R.L Stine’s Rainy Night Theater

Hello, Spongey here.

At this point, R.L Stine has put his hand in every pot there is. He’ll grace every medium he can get hands on, and I mean directly not just through adaptations. We’ve seen him do comics and we’ll perhaps touch on the show Eureka’s Castle someday. He’s looking for different places to his stories and today we got an interesting example I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while.

That being audio stories. Today we’re talking about a series of 10 short stories that were audio only and posted to Stine’s website sometime in 2011. They were posted in batches with a few each time until it stopped at 10. I assume they were all done at once and he just spread them out. These are basically free Stine stories all done with a full cast, although not with anyone too notable. All presented through soundcloud so Stine can finally link his soundcloud when a tweet blows up.

It’s a steal, really. Sometimes free isn’t the best so there is the chance these are leftover weak stories he couldn’t fit anywhere else. I do recall listening most as they came out and recall at least most of them reasonably well. I remember liking them generally but the details are fuzzy. These are all on most podcasts platforms so I guess it’s a Stinecast but not really.

It’s interesting to have Stine go to an audio only medium. These operate mostly like his standard stories but take advantage of being more dialogue and build up heavy. Since then he has had things like Camp Red Moon for Audible and R.L Stine’s Story Club to carry the torch from these. I don’t see many talk about these per say so that’s why I’m here.

I should mention that Stine’s son Matt is a director, producer and music guy on these. I have nothing to add to that, it’s neat. As a fun break from full books, I’ll look at these stories and how they are. How do these compared to his book story collections? How many of his tropes are presents? Are any actors in here notable? Guess we’ll find out together.

This, is R.L. Stine’s Rainy Night Theater

The Kid Behind the Door

Sam and her sister Monica are staying with their Aunt Rhonda, who they had never met before. Always a good sign in these. She lives in a mansion in the woods, another good sign. Auntie is welcoming but warms them not to go into “Dougie’s room”. 3 strikes, she’s out.

Naturally this just makes her curious about who Dougie even is, imaging a monster kid. Oh and Rhonda compliments Monica’s red hair. Sigh, old habits die hard. They explore the house and approach Dougie’s room, even though there’s not much to indicate this is the room. They get interrupted by Rhonda’s yapping dog and they go to dinner.

Auntie reveals she is a scientist, because we’re just piling on all the tropes. The kids are alone most of the time when Rhonda being busy and get curious about that room. They hear some odd sounds and wonder what the deal with Dougie is. Maybe they’ll them how to dougie. …What, this is 2011 after all. They do the usual thing of looking into it and they hear someone calling for help.

The door is locked but they hit it open because this is the weakest door open. They get in and find a regular looking boy in a seemingly normal room. This is Dougie and he says he isn’t a ghost. Huh, this is moving fast and we’re just like 6 minutes into a 15 minute thing. Dougie doesn’t seem to know much, even acts like the being locked in thing was no big deal.

The dog comes in…then Dougie turns into a monster and eats it. Yep, this is Jovial Bob story all right. I should mention they explicitly mention hearing the crunching of the dog’s bones as it gets chewed up. Damn. So yeah, they let out a monster and try to get him back in the room. Also, gotta love the obvious voice filter on Dougie.

He tries to eat Sam and we get a lot of detail that will make the vore fans happy. Thankfully Rhonda shows up to save the day and push Dougie back in. It turns out the aunt was watching them through a camera the whole time. They go to her lab where she insists that the room was empty and the kids created a monster.

See, she made up the Dougie thing and their imagination filled in the rest. Rhonda reveals she isn’t their aunt at all and is a random scientist working for The Center for Mind Reality Research. The kids have been noted for their powerful imaginations and Rhonda has built a brain chip for people with very strong imaginations and planted it in them a few nights ago.

The chip is what brought Dougie to life, as it made their imagination real. First off, we’re getting into Mummy Walks territory with the chip stuff, great. And second of all, what the hell. I don’t think I ever predicted this being where it goes. It’s creative, I’ll give it that. I dig it, honestly. But wait, did the parents know of all this?

Although the dog eating shows the flaw in this being her test, even if she doesn’t seem to care. She wants to keep them here to study their minds, by literally opening their skulls to peek at the brain. Marco’s doctor strikes again! Another problem with Rhonda’s plan? She told them everything so now they know they imagine anything…including Dougie again to eat their captor.

