptop in his hands. The teacher questions him about it, and he makes up a story about how he was putting the laptop back. The teacher buys this, and Emmy is annoyed. But what can they do~? Emmy says Jack better do better next time. Jack is sure next time he'll be caught. And he narrates to us that, in fact, he was. But that's a long frightening story. So it has no chance of being in this book~?

The next next day, Emmy now detects a signal from none other than Mick's camera. Naturally, Jack is not keen on stealing from Mick. But after Emmy makes his backpack burst into flames, Jack starts to warm up to the idea. Jack makes a show of bumping into Mick at lunch, and deftly steals the camera in the mashup. Mick and "The Hammer" respond by eating Jack's lunch. Emmy doesn't have time to check out the camera yet, and thusly on the bus, Mick decides to go through Jack's backpack when he notices the burns. He finds the camera, but doesn't realise it's his. Instead he decides to give it to "The Hammer" as a present. So they lose the camera without accomplishing anything. Way to waste our time~

Not having had his fill of doing dumb stuff, Jack sneaks out of the house that night to wander the streets until Emmy picks up a signal. Finally she notices one outside a darkened house, one of Jack's neighbours. She commands Jack to break in and steal whatever it is that she's registering. Since this is obviously the best possible plan, Jack does, in fact, break into the house, reasoning that his neighbour is out late. There's a brief scene where Jack is startled by a cat that adds nothing, and then he locates the source of the signal: a clock radio. He takes it and leaves. Here's the super-dumb part: Emmy has him stop and let her scan the radio before they get too far. Couldn't she have done that in the bedroom? It'd be easier, because now Jack has to sneak back into the house and put the clock radio back. Predictably, he gets caught in the middle of this.

We cut away, and return to Jack being returned home and explaining this whole thing to his parents. Jack has the brilliant idea of saying it was a dare and pinning it on Mick and "The Hammer". What he doesn't realise until seconds later is that his mother would call up their parents. There's a brief phone conversation, and Jack's mom comes back mad. Turns out Mick figured out the camera switcheroo. Jack apologised a crazy amount and basically goes to bed mad.

The next morning, Jack wakes up to find his sister in his room. She's messing with the cellphone, and Jack realises what's going to happen just before it does: the cellphone messes back, and little Rachel is electrocuted. Jack finally snaps like a twig and smashes the cellphone with the sledgehammer that just happened to still be lying around. Emmy chides him for being dumb and says he can't get rid of her that easily. Jack smashes his iPod too, followed by his computer. Then the TV. Then the clock above the bed. Jack later discovers himself being hugged by Mindy, completely unaware of exactly what went on. Jack may be the first Goosebumps character to officially go super nuts~

No, really. He even sees a child psychologist. There's talking, there's therapy, there's a timeskip. And Jack doesn't hear from Emmy at all. Until one day a couple weeks later, he does. He's not happy about this. Turns out she's been hiding in his digital watch the whole time. And she's ready for him to find more friends for her again~

Jack suddenly has an out, though. Mick walks up, mocking Jack for talking to his watch. He's going to beat Jack up for stealing his camera, and then he's moving away to Detroit. Jack suddenly gets an idea. He gives Mick his digital watch as a gift. Mick's been admiring it throughout the book, and he decides this is good enough. He exits, and takes the watch with Emmy in it with him. And this time, Jack is really free~

Oh, except we need a crappy twist ending. Mick moves and days pass. Emmy is not heard from whatsoever. Eventually, the phone rings, and Jack nervously picks it up. Fortunately, it's not Emmy. It's a boy's voice. Mick's, to be exact. He begs Jack to help him. He's trapped in the phone, thanks to Emmy. And he can hurt Jack if he won't help... Haha, that makes no sense~

Sheesh. Well, despite what you might think, this book is not the worst thing I've ever read. In fact, this might be one of the better books I've read in this series. It's kind of a clever idea, and as usual it's ruined by shoddy execution. It also makes no sense as a Goosebumps book. It's like a sci-fi novel that got misappropriated into crappy children's horror. The ending also comes right the fuck out of nowhere, and has no explanation with the rest of the text. Were there even any other digital entities? Who can tell~? And yet, despite the dumbness present throughout, it wasn't the worst thing ever. It was at least readable, and had a interesting premise. But really, leave the technology-based horror to those who have actually used technology invented in the last 20 years~

One more thing: what the hell does the title have to do with anything? Were there no phone puns available?

#reviews #Goosebumps #Goosebumps Hall of Horrors #Taiblog

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