Warning: Contains Spoilers!!! This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself. Do NOT continue to read unless you want to know who the bad guy/girl/VERY OBVIOUS CHARACTER is.
Tag Line: Never take candy from a stranger...From the Back of the Book: A night to remember. A night of terror. Brenda can't forget last Halloween. But she's trying. Trying to forget that horrible night. Wen her best friend, Dina, stabbed her at the Halloween Party. Still, this Halloween's going to be different. Better. Safer. After all, Dina's been sent to a psychiatric hospital. No way she's getting released before Halloween. Right?
I feel like that blurb is full of grammar fail.
This book was published in 1994 and I'm
pretty sure this is my first read-through. I don't remember ever
reading it anyway. It's a sequel to Halloween Night which I have
previously recapped. Give me a second and I'll go review what
happened in the first book so you don't have to go read that recap
again. (But in case you want to:
https://myrecapknowswhatyoureadinthedark.blogspot.com/2016/10/halloween-night-by-r-l-stine.html)
So, in the first book we had our
protagonist Brenda and her two good friends Dina and
Traci. Brenda was dating Ted and hating on her cousin
Halley who had recently moved in with them because of her
parents contentious divorce. Halley ended up hooking up with both
Ted and Traci's boyfriend Noah, so the girls began to plot her
murder. At first it was just for creative writing class but
eventually it became a real plan (allegedly). In reality it was all
a convoluted fake plan to draw out the real bad guy of the story
Dina. Dina was bitter that Brenda was a shit friend and wanted
revenge so she stabbed Brenda during her Halloween party.
Fortunately, Brenda anticipated this and wore enough padding to
protect her black heart. The plot was so full of holes that it
didn't make any actual sense and every single character in the book
was incredibly unlikable.
There ya go. I'm a full-service
recapper, y'all.
I can't believe there was a sequel and
I can't believe I'm reading it.
Sigh.
Here we go........
We begin with our protagonist Brenda
ordering some chick named Angela out of her house. Nice to
see that Brenda hasn't changed since the last book. Angela is
torqued because Brenda is stepping out with Angela's boyfriend Larry.
She demands to know if Larry is taking Brenda to the Halloween Party
and Brenda refuses to answer. They get into a physical altercation
at this point and, as the chapter ends, Angela grabs a knife and
plunges it into Brenda's chest.
Odds of Angela actually stabbing
Brenda: 0% - this is a Stine, y'all.
Not only did the stabbing not happen,
the fight isn't real either. Brenda's brother Randy
interrupts and gets hysterical at the sight of his sister being
stabbed. Brenda yells at him that he's ruined the scene and out pops
Traci with a camcorder. Oh, Stine. Your hijinks are just so
amusing.
The girls are making some stupid movie
but they don't tell us why. Since Randy ruined the shot, they decide
to take a short break.
Wow. We made it all the way to page 8
before someone got fat shamed. Angela is “definitely on the
chubby side” dontcha know? That's why she has to drink Diet
Coke while the rest of them get to drink Coke.
The girls sit and chat. We get a mini
review and a mini update. Dina is off in some hospital. Halley is
still living with Brenda's parents. They ended up getting custody of
her because both her parents were declared unfit. Halley is dating
Ted which Brenda thinks is “sick”. I still don't know how
to pronounce Halley's name and Brenda is still a raging bitch.
Angela tells us how “sexy”
Halley is and I have a secret wish in my heart that Angela and Halley
will turn into a thing. But this is 90's Point Horror and things
like that weren't allowed to happen then. Still.......
Halley + Angela 4eva!!!!!!!!
A girl can dream.
Traci thinks they should get back to
work but Brenda grouses that Jake hasn't arrived yet and they
need him for the scene. I guess Jake is Brenda's newest victim....I
mean boyfriend.....and Traci's ex. What the hell? Haven't these
bitches ever heard of the girlcode? You don't date your best
friend's ex!
The chapter is ending so Stine has
Brenda go into the kitchen and find Dina standing there with a knife.
