Amy's ventriloquist dummy, Dennis, keeps losing his head...for real. So Amy begs her family for a new dummy. That's when her dad finds Slappy in a local pawnshop. Slappy's kind of ugly, but Amy's having fun practicing her new routine. Then terrible things start happening. Horrible, nasty things. Just like what happened the first time. Because there's something odd about Slappy. Something not quite right. Something evil...
Plot
While this is the first book with Slappy as the villain, I'm still going to talk about how repetitive it is, especially since Captain Slap's the main thing that's changed from book 1.
Previously on Night of the Living Dummy
After the creatively named dummy, Mr Wood, met his end at the hands (or wheels, if you prefer) of a pair of steamrollers during his attempt to murder an innocent puppy, those who sent him to his death, Lindy and Kris, went home. However, Lindy's familiar dummy, the Slappmeister, revealed himself to be alive too. And he seemed totally chill with the fact that his brother had been brutally killed.
I hope you didn't waste your time reading that, because we're completely ignoring all that. Instead, we're met with a completely different family (Lindy, Kris, and Mr Wood are never mentioned again), who have their own 'Family Sharing Night.' Like every other family! Amy Kramer is a ventriloquist, like your average 12 year old girl in 1994, though she also shows off her sea shell collection. Before we can get to this gripping action, let's meet the other characters in this story.
- Sara, the artist. You can tell she's a bit behind the times, though, because she actually puts effort into art. On Family Sharing Night, she shows off her artwork.
- Jed, the annoying little brother that is requested for by the Goosebumps code. He shows off stuff like belches, or notes boys wrote to Amy. I can tell I'm going to love this guy.
- Dad. He sings. OK, next.
- Mum. Tells stories. Next.
- Dennis, Amy's ventriloquist dummy, who must spend his miserable days being forced to make jokes about wood and being decapitated by light breezes. This franchise is full of dummies dying horrific deaths, isn't it? Decapitation, crushed by a steam roller, mind being stolen by a shrunken head, potentially trapped in a collapsing dimension (yeah, still not quite sure how he survived that), and there's a book where a dummy and a gigantic doll are both completely obliterated by a buzz-saw.
That night, Amy is awoken to see Dennis (possibly his ghost; dummies can do that now in Goosebumps) staring through her window. Ewwww... But it was just Jed, holding up Dennis' decapitated head. Out of context, that sounds a bit barbaric.
The next day, Dad comes home with a gift from the pawn shop. Not chess pieces, but a ventriloquist dummy. And not just any dummy: it's (as I'm sure you've guessed) Slappy. And there's a piece of paper in his pocket with the magic words to bring him to life on. Amy decides to read them aloud, for some reason. Then she discovers a mouldy sandwich inside the Slappmeister's head. I'd make a joke on how he's got food on the brain, but I'm just curious about the sandwich. Is Captain Slap vulnerable to mouldy sandwiches? Then Slappy punches Dad in the head. This again?
Later, Amy's best friend, Margot, shows up at the house to tell Amy that the former's dad's restaurant, The Party House (I love how original the names in these books can get), is asking if Amy can perform her stellar ventriloquism act there. For the measly sum of $20. Seriously, you can't do much with $20 in this day and age. Amy, having no concept of money, agrees. Here's part of the act that Margot's dad will be paying good money for:
Knock Knock.While it's not a lot, $20 is still, like, 16 Drenches. And not worth this garbage.
Who's there?
Jane.
Jane who?
Jane jer clothes, You stink!
And now it's time for... this scene. You know, the obligatory one. The extremely uncomfortable one. In a minute, anyway. After Dad's act wraps up, undead Dennis (Undeannis?) once more starts haunting Amy. And once more, it's just Jed messing around. For some reason, because Dad has the comedy standards of a modern day 15 year old (don't tell me you didn't see that one coming), he praises Jed for playing with Dennis' corpse. Anyway, Amy launches into her lame knock knock routine (I'm showing so much self-restraint as I type this) with Captain Slap, but before she can get to her punchline that even cartoon Dads would groan at, The Slappmeister chooses this moment to start his routine. Well, that's a bit rude. Wait your turn, Slappy! He creatively calls Dad bald and Mum fat. Then he lets rip with this zinger:
"Did I mention you are all ugly?"Probably, yeah. Maybe he's doing this because he's alive. Not to spoil this book called Night of The Living Dummy II or anything.
The next day, Amy's grounded. Oh, not because of Slappy or anything: she got a bad report card. So did Margot (oh yeah, she's in this story), actually. They chat about the upcoming show, since I guess that's everyone's number 1 priority in this universe. Afterwards, Amy writes up her science paper, because I guess she's a college student now. When she's done, she nips into Sara's room for some marker pens to draw the nice cover art, because science papers often have those.
Later, Sara comes home and sees that her white carpet is covered in red paint. Well, it probably looks better now (seriously, white carpets?). Everyone immediately blames Jed, though I don't see how that could involve messing around with Dennis' corpse. He instead blames Amy, who he saw enter earlier. Was he spying on her? This is somehow damning evidence against Amy, though in fairness, her defence isn't very good. The only evidence she presents for the fact that she didn't do it is that Captain Slap has paint on his shoes. Dammit, Slappy, clean up after yourself!