Nice going. They run as they hear the sound of a scientist being swallowed by a monster. Damn, a body count. Sam imagines a fancy car for them to drive home. Hopefully the cops don’t catch the minors driving. The End. Well that was something.

Thoughts:

An oddly solid start. It starts out being generic as all get out but man did it surprise me. I didn’t see the twist coming and it was oddly clever. The idea it settles on is a good one and it has a rare happy ending that also gets in a dark moment. The narrator can be a bit stiff at times with some odd music choices though. It could be tighter to make the first half feel like generic and maybe go more all out with the imagination surf but that ending really helps it. It’s balls to the wall and that’s just how I like it.

Rating: Good

The Terror After School

Emmy Lucas is in detention with her friends Lexi and Johnny, which happens a lot even though they don’t deserve it.

“You got that right, dude”

“Why do you call me dude, I’m a girl”

I’m not touching that one.

They’re worried about having miss stuff at home over this. So is this detention gonna be purgatory or something? They hear some old noises, which lets Johnny talk about rumors of the school being haunted. Once upon a time, a kid was left alone at school and he still haunts the halls cuz he somehow died I guess. They argue a lot with Emmy trying to mediate this whole thing.

Johnny is the main jerk here, typical type. Emmy reveals she played a prank on the teacher so she isn’t exactly innocent. Lexi trips up a kid everyone hates, named Marky Marvin. There’s a reference. Johnny is just disliked for doing things like pouring hot sauce into the school macaroni. At least it wasn’t Identity Seeds?

So yeah, they all indeed actually did something to deserve this to some extent. There’s not even a teacher watching over them at least until Mr. Portus shows up. He was outside the door the whole time his actor is putting on a very theatric voice. He’s so upset that he keeps repeating sentences and his eyes are rolling around.

He says “You know you can’t go home. You know I have to shut you down”. Wait, what. He says they are not “functioning”. I think you’ve caught on. He cuts to the chase and reveal that, you guessed it, the kids are all robots. And you know what happens to a robot that doesn’t function. That escalated quickly.

We don’t get much for details beyond them not working too well and needing to be shut down. It’s creepy how he goes on about how he will shut them down. The kids think he’s crazy and they’re all humans. His hand goes up her arm and well that just looks like stranger danger stuff. The kids bolt it with the teacher chasing them.

He eventually trips and starts reenacting that one commercial. He also begins to malfunction because HE is the robot! Well the repeating made that obvious. The kids aren’t shocked as it seems they all knew this and try to put him back together. He insists he has to finish his job but they say they have the job that needs finishing.

The kids are robot testers and the teacher failed big time. This school has robot teachers and the kids got an after school job testing the robot teachers, including our man here. If AI goes the way its going, this is gonna be non-fiction. The way Portus talks makes me feel bad for him, honestly. All the talk the kids had early on was a test since they knew he was listening and had to see how he reacted to it.

They turn the poor robot man off and put him in the closest since they have more robots to test. They go back into place and repeat everything we heard at the start although this time they talk about testing the robot teachers with Emmy saying it’s cruel. We’re getting into ethics again?

And then Lexi and Johnny turn against her, saying she’s not functioning. Once again, what. Turns out they have student robots, Emmy is one of them, and the others are kid robot testers assigned to her as well as Portus. They like Emmy and she almost passed but that complaining made her fail. She dared to not like missing dinner for all so she must be shut down.

So basically just for calling out the system for doing this she gets punished. Is this our 2nd Stine story set in a dystopian future? They find the skin slap revealing the shut off switch and-The end. It just stops mid sentences. Damn. A good abrupt ending, never thought I’d see it.

Thoughts:

Man these hit the ground running, huh? This can get somewhat stretched out but it goes places. It again starts out in a typical place and you think the twist is obvious, but it keeps throwing surprises. The robot has been done but I like how we that triple twist, basically. It seems basic at first but the implications of this world make this story low key terrifying. I don’t think it’s meant to be that deep but it’s there and I like it.

Honestly so far Stine has been earning some good will with how crazy these gets. So yeah, an effective story with crazy twists that manage to work well in creating a good scary story. (Plus it gave me The Perfect Brother vibes)

Rating: Good

How to Color a Monster

James is a kid that sounds an awful lot like a grown man who is visiting his Grandma in her big house, along with his sister. Will this have mind stuff too? Playing dusty old board games and exploring empty rooms gets old for the kids fairly quickly.