Dina says she knocked but no one
answered so she came in. The knife was on the floor so she picked it
up. She's been released from the hospital and she'll be starting
school again the next week. She's hoping that she and Brenda can pick
up their friendship where it left off.
You know......where she stabbed Brenda
in an attempt to kill her? Because that's where they left off. Just sayin'.
Brenda isn't having any of it. She
starts screaming that she can't be friends with someone who stabbed
her and for some reason it's really hilarious. She's just yelling
and throwing her hands all around her while Dina blinks like an owl.
Dina says that she doesn't remember the night of the Halloween party
at all and she offers Brenda an apology. Brenda orders her out of
the house. In all honesty, I'm team Brenda here. Yes, she's being
unnecessarily histrionic but Dina STABBED her and it's okay to not
want to be friends with someone who stabbed you. Dina is surprised
that Brenda doesn't want to kiss and make up and she and leaves in a
huff.
Traci tells Brenda that she was “cold”
and Brenda shrilly defends herself. Again. Team Brenda. Which just
about kills me to say because Brenda is a bitch.
Angela changes the subject to Halloween
plans which isn't the best topic since Brenda got stabbed last
Halloween and all. She wants to have a party but Brenda quickly
vetoes that. Angela suggests they just come over to her house and
hang out then. Traci reveals that Trick-or-Treating might be
canceled because there's a “big fat maniac” attacking
people. He apparently beats them up and robs them. Four people have
been victimized so far.
Odds of Angela being the bad guy: 60%
Odds of Dina being the bad guy: 10%
Why? Because Angela's fat and Dina's
built like a stripper pole, remember?
The chapter ends as a bloody Jake
staggers into the kitchen with one eyeball hanging out of the socket.
Brenda assumes he was robbed by the fat man maniac.
I guess she doesn't remember what it's
like to be in a Stine.
It's all make-up, of course. LOLZ.
It turns out Halley did his make-up and
Brenda is jealously furious. She thinks evil whore Halley is after
another one of her boyfriends. You know, the boyfriend she took from
her best friend in the first place? Be careful, Brenda, your
hypocrite is showing.
Halley goes upstairs to her room (which
used to be Brenda's room if you remember) and Traci and Angela take
off. Alone in the kitchen, Brenda tries to tell Jake how she's
feeling about Halloween coming up but he totally cuts her off to talk
about how he wants to get an earring and grow his hair long. That
goes over well as you can imagine. I can't believe I forgot how much
of a shrew Brenda is.
Jake listens to her howl a bit and then
goes over to kiss her. She pushes against him and tells him no but
he uses his strength to subdue her and kisses her anyway.
Stine, just fucking stop this. You do
this over and over and it's not okay. It's not good for teenage
girls to read this and to think it's okay. Brenda's a bitch and I
hate her but she gets to decide who touches her body and no one
should do it after she's said no. NOT OKAY.
Of course, Brenda enjoys the kiss she's
being forced to have so that makes it all better.
We time hop to later that evening.
Brenda and Angela are at the mall. They end up at The Gap where
Angela is dismayed to find they don't carry her size. Brenda tells
her to buy the smallest size they have and then try them on every
night to motivate her not to be such a fatty-fatty-two-by-four.
Again, I say.............
Brenda picks out a sweater but when she
goes to pay, she discovers that her wallet is gone. She tells Angela
that they need to retrace their steps and look for it. They leave
The Gap and head back toward the CD store. On the way, Brenda spots
a big, fat man staring at her. He has a “red balloon of a
face”, shaved white hair, a scar and he's wearing a Hawaiian
shirt that is bulging over his huge stomach. He's scowling at Brenda
so she does the only logical thing a person can do in this situation.
She starts running like a crazed rabbit
through the mall.
Oh, Brenda.
Angela follows, not knowing what
they're doing. They almost run over a couple of babies and people
are yelling at them to stop running. When they get to the food
court, they stop for breath. Brenda can't see the man anymore but
she does see Jake kissing Halley at one of the tables.
Brenda wants to confront them right
away but Angela urges her to wait until she's calmer. Brenda begins
throwing a full-scale fit right there in the food court. She's
crying, she's wailing, she's screaming that she wants to tear them
apart and make them pay. Everyone in the vicinity is staring at her.