While Amy is now double-grounded (is that a thing? I have no idea how that would work), but the family are still totally OK with their vandal daughter performing at a restaurant for young children. Which she goes to at the next scene, to perform for the birthday party of a girl called Alicia. Mum drops Amy off, and she starts getting ready. Alicia shows up, and asks to be introduced to The Slappmeister. As 5 year olds do? Suddenly, Captain Slap grabs Alicia's hand and won't let go. I get that he's trying new material, but seriously, maybe you should just stick to your old stuff. Thankfully, we are spared Slappy's "old stuff," since Amy gets fired, though some agree that the whole thing was a mere accident.
As Amy explains to her mother that she didn't do it on purpose, Sara bursts in and accuses her of writning "AMY AMY AMY," all over her wall, despite the fact that this is the world's most obvious frame up job. Seriously, if Amy wanted to get away with it, she probably would've written anything else. I don't know what, maybe something like "SARAH SUCKS," or "LOTUS SPREAD IS TOTALLY AWESOME, GUYS!" Unlike the ther books, Slappy's actions (come on, it's halfway through, it's obviously him) aren't proving to Amy's family that she's a bit of a jerk; rather, they serve to convince the Kramers that Amy's as nuts as whoever designed the cover of the album Virtual XI. They even start considering that she needs to go see a shrink, though I would've probably reccomended that to any one of the protagonists from these series who decided to btalk to their parents about the evil ventriloquist dummy who thinks that everyone on the planet is his slave.
That night, Amy stays up late to try and catch who she thinks is the culprit in the act. No, not Jed messing around with Dennis' corpse again: The Slappmeister. Who then comes alive and sneaks into Sara's room, probably humming the Pink Panther theme. Amy follows him, humming the Mission: Impossible theme, and tackles him before he can ruin another painting. Sara wakes up and calls for Mum and Dad to stop Amy, who's not actually doing anything except lying on a ventriloquist's dummy.
The next day, Amy is told that she has an appointment with the psychiatrist, which is always a nice and reassuring thing to say to your child. Suddenly, Slappy comes to life (if you were reading this for the first time, that would totally justify the psychiatrist visit), and tells Amy that she's now his slave. Well, now that he's said it, I guess it's true. Thanos should've gotten this guy on the payroll; he would've accomplished his plan much more easily. Amy resorts to violence, but apparently sucks at that too. Long story short, she loses to a ventriloquist dummy. Being a bit of a sore loser, she retaliates by locking The Slappmeister in a closet. Suddenly, Sara shows up and informs Amy that she knew that Slappy was alive, and didn't tell the only other person who knew until now. They make up, and partake in the timeless sibling activity of dumping a sentient ventriloquist dummy in a sewer. Yeah, it's all fun and games until he manages to make a battlesuit out of rats.
Of course that's not the end for Slappy. He once escaped a collapsing dimension unscathed; it isn't too hard to assume that he'd escape a measly sewer. How he got out is anyone's guess, especially since he had his arms and legs tied, but he shows up regardless at breakfast. And he's covered in frosties. For a 200-year old dummy, his table manners are appalling.
That night (seriously, does anything happen during the day anymore?), Amy spies Captain Slap sneaking into Sara's room. Again. The dude needs to get a hobby, and I don't mean vandalising Sara's room. Suddenly, a shadowy figure leaps out from somewhere, and begins beating up Slappy. If I read this when I started this blog, I would've been cheering as loud as a trap in Fortnite being set up. Sara wakes up and flips on the light, to reveal the identity of the shadowy figure: Dennis. Oh my God, it's a zombie! Dennis knocks The Slappmeister's head against Amy's metal bedpost... because this is set in Edwardian Britain or something... splitting it open. A white worm crawls out of Slappy's head and slithers through a crack in the wall. Hang on, what? Then Mum and Dad burst out of the closet, and admit to believing Amy and Sara's story. Turns out that Amy and Sara had set the entire climax up, with Jed using Dennis' corpse to battle Captain Slap. Dennis is actually still dead. Or is he? Apparently not, because suddenly Jed walks into the room, saying that he stayed in bed for too long. Since living ventriloquist dummies are now no longer credible, everyone starts wondering who beat Slappy. This is so obvious, the TV show actually just explicitly showed that Dennis was alive, and it was much creepier, since Dennis showed sentience and acknowledged how good it was to be "back in the family."
Any Questions?
Alright, here's the 2 obvious questions:
- What the hell was that white worm? Why didn't Dad find it when he found the mouldy sandwich? Why is it never addressed again? Shouldn't they be worried that what could be The Slappmeister's brain slithering around their house?
- How did Dennis come to life? Was he always alive? Was he brought to life by the magic words? And if either of those are true, why didn't he show that he was alive until now?
Conclusion
Night of the Living Dummy II is decent enough. It gets everything in a Slappy story out quickly, which I guess makes sense, since it introduced some of these ideas. It doesn't waste time with it just being a sibling playing pranks on the protagonist using Slappy as a scapegoat for once (don't worry, there'll be plenty more further in the franchise), but it's a bit generic. Overall, I suppose you could give it a read if you've got nothing better to do.
Next Time: We finally wrap up the Horrorland series with a surprisingly creepy, well-written villain.
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