Grandma sounds 30 years younger leaving Mary as the only normal voiced one. They go into the attic and discover an old coloring book, with the title in a strange language. With nothing better to do, they indulge and color in some stuff. Weirdly wholesome.

James isn’t good at coloring inside the lines but doesn’t care. This is gonna turn into the weirdest PSA ever. That night they hear stomping in the attic. They quickly discovers it’s a monster that looks like a picture from the coloring book.

They just be glad they didn’t find a How to Draw Manga book. They go to Grandma who reveals the book belonged to Grandpa. The language on the cover is “the old language from the old country”. Very specific, thanks. Turns out there is a warning not to color outside the lines, figures. Grandpa was a sorcerer who lived in a village with monsters and used the book to imprison them. Beware the Snowman vibes, I like it.

The monster grabs Grandma and they panic. Mary suggests coloring a monster correctly to balance out the universe I guess. But whoops be goes outside the lines and unleashes another. Why did Grandpa design it like this?

It takes Mary and James finds another coloring book with old language on it. This one has a picture of Grandpa on it and he gets a crazy idea: He colors that picture, outside the lines. It works and Grandpa is back baby. He happens to voiced by none other than Matt Stine. Yay Nepo Baby! He’s basically a gross decaying zombie which is cool. After hearing what went down, he colors a monster correctly.

It works and the monsters are gone with the girls being okay. It’s not quite happy as Grandma is upset that Grandpa is back. She asks if he read the words on the book. Why does she expect him to read the “old language”?

Also how come the grandparents have liberally no accents? Anyway the words say if Grandpa comes back to life, he will stay forever. Sure. He asks what is for dinner and demands roast beef forever. The End.

Surley the scariest note Stine ever ended on.

Thoughts:

A bit weaker than the first couple but still solid. The concept is creative and flows well with enough action. It can feel rushed with some odd voice choices and the old country thing feels too vague. Ending is good and amusing. So yeah, nothing deep but it’s a basic and creative one that works well enough.

The Head Start

Ashlee Thomas (no relation to Suki) tells us off the bat she hopes she can warn us about this horrible thing that happened to her and her cousin Donny. Fair warning but the happy go lucky music kind of takes away from the scare factor a bit. She’s visiting her cousin Dunny and aunt Lucy who is on the spry side. When they meet her she says they’ll race to the house and they’ll be given a head start. I’m sure that won’t have importance. Also, our 3rd visiting relative already?

Aunt Lucy likes to turn everything into a competition she has to win, big Wilson Schlame energy. Lucy is going out to help a neighbor friend so they will be alone. Donny shows Ashlee to his “special den” in the basement which as a flat screen TV and PlayStation 3. I could make fun of the modern-ness or the fact that the music here is funky for some reason.

After they play a “battle game”, they mess around with a Frisbee. It’s a fun back and worth instead of being toxic so that’s nice. They end up knocking over some cartoons to reveal a hidden door. Go ahead, those are always a great sign, just like at Vampire Breath and Let’s Get Invisible. Naturally, they look into it and the room seems to be just a little office.

They find a shelf full of scary books, as Uncle Frank used to be into that stuff. One book is a diary and they read it since books never got anyone into trouble in these. It goes into how they love to run in the woods while having fur. They’re just a furry, don’t worry. But yeah, someone here is either writing a scary stuff or they’re a werewolf. Of course, had to fit one in there.

It goes into enough detail for them to think it’s real and it is Frank. I mean, could be anyone, a bit odd to assume it’s him right away. Did no one sign their name on this thing? Skimming through it, it’s more of the same with the bonus of confirming that it’s at least one of Donny’s parents. They default to Frank even though come on, women can werewolves these days. Frank is gone each night and they have been reporting wolf attacks for months. Probably should have established that 2nd one sooner.

They call up the diary he works at and they are informed that no Frank Meckler works here. Dun dun dun, guess the sexism was earned. Donny’s dad is a werewolf, there’s a sequel to the Shivers classic right there. They freak out and decide that Lucy has to know about all this. I love how determined and worried Donny is.

They head out to get her and see someone out there crouched down with a cloak on. They mention the “Twilight” which would fit more for vampires. He says to stay away so that basically cinches it. They run away as Lucy comes by or they get to her, whatever. Donny spills out the story and I like we hear him say it muffled as Ashlee just tells us he’s telling it.