EXCEPT Halley and Jake who are somehow oblivious to this huge scene
playing out right across from them. Seriously?
Sigh.
Angela manages to lead Brenda away and
they head for the parking garage. Angela thinks she should drive but
Brenda turns the offer down. As they're walking toward her car, the
man with the scar gets off the elevator and starts trotting toward
them. Brenda panics and yells for Angela to run. He chases after
them, yelling for them to stop. They jump in the car and frantically
try to start it as the man pounds on the door.
Odds that the man is simply trying to return
Brenda's missing wallet: 99.99%
Brenda almost runs him over trying to
get out of the parking spot. She drives like a bat out of hell
through the place and out onto the street. She doesn't slow down
until she gets to Angela's house. For some reason Stine tells us
that Angela's parents are “really into Halloween” and
there's a giant pumpkin on the front porch. This could be
foreshadowing and it could be just Stine being random. Place your
bets.
Brenda goes home to wait for Halley.
Halley comes home and Brenda is sitting
on the stairs waiting for her. She tells Halley to come upstairs so
they can talk. Halley senses something is up and tries to duck out
but Brenda grabs her arm and drags her upstairs. When they get to
the top, there's a noose tied around the banister. Brenda wrestles
the noose around Halley's neck and then acts like she's going to push
her over the railing as the chapter ends.
Naturally, it's fake. Well, on
Brenda's side it's fake. She has Traci filming with a camera.
Halley wasn't in on the joke, though, and she's
pee-in-your-pants-panicked.
I hate Brenda so much.
Traci leaves and Brenda tells Halley
that she wishes she could kill her for real. She tells Halley that
she saw the kissing-at-the-mall episode. Halley doesn't deny it.
She says it “just happened”. That's what they always say.
Brenda accuses her of wanting everything Brenda has and Halley
dissolves into tears. She says that Brenda might be right. She's
jealous of Brenda's life. Brenda heads to her room but as she goes,
she hears Halley say “You'll be sorry” in a threatening
voice.
The chapter ends as Stine tells us that
the terror really begins in a few days.
Oh, good. I was afraid I'd missed it
somehow. Thanks for telling me when the book is finally going to get
interesting.
At school, Brenda feels like the entire
school is staring at her. Everyone knows another one of Brenda's
boyfriends dumped her for her cousin. She has lab with Halley and
Jake which is torture. She's arranging her chemicals when Halley
tells her that she and Jake don't have any sulfuric acid at their
station and they need to borrow some of Brenda's. Brenda carefully
hands the tube to Halley but Halley fumbles it, spilling some on
Brenda's hand. Brenda is badly burned.
A few days later, Brenda notices that
Angela has started to dress different. She's wearing jewelry and
make-up too. Angela tells Brenda that she's never had a boyfriend
and she wants one desperately. Brenda thinks again about how chubby
Angela is and about how little she really knows about Angela's life
before she moved to town.
Odds of Angela being the bad guy: 70%
Brenda goes home to find an enveloped
addressed to her in the mailbox. When she opens it, there's a
picture of a bloody jack-o-lantern inside with the words “Happy
Last Halloween” scrawled across the bottom.
In a major moment of deja vu, Brenda's
mom refuses to believe that Halley dropped the acid on Brenda on
purpose. She's solidly Team Halley again this book. At least
Stine's consistent.
Brenda is back to “shrieking
shrilly” every other paragraph, by the way. I'm not super
surprised she can't keep a boyfriend.
The next morning, Brenda drives over to
Traci's house. Traci wasn't expecting her and isn't home but Traci's
mom lets Brenda wait in Traci's room. While she's in there, Brenda
sees orange, black and red markers on Traci's desk and that OBVIOUSLY
means that Traci made the jack-o-lantern card, y'all. It's so clear!
No one on earth has EVER owned black, orange and red markers before.
The fact she has them clearly delineates her as the bad guy. IT'S
ROCK SOLID UNDISPUTABLE EVIDENCE!
