Goosebumps: Wanted - The Haunted™ Mask (Part 2)

Previoulsy on Wanted - The Haunted™ Mask
In 1972, a mask shop owner called William was almost sold a mask made of human skin but turned it down on account of it being, y'know, made of human skin. However, it was Haunted™ for some unexplained reason, and fused itself to his skin. And then when he tried to take it off he ripped his face off and died in his closet.

Later, in the present day, a big ball of nothingness called Lu-Ann discovered the Haunted™ mask in the loft of someone's house which was apparently also William's mask shop. After William's faceless corpse burst out of the closet he died in, telling Lu-Ann specifically not to put it on, she put it on, and it became her face. After trying to remove it via various acts of kindness (*sigh*), she ended up running aimlessly and her story ground to a halt.

Also, Lu-Ann had this friend called Devin who disappeared off after the first chapter to go live on some pumpkin farm. I'm only mentioning this because that's what the book's now jumping to.

Plot
PART 3 - It's the Great Pumpkin, Devin O' Bannon
We open with Devin O' Bannon, our new protagonist, complaining about soggy Oreos, homework, and pumpkins. Also, we meet the cast. This section is so boring that I'm not going to mention them

• Dale and Dolly, Devin's improbably named little sisters. They will probably contribute a grand total of nothing to the story.
• Zeus, a random black cat who is there because nobody bothered to go to Polly's Halloween party as catwoman.
• Mrs Barnes, whose name is a bit generic. So I'm just gonna call her Betsy Palmer for the purpose of terrible foreshadowing.

After a large helping of nothing, Devin notices a creepy Jack O' Lantern in his mirror, but not in his room. Whilst this is a pretty cool scene, I am going to take it as a chance to point out that there's very little in this story that relates to Lu-Ann's escapade with the Haunted™ mask. For whatever reason, Devin decides to respond to this by running outside. This goes even worse than going outside on a cold late October evening without a coat traditionally goes, as the vines start creeping towards him. And the pumpkins are breathing.

Blah blah, pile of pumpkin guts on Devin's floor, pumpkin that feels like human skin, parents don't believe him, yada yada yada. Nothing worthwhile happens. And yet this isn't even the most boring pumpkin-related novel I've talked about on this blog. (See Attack of the Jack O' Lanterns) The most worthwhile thing that really happens is that Devin at one point bumps into Betsy Palmer's son, Haywood. Even he's not that important in the grand scheme of things anyway.

The day before Halloween, Dad finally starts selling pumpkins. Genius. After everyone goes home because of the rain (and a little girl asks Dale and Dolly if they're really twins), Haywood decides to tell Devin about the spooky scary backstory behind the pumpkin patch. Apparently, it was an old American civil war burial ground for like a hundred years until some idiot came along and thought, "Nothing can go wrong if I turn this into a farm, right?" So, this imbecile decided to start growing pumpkins, in the 1960s (approx.), on top of a bunch of corpses. Can you only renovate something in this book if there's some sort of supernatural entity and at least 1 corpse in it? And somehow the pumpkin vines grow directly into the corpses, so they send their spirits into the pumpkins. Take note, Peter Cushing in Frankenstein Created Woman: pumpkin vines are excellent conductors of people's souls. Finally, there is another entity who haunts this land called The Grave Master, despite the surprising lack of graves in this place. And he can shape-shift, apparently. Then Haywood runs off because Zeus was standing there and he might be the Grave Master or something. You'd think he'd be doing something better with his time, honestly.

That night, after Devin, Dale, and Dolly watch Vise Versa, a giant pumpkin vine creeps into Devin's room. Realising finally that his parents won't believe him (the mental plague has begun; no character is safe), Devin slams down the window on the vines, cutting the ends off. And everything's lovely once again. Wonderful. Except not really; the vine ends start attacking Devin. I don't think a PG remake of The Evil Dead/Return of the Living Dead (delete as appropriate) was that good of an idea. Devin furiously stamps on the vine ends angrily like a toddler who's just been denied pudding.

The next day, it's Halloween, and Dad's still selling pumpkins. Good God, man, how determined are you to fail at this business while still looking like you want to succeed? After a pumpkin turns into mush in Devin's hands, interesting things stop happening for the rest of the scene.

That night, Devin sees Haywood climbing out of his grave. Already having the prior knowledge of the Grave-Master's true identity, I thought this was a dream or something, but no, Haywood's really dead. Kudos, I guess. Zeus shows up, and Devin cries out for the cat to stop Haywood. Which is an even worse plan when it turns out that Zeus isn't the Grave Master. No, it's Betsy Palmer (oh yeah, she's in this story), who also climbs out of the ground. They really need better exits for that top-secret network of tunnels. Yep, she wants to kill Devin so he can be mates with Haywood. Flawless motivation.

Suddenly, as Betsy Palmer is about to murder Devin, Lu-Ann, still wearing the Haunted™ mask, turns up to save the day whilst an atmospheric organist plays the Superman theme in the background. Devin and Lu-Ann beat up Haywood and Betsy Palmer, before the latter cries out "Eeeevil!" like an undead Mermaid Man and they both go back into the dirt. Then the Haunted™ mask finally comes off because apparently the least you have to do which counts as an act of kindness is battling a pair of zombies. Guess if I want to go to heaven, I'd best head to my local cemetery.

EPILOGUE: PT Barnum's Circus of Geeks
Back at Polly's the next day, she's charging people to come see William's ghost. Yeah, I'm sure the faceless corpse'll be a monster hit with the kiddies. Brad and Marcus, who is now no longer in his amazing gorilla suit, turn up to see Polly. Polly finds a blue mask similar to the Haunted™ mask, and decides to put it on. Brad and Marcus decide to leave, because, y'know, they've already seen the ghost for free, and simultaneously Polly decides to put on the mask. And it's implied that immediately after Polly murders Brad and Marcus and traumatises all the kiddies queued up to see the ghost. William, you should probably get a better job than 'protect all the Haunted™ masks'; you're not very good at it.

Extra Toppings
Remember Evil Boris? No? What do you mean hardly anyone read part one? He has a nickname. It's just "Evil." Congratulations! You've successfully outdone the nickname of one of the physics teachers at my school, which is just his name pronounced phonetically
At one point during Devin's pumpkin escapade, his Dad had this thing wherein he, Dale, and Dolly would paint faces on the pumpkin so that the customers didn't have to carve the pumpkins themselves, despite the fact that everyone loves doing that. In the unlikely event that there was a list of the worst pumpkin farms of all time, Devin's Dad would be every item on that list. It would have no less than 200 items on it. Aaaand I'm rambling.

Conclusion
This book hasn't really been so much bad as it has... dull. Not the painful kind of dull (RE: A Shocker on Shock Street); just the sort of thing that you'd probably fall asleep reading. The concepts aren't fully explored, nor in any new fashion. That being said, the prologue was wonderfully dark and pulled no punches. Just read that bit as a short story and this book should be alright to read.

Next Time: Are you tired of the Haunted Mask and want a break from it? Tough. Carly Beth and Sabrina are back for one last adventure next week, along with (*sigh*) Chuck and Steve.