Lucy reveals Frank quit his job at the diary…but not for the reason you think. Yeah here’s the twist: Lucy is the werewolf and Frank was patrolling due to suspecting her. Dun dun dun, but yeah I figured. So I assume the love is out of this marriage.

She goes full wolf with Donny being distressingly scared in an over the top way. Lucy can’t control the hunger and must feed, while claiming to love them dearly. Infact, she loves them so much that…she’s going to give them a head start. They run and we hear a bunch of growls. The End. Saw that payoff coming a mile away but still: Damn, Stine! We end on kids basically about to be hunted by their aunt, with her being the mother to one of them.

I feel he’s holding out on us sometimes.

Thoughts:

When I first heard these, this was my easy favorite due to the ending. We’ll see where it lands but I do feel it suffers from being predictable. Granted it’s my fault for reading too many of these. It’s clear where it will go, down the the payoff for the title. But man it has some solid suspense with Donny’s worry being captured well. It leads to a terrifying ending that is pretty upsetting when you consider the implications. I like the ambiguity over if they’re alive after the end, it’s some dark stuff.

It has standard trappings and odd music choices but leads to a solid finale, so it gets full points here. We’re getting more standard to an extent but also certainly scarier.

Welcome to My Nightmare

There’s an ominous title. Julie wants to tell us about her frightening nightmare, which is said in past tense which I imagine will get confusing. She’s in some room with the feeling something is there with her. Right away this has the strongest atmosphere, with the music and general feeling of dread as she walks around.

It’s her house and she goes to her kitchen to find a strange boy sitting at the table. He introduces himself as Jeff and he sounds like a grown ass man. Yeah most of the actors are adults but most aren’t quite jarring as others. Jeff says he’s part of the nightmare and wants her to cook something. Make him a sandwich, woman!

Actually he wants an omelet. True horror. Julie tries to wake up and it doesn’t work. She tries to put it off but he just gets more hungry, leading to the most intense chanting of “eggs” ever. He’s so hungry he turns into a toad creature. Didn’t know they were so into eggs. Julie relents and starts to make the eggs, which calms him down. But the eggs start to change into her hands, and then tentacles hatch out of the eggs. Well now it’s just a hentai.

“They landed wetly at my bare feet”

Ah there it is!

Crab creatures crawl of out of eggs, so much for tentacles, while Jeff is upset about the lack of food. She tries to squish them but she’s not fast enough and they start crawling over her. Okay, Julie’s voice actor is really putting in the work here. Jeff can’t help because he’s too hungry, we’ve all been there. They start to bite as Julie continues to fail to wake up from her nightmare.

Jeff that silly Julie can’t wake up from this. That’s because she’s not the one having the nightmare, Jeff is. Julie is trapped in his nightmare. Somehow. It makes about as much as sense as it did in Goblin’s Glare from Tales 4. Julie is like “Noooo” and Jeff transforms again, becoming a monster again. He’s so hungry that he must kill and goes right for Julie.

She cries on about how he should please wake up from his nightmare. Growl. The End. Wait, that’s it? It ends there? What was going on? Did she die? If Jeff a normal kid having a nightmare about this or is he a monster in real life? Is he connected to Keith in any way? Eh whatever.

Thoughts:

That was only 8 minutes, counting the intro and outro and man what a mind bender Stine packed into it This fall into the same camp as all the other dream stories, from Goblin’s Glare to Why I Hate Jack Frost. I rather like it for the same reason as the others. This mostly benefits from the music and acting. Julie’s actor is really good at being upset or scared. We hardly know Julie yet I feel so bad for this poor girl. The music and sound effects really work well here to build up a lot of dread the whole time.

It’s pretty simple, and I like how we get plopped into this with no setup. A girl is in a nightmare and that’s about it. It uses the dream setup as an excuse to not make sense but that works here in making it scarier, especially the implied death at the end. So if we count implications, only one of these lacks death so far. Nice. It’s not the most logical but the execution and dread makes this the scariest one so far. So yeah, I liked it.

Lucky at Cards

Nick Davis is a lucky guy. He won an essay contest and is out celebrating with his friend Taylor, who is a bit upset about getting 2nd place. She thinks she totally should be going on the trip to New York that serves as the prize. I think I just predicted at least one outcome. They pass by a house that we’re told belongs to a fortune teller named Madame Rosa.