Odds of Traci being the bad guy: 5%
Traci comes in and Brenda confronts
her, shrilly shrieking again. Traci is gobsmacked. She says she
just made cute little cards for all her friends and mailed them while
she was out. Brenda is remorseful that she suspected her best
friend, but she had good reason! Traci owns markers!
Angela calls and invites them over to
her house to work on the video project and Brenda has no more
marker-based accusations to hurl, so they decide to go. Traci has
never been to Angela's house and she's surprised by how run-down the
place is. No one answers the door, but it seems to swing open on
it's own. We now spend TWO ENTIRE CHAPTERS listening to how creepy
Angela's house is and how it's filled with cobwebs and there's
candles everywhere. In the middle of the livingroom are two coffins.
A hand is dangling out of one of them and Brenda recognizes Angela's
ring and assumes she's been brutally murdered.
Odds of Angela being brutally murdered:
1%
C'mon it's a Stine. She's totally
fine.
Sure enough after a very predictable
chapter-end cliffy, it's revealed that Angela is just pranking them.
Because scaring your friends to death is always funny. LOLZZZZZZZZ
Brenda starts yelling again and calls
Angela a “nutcase” which I'm not even going to rant about.
At this point, I think everyone in this book needs some extensive
counseling. They're all sociopaths. It's probably because they all
own markers.
The next day, Brenda is almost late to
school. When she gets there, she notices a horrible smell near her
locker. She assumes it's coming from the cafeteria. She opens her
locker to find a rotting pumpkin crawling with maggots.
AGAIN WITH THE FUCKING MAGGOTS,
STINE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
There should be a law against maggots
in two consecutive books.
We time hop to after school. Brenda
and Traci are in Brenda's kitchen eating pretzels and waiting for
Angela to get there so they can work on their project. When Angela
comes in, she tells them that Halley and Jake are fighting out front.
Traci grabs her camcorder to record it. Angela warns them that Jake
will be hella pissed if he finds out because he hates being
embarrassed. Brenda asks her how she knows that and Angela gives her
some lame explanation about him saying it one day when they were
waiting for Brenda at the mall.
Odds of Angela and Jake hooking up
behind Brenda's back: 50%
…..and it's a powerful motive
so.......
Odds of Angela being the bad guy: 85%
The girls go outside and get into
position to tape the fight. It seems to be about a girl but they
can't really hear very well. Suddenly Brenda hears Randy screaming
for help from inside the house and she runs to see what's wrong. It
turns out he just wants a drink. Brenda is shrilly shrieking at him
when she hears Traci screaming from outside.
This is like a bad episode of Scooby
Doo.
Jake has discovered them. He yanks the
cassette out of the camcorder and he tears the tape out of it to
destroy the footage. Oops. That's going to make finishing their
project tough. They kind of deserve it though. When he's through
ripping out the tape, he crushes the cassette so they can't wind it
back up and then he angrily drives away.
The girls are crushed that they're
going to have to shoot their entire project over again. The chapter
ends as Traci suggests they kill Jake.
This is going to be like the last book
when they suggested they “kill” Halley, right?
Sure enough, Traci wants to pretend to
kill Jake and capture his reaction on camera like they did with
Halley and the noose a few chapters ago.
Why am I still reading this? You guys
have no idea the sacrifice I make for you all.
Stine suddenly remembers that Dina is
in this book. He sticks her in the cafeteria and has her stare at
Brenda the entire lunch period. Seems pretty uninspired but at least
she got a few pages of activity.
The girls decide to scare Jake at
Angela's house but she seems pretty unenthusiastic about the plan.
The biggest problem is how to lure Jake over there.
After lunch, Jake corners Brenda in the
hall and says he wants to get back together. He forces her into a
kiss again but halfway through she realizes that she can use their
“relationship” to get him to Angela's house so they can fake kill
him. So she goes along with the kisses and thinks about how much
she's missed his lips.
Gag.
The girls get together after school to
make their plan and it's every bit as lame as you'd hope. They're
going to invite Jake to go Trick-or-Treating with them. You know –
because that's TOTALLY something high schoolers do and not suspicious
at all. Then they'll go back to Angela's house. Angela will
“disappear”. Brenda and Jake will go looking for Angela and
Traci will take that opportunity to set up her camcorder. Then
they'll do something to make Jake think they're going to kill him and
get his reaction on tape.
These are not nice girls. At all.
They're all the bad guys in my opinion.
When Brenda goes upstairs, she's
surprised to find Dina there studying with Halley. She thinks Halley
invited Dina there just to irritate her. Which is probably fair.
Dina leaves and Brenda confronts Halley. Stine uses the word
“shrilly” half a dozen times to describe Brenda's
conversational offerings. She “demands shrilly”, she
“cries shrilly”, she “replies shrilly”. USE A
NEW WORD.
By the way, shrill means high-pitched
and piercing. Sounds charming.
In turn, Halley replies by shrieking
everything. Stine.....I hate every person in your book. Every one.
Brenda leaves Halley's room and sees
the man with the scar coming up her front walk. She hides so he
can't see her and listens as he pounds sharply on the door. She
knows he's there to kill her and Halley. She dials 911 and, instead
of telling them the problem, just “shrieks” out her
address and tells them to hurry. She's about to die, y'all. She
doesn't have time to tell 911 her life story.
Odds of the man with the scar trying to
return Brenda's wallet: STILL 99.99%
Odds of Brenda being an asshole:
Infinity
Brenda tells Halley that they're about
to die. Halley thinks they should stay upstairs but Brenda is now
convinced that the man with the scar is inside. The police arrive
and search the place and find nothing. They advise the family to
keep the doors locked. Brenda thinks this whole thing is Halley's
fault because she didn't lock the door after Dina left.
What?
Brenda. Oh, my God, this makes no
sense.
Later Brenda calls Angela and tells her
that Halley almost got her killed. Angela says they should fake kill
Halley too. Brenda doesn't think Halley will come to Angela's house.
She says they need to concentrate on getting Jake there and then
maybe they'll focus on Halley. She hangs up and decides to go to
bed. When she pulls back her blanket, she discovers her pillow has
been painted to look like a jack-o-lantern. The mouth is cut out and
stuffed into it are brown and purple worms.
Where the hell does a person find
purple worms? I didn't even know these were a thing.
So I Googled because I'm a full-service
recapper. I don't think purple worms are a thing. The only thing
that came up was a fictional monster from a game.
Brenda goes into a “red rage” and
spends the next several pages rather brutally attacking Halley who
she has decided is responsible for the worms. Brenda's parents ask
who was in the house that day. Dina, Angela and Traci were the only
ones beside Brenda and Halley. I guess Brenda's forgetting she
thought the man with the scar got inside too.
Odds of Dina being the bad guy: 20%
Odds of Angela being the bad guy: 78%
Odds of Traci being the bad guy: 2%
Odds of the man with the scar being the
bad guy: 0%
Time passes. The girls are going ahead
with their lame ass plan. Traci gets skeleton costumes for all of
them. Angela makes sure her house is extra creepy. She and Traci talk about
it in Brenda's room which is just dumb. You might not remember from
the first book, but everything that's said in Brenda's room can be
heard in the front hall through a heating vent. So they're
essentially broadcasting the whole plan to anyone who happens to be
in the hall.
We time hop to Halloween night. Thank
God. That means the book is nearly done. Jake is being a total
douche. He asks Brenda if she's thankful he decided to give dating
her another shot. He's a winner.
Traci, Brenda and Jake dress up in
their matching skeleton costumes. I guess Angela is setting up at
her house for the big scare. They go trick-or-treating and have lame
conversations with homeowners for half a dozen pages.
{{{{{{{{{{{snooze}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
Eventually they head toward Angela's
house. Brenda uses the pretense that Angela said she'd have hot
cider for them. As they go up on the porch, Brenda sees that the big
pumpkin has been carved into a jack-o-lantern with the exact same
face as the one on the card she was sent. I think Angela's the bad
guy, so I know it probably IS the same face, but I also find myself
wondering how conclusive this evidence is. I mean, lots of people
use the same kinds of jack-o-lantern faces.