That feels like more of a carnival/fair thing than something you just bump into. Taylor is paying for it so sure, he accepts this. Rosa turns out to be what you’d expect, and she goes Nick a creepy vibe. He once had a fortune teller at a birthday party who said she’d have a nasty fall and he did. I’m just gonna call this filler now but I kind of like this having more character building.

She brings out some cards and says they will say something about him, based on the first 5 cards. The first one has a black skull, which brings evil. I’ll cut to the chase and say the rest are black skulls but the music and Rosa’s acting makes it creepy. 5 black skulls is just too much evil in one person. I can comparing these to other Stine stuff but this is big Nightmare Room My Name is Evil stuff.

She says he must keep this evil to himself and can’t go on any trips. So he’s being told this just as the friend has shown she’s jealous. Sure that’s not important. Now I’m being reminded of Birthday Party of no Return but that came later. Nick runs away and is quite upset since he thinks she’s right. He’s a bit gulible.

He skips the next day by playing sick, telling Taylor she can go to New York in his place. The next chance he gets, he sneaks to Madame Rosa’s place to get to the bottom of this and maybe fix things. He finds the cards and discovers they are all black skulls. He’s been pranked, and figures it all out quickly, that Taylor teamed up to do this.

Now I’m thinking of a certain Tales story I haven’t even reviewed yet. Taylor shows up because it turns out Rosa is her aunt which adds to it all. Taylor claims there was no prank and Rosa confirms that. She’s just there, they don’t say she walked in. Magic? He doesn’t show off the deck full of skulls as proof and instead has them shuffle the deck, and hopefully it’s a new one.

Since Taylor is the one getting the cards, she gets other things such as a rose and a sun. He accuses them of switching decks and gets mad. He goes on a rampage, breaking stuff in the room. The curtains catch fire due to some candles and boom, a big fire is here. The cards may be somewhat right or its just a self fulfilling prophecy.

He goes home, as I hope the house didn’t burn down. He took the deck that had the nice cards and takes a look at them. Sure enough, they are all black skulls. Oh wow, so what happens next? Well, nothing because that’s the end. That’s right, it doesn’t even end, it just…stops. So if this wasn’t a prank, how is he so evil? Why? Who did this to him? So many questions. Whatever.

Thoughts:

Yeah, this is sadly the weakest so far. It starts out strong enough, with the luck setup. There’s solid tension with Rosa as well as the mild character building with Nick and Taylor. The pieces are there but in the end nothing is done with them.

It basically stops before it can build to anything. Nothing is explained as Stine avoids the prank outcome for once. And also for once, he should have gone there. The Taylor prank should have been the punchline. Predictable and rehash of some other stories?

Sure, but at least it would be an actual ending. As it is, it feels like it just has no ending. I’m ranting but man it had so much promise but fumbled the bag. It’s mostly fine but I wish Stine finished it.

Can You Keep a Secret?

Danny Mills is 12 (duh) and lives in Grover Hills. The Muppet or the Satyr? It’s a quiet boring town but now people are afraid to go out at night due to rumors of werewolves. First off, come on Stine it’s like Troy said, you only got one werewolf story per collection. 2nd, the upbeat music really sets the spooky mood. One night Danny and his friend Jenny are coming home from a scary movie.

She’s not a big scary movie fan since things are getting scary in real life due to the werewolf idea floating out there. They hear howls and think a werewolf is coming but they just find a boy about their age. His name is Jirard who I guess he’s about to pocket some charity money. Also he sounds like a grown man with a voice filter. He’s late for dinner and has blood on his jacket sleeve. He ran into a tree branch after hearing the howls.

Hmm, suspicious. The boy leaves and the others spot a man in black over near a tree. He seems to be watching them, stranger danger! They run home where Danny notices his neighbor guy sneaking around while dressed in black. Dun dun dun. Alright so that means it totally won’t be him.

We’re then amusingly hit with a newscast telling us that the body of a 50 year old was found by house with part of his chest eaten. Damn, that’s hardcore. Also, they just say werewolf like it’s a hard fact, I love it. Also this is like Full Moon Halloween. Speaking of, Halloween is coming and they are hoping to go out despite the dangers.

They’ve been hanging with Jirard who has been fairly cool. During a gaming session, (playing “Beast Man”), Jirard mentions a cool game he used to play in his home town, called “Can You Keep a Secret?”. Fun fact, there’s a Fear Street with this same title that also spoilers, involves werewolves. Seriously. Anyway, the game has you spilling a secret and the others have to keep it.