They play their parts, finding the
front door standing open and Angela nowhere to be seen. Brenda and
Traci are laying it on a little thick as they pretend to shiver and
shake in fear. I'm surprised Jake isn't suspicious. The livingroom
is full of jack-o-lanterns that have been stabbed in the sides with
kitchen knives. Charming. Brenda is confused when she realizes both
coffins are completely closed. Angela is supposed to be inside one
to scare Jake. Not only are they closed, they're empty she soon
discovers.
Brenda is freaked out. Jake
propositions her to get in one of the coffins with him and she's
disgusted at the idea. She tells him they have to search for Angela.
The three of them end up splitting up which is just Horror Movie
(Book) 101. You NEVER split up. Ever. Brenda is searching in the
kitchen area when she comes across someone dressed as a witch. She
assumes it's Angela until the mask is removed to reveal Dina.
Bullshit.
BULLSHIT.
We've been told for two books that Dina
is exceptionally tall and skinny. We've been told for THIS entire
book that Angela is super chubby. There's no way in hot holy hell
that Brenda mistook Dina for Angela.
Dina says that Angela invited both her
and Halley but they got there and no one was home. It occurs to me
now that we've never actually seen Angela's parents. This didn't
strike me before because we rarely see any parents in PH. It wasn't
odd. Oh, and in case you're wondering, Halley is wearing regular
clothes and a gorilla mask. She half-assed this Halloween.
Halley wants to leave when she hears
Jake is there. Dina refuses, saying she wants to give Angela a piece
of her mind for this prank. Suddenly there's a scream from the
livingroom. Traci is beside one of the coffins and it isn't empty
anymore. Jake is inside and he has blood on his costume. Brenda
checks and tells us that he's dead. I'm not sure I believe her
because it happens at the end of a chapter.
They want to call the police but the
phone is dead. They want to run screaming from the house but Brenda
hears a thumping on the ceiling and thinks it might be Angela trying
to get their attention. Sure enough, they find her bound and gagged
in a closet on the second floor. She tells them that the “fat
man maniac” tied her up and he's still somewhere in the house.
Odds of the “fat man maniac” being
the bad guy: 1%
On their way out the front door, Traci
stops. She remembers that she set the camcorder up in the livingroom
and it must have recorded Jake's murder. I guess they're sticking
with this “Jake's dead” thing after all. They turn to get the
camcorder but are stopped by Angela who grabs a knife from a
jack-o-lantern and announces that they'll have to die if the murder
was taped.
Angela reveals that Jake had wooed her
and told her they'd be together after he broke up with Brenda. She
blames Brenda for keeping Jake away from her. Which makes no damn
sense. She'd be blaming Halley if that was the case because Jake went
out with Halley afterwards. Brenda calls her crazy which is Horror
Movie (Book) 102 – never call the psycho killer crazy to his/her
face because it just makes him/her very angry. Angela shouts that
they can't call her crazy in front of her mom and dad. Apparently
she calls the full-sized skeleton decorations mom and dad.
Angela decides Brenda's time is up and
the chapter ends as she stabs Brenda through the chest.
But, of course, she doesn't. Halley
brains her with a jack-o-lantern first. Angela's head ends up inside
the jack-o-lantern and she staggers around as the candle burns her
face. It's wrong to laugh, right? Because I'm seeing this in my
head and it's hilarious. But it feels wrong to laugh since she got
burned.
Dina and Traci hold Angela down while
Brenda and Halley go down the street to call the police and the scene
ends.
We skip ahead to the next morning.
Brenda is horrified when the man with the scar shows up at her house
again.
HE'S RETURNING HER FUCKING WALLET.
Damn, Brenda.
Brenda tells Halley that she hates
Halloween and Halley says that they'll just celebrate Thanksgiving
twice instead.
The End.
I've never been so happy in my life to be done with a book. And the good news is that there wasn't a third one I'll have to read in October 2018.
WHOOOOOHOOOOO!
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