That’s…not a game, that’s just a thing you do. They try it out, with Danny admitting that he stole a student’s notes so that he can cheat once. Jenny’s secret is that she stole a sweater at the mall one time. You sure the werewolf is the villain here? Before Jirard can take a turn, they hear noises at the neighbor’s house along with a howl.

They see the neighbor, Mr. Wearing, acting all suspicious. Jirard says he has go home to his dad, who is mad about something. Abusive household alert? Either way Jirard looks rather scared. We get another news report that says a woman was clawed to death. Quite the body count we’re racking up. Halloween hits, and parents generally don’t want them going out but the kids insist and get their way.

I could reference Attack of the Jack O Lanterns or the dumb people who went on during COVID. Either works. There’s not many others but hey more for them. Danny spots Mr. Wearing, in his trademark black outfit, heading towards them. Then Jirard becomes a werewolf, wow who saw that coming except everyone. I’ve read too many of these.

Wearing is a photographer that had been trying to catch him and he gets attacked. That’s on you buddy. Jirard, I kid you not, chews him to pieces. Holy shit. An on screen (on audio?) grisly death! When he’s done, he looks at our heroes.

“Danny, Jenny, it’s my turn. Can you keep a secret?”

Oh that’s why they call it that. The End. So that was basically the same structure as The Head Start when you get down to it. Love a dark ending at least.

Thoughts; I’m a bit conflicted here. I like the structure with how it ramps out, as well as the dark nature with some grisly deaths. The newscaster bits were neat and you do feel the danger around. The issue is on me as I’ve read so many Stine stories that nothing really surprised me. Every beat is fairly clue, with the red herring and who it ended up being. I think just changing a few details, like making the culprit less obvious, would fix this. Otherwise, it does work well enough so if you’re newer to these, you may get more out of it.

The Curse of the Smiling Mummy

Oh boy a Mummy story, that’s always a gamble. I trust these to do a good one, here’s hoping.

David and his friend Amy Walker are on a class trip to the museum, who just got a new mummy. Amy is the joker type, which includes making cracks when the teacher asks questions. Thankfully she’s not too intrusive for us as far as these go. They are lead to the sigh, mummy case, where they see their mummy boy.

Legend says that in life, this mummy had a start time smiling and everyone failed to get him to do it. He’d be prettier if he smiled more. Amy pulls a thing where puts lipstick on the mummy to truly make him smile. And you made him all pretty too! They hear a groan from the mummy’s throat and head out. with David having the sense something feels weird.

A bit later, a security guard informs that a serious crime has been committed, which of course is the smile. Amy doesn’t exactly confess so the kids are all kept in the mummy room until someone confesses. Amy tells David she won’t confess since she’ll get arrested at this point. Damn smiles are serious business. They try to lay low but then they hear footsteeps.

Of course it turns out to be the mummy, who has come to life, and they’re all smiles. The lipstick takes a bit of the horror out of this. A chase ensues, giving us the most action we’ve seen in these. They find a room of mummy cats, now we’re cooking. The mummy cats come alive in response to all the noise, oh man.

They discover a tar pit, which I hope wasn’t there before all this. The mummy corners the kids, with them almost about to fall in the tar. Where’s Ahmed when you need him? The mummy picks up Amy and…tickles her. What. This is the opposite of Dummy Meets the Mummy. The mummy speaks, saying “Thank you. You made me smile”.

D’aww?

The mummy leaves and goes back to sleep. That does defuse the tension somewhat but it was oddly nice so points for that? But once again, Stine refuses to make a mummy a villain. What is his deal, is he secretly a mummy? I already know Stine eats mummy guts. Also, I guess Amy gets away with being a jerk?

The only problem is the mummy cats are still upset and go after them. I thought that would be the end but it goes on as all the cats fall into the tar. Stine hasn’t met a cat he didn’t wanna kill. Once that’s all gone, the teacher finds them. How did no one hear all that? Amy spills the truth but the whole truth so we still get disbelief stuff. At least she told the truth.

“See David, it always pays to tell the truth”

The End. A happy ending, that’s cute to see.

Thoughts:

This one will be subjective but I thought it was pretty good. It flows well with a lot of action and tension throughout and the setup with Amy does work. She’s fun and her actions motivate the plot alright and she at least learns a lesson to an extent. I wish it was a more straight forward comeuppance thing as the twist means her bad actions were good actually. Speaking of, this is our first one to go for the goofy which may turn some off but it worked me.

As played out as the subversion is for Stine, it was an amusing enough payoff and we at least get tension of that. Puts it way above Cure of the Mummy’s Tomb in that respect. The only issues you can find are subjective ones so while it doesn’t strike me as much as others, it’s still pretty good with how it flows well. Not the best Mummy story we’ve seen but it’s one of the better ones.

Don’t Open the Box

Kevin Marks is visited by his Uncle Edgar on his birthday. He’s a scientist (of course) and is always traveling because that’s what they do now. His gift this year is a “test”, in the form of a box. Edgar tells him not to open it, that being the test. He claims it will be a wonderful present if it stays not opened as it will be ruined otherwise.

Well once again I do not suspect anything scary at all. Also there’s some funky music here. The box seems to grow the next morning, which piques his curiosity further. His cousin Monica comes by and is told about the box. She’s the type to bug him about it but he refuses to open it. The box grows further the next day and now he hears something thumping in there. It’s either a Gronk or Robot Tag.

All this actually makes him want to open it less as something scary seems to be in there. A smart kid, what insanity is this. Monica still wants to pressure him into opening it though. I feel like she’d get along with the Screaming Mummy girl. Kevin continues to not open it despite the temptations through the next week.

At this point, the box is “huge” and Monica keeps it up. It’s now where he finally can’t resist and opens it. Weaksauce, this kid is. And what happens? Some insane oily creature comes out and attaches to his head! Figured. It proceeds to tear at his face as it cuts to the next scene. Honestly I thought it would end there lol. Monica is talking to Edgar who informs us that Kevin will be in the hospital for a long time due to losing “a lot of his face”.

Jesus. He got the Two Face/Dummy Meets the Mummy treatment. We also find out what the test was about. See, Edgar was going to another planet for research and the test was to see if Kevin could be brought along. You need discipline for space travel, after all. So wait, it was a test to see if the kid was good enough to go to another planet.

Wow Stine, I’m made jokes about other stories here but that’s just blatant lol. Don’t worry, this one is already on Earth, the planet is “Ariel”, or at least that’s how they say it. They say that Kevin dreamed of going to space with Edgar some day so I guess they sort of knew about it, just not that a trip would coming soon or the test and whatnot. Anyway, Monica is the one who got him to open it, what a jerk.

And yet she gets to come him in his place, as she was 2nd on the list. She claims she begged Kevin not to open the box constantly, wow you suck. So where did he get such a dangerous creature and why did he risk his nephew getting his face torn off? Yeah I forgot to rank on our new worst uncle. Monica excitedly gets stuff ready for the trip.

She opens the “space bag” Edgar gave her…and a creature comes out and gets at her face, with her screaming. The End. …I think Edgar caught up. Jesus never fail this man’s test. No wonder his actor is Todd Sussman.

Thoughts: At 9 minutes, this was short and sweet. Not a lot happens but that works fine for the basic setup/payoff of it. Feels a bit Weenies-ish to me. It may not have death but it got fairly horrific there. Concept is basic in a way that works and I do love how cruel it is. Monica getting punished for screwing Kevin over was pretty satisfying. Maybe Kevin opening it was a bit quick and points docked for the rehashing and not quite explaining the creature aspect. But as it is it’s a simple one that works well enough.

And finally…

Do Some Damage!

This is the only one I hadn’t heard at least once before so let’s see if we end well. Nick Staffard is hanging out with his friend Adam as he talks about a joke he played on his Mom. He said she’d bring in breakfast in bed and he gave her fake eggs. Love this guy already. His Mom is fine with it though. She’s a science person who is into archaeology and dinosaur stuff. Her slogan is “Let’s Do Some Damange!”. Oh I get it. Also more scientist relatives!

He thinks it means do your best, sure why not. So crappy prankster kid with a cool Mom. I haven’t commented on the acting much but Nick is fairly stiff. Mom comes in as she brought over a box. Oh after that last story, this can’t end well. Inside the box is a brown dinosaur egg, which she says is an amazing find. Maybe not a good idea to casually bring it home like that. They don’t know what exactly could come out of it but the idea of a dinosaur being around excites him.

Nick dreams about a caveman coming out of the egg. This Encino Man reboot went in a weird direction. The next day, Adam bugs him about seeing the egg, promising to be careful. They go into her lab on their own which will end badly. Adam of course touches it when he shouldn’t and the egg falls and cracks open.

Great, the Egg Monsters are back. There seems to just be yellow goo in there but they’re worried about ruining all this for Mom. But before they can focus on that, Nick starts to feel a bit weird. He thinks the goo seeped in his skin from it all getting on him. I swear if he lays an egg, I quit. They both start to feel odd with Nick letting out an angry roar.

Their acting when starting to transform is kinda good at least. They start to rampage around the house as they become some sort of monster. My Friends Call me Monster vibes on here. They go outside to do more damage and then they start to get the feeling they can fly. Maybe if that goo was yeast.

They think a prehistoric bird laid that egg and has magic yolk I guess. They try to fly and just crash. Well that happened. More rampaging ensues until they get back to the house to find Mom. They admit what went down and thankfully they didn’t like transform visually so she can be calm as they explain his.

Her reaction is still on the down low though. Because it turns out to be a prank bro. It wasn’t a dinosaur egg, it was a normal egg from a “organic farm” nearby. I’d call her out but given what he did it’s fairly deserving. Nice prank but uh, what about the rampaging and stuff? Oh I already know. This bit of their reactions gets dragged out.

They explain the beasts part and she doesn’t believe them. She breaks open another off the eggs and puts some yolk on her. Sure enough, she starts to transform. I guess that odd farm happened to have it for use in a prank. She rampages and starts to eat more egg yolk. She then suggests they do over the neighbors and do some damage. Figured that would be the ending line. And yeah, that’s The End of all this. Sure.

Thoughts:

It was just good enough. It flows mostly with some solid tension as they become monsters. It’s a solid idea, it just mostly basic. The main twist I didn’t see coming even though I should have, given the setup. The structure is what sort of holds it down, with it turning out a certain way and then something is added on top. I feel like I expected a bit more done with the dinosaur element beyond them happening to get an egg from that farm that does this. I was fully expecting a “The kids were monsters” twist and while I am glad we didn’t do that yet again, it would have fit a bit better.

There’s not much wrong, it just feels standard, like Stine was a bit more on autopilot. Still, as it is it works well enough, just not the grandest finale to this.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, these were pretty good. Despite some gaps, I’ll review this like any short story collection I cover. While it doesn’t reach the highs of Tales 6 or Haunting Hour, it’s a solid collection and flies over most of Tales. I’d likely put it a bit above Nightmare Hour as well. Maybe the highs aren’t as high as in there but it’s more consistent.

The unique does help. Sometimes the music or voice doesn’t fit but having acting music does enhance these most of the time. Being mostly short, they are more about the experience so I don’t some of these not being too eventful. They make up for it with the craziness that does end up happening a lot of time. The main drawback is often feeling like leftovers, where you can place the different stories he’s taking from.

For these free stories, that’s not too bad but some feel like they something extra beyond the usual tropes. Stine avoids a lot of his lesser tendencies at least and he pulls out the stops in terms of how these go down. The latter half does a bit downhill compared to the earlier stories, as you get a couple that suffers from being undercooked or predictable.

The only one I’d call weaker is Lucky at Cards, due to just not having an ending that pays of the strong setup. Even that at least has a good start though. Can You Keep a Secret sums up the predictable part with it even rehashing a previous story in here and Do Some Damage is one that could have used something extra.

But basically most of these were at least fairly good and most are pretty good. My favorite has to be Welcome to My Nightmare. A minimalist approach to something mind bending and really effective. The Terror After School gets an honorable mention for the existential element that lives in my head rent free. Points to Kid Behind the Door for throwing me off and The Head Start for that ending.

I appreciate that these feel a bit more mature, with a fair few deaths with some getting a bit grisly. Secret have a full on audio death like this will always be amazing. Only Mummy goes down the more goofy route so it does stand out but it still works. I think a few could be stronger but this was still pretty solid. I feel like Stine holds out on us sometimes because this shows him putting the kid gloves off at times.

For some of the drawbacks a few have, these do a solid job of presenting some nice scary stories. I enjoyed going through these, and I say they’re worth the listen. None were bad and they’re short enough to note waste too much time if you can’t get into one. Tastes will vary but I think there’s enough for most people, especially if you’re already a fan anyway.

All in all, a solid experiment for our boy Mr. Stine.

Rating: Good

Ah, that was a nice diversion for us. Next time, we had back to the written word as we re-visit the world of Point Horror to check out a beach house.

See ya.