Recap #283: Ghosts of Fear Street #25: Halloween Bugs Me! by Barbara Joyce

Written by Jude Deluca Published 2 November 202030 October 2020 Discussion 1 Comment

Title: Ghosts of Fear Street #25 – Halloween Bugs Me! a.k.a. “It’s always ‘Greg, Greg, Greg!'”

Author: Barbara Joyce

Cover Artist: Broeck Steadman

Tagline: Trick Or Trick?

Summary: Tons Of Trouble

Greg Dreamer is sick of Paul Boyd’s stupid bragging. Everything is a competition to Paul. Who can throw farther. Who can burp louder. Everything! And the worst thing is – Paul always wins!

But not this time. Even though Paul says he’ll get more Halloween candy than Greg, Greg is going to beat him. Because Greg has a secret weapon. It looks like a plain old bag. But when you put something in it, the bag makes more candy. More money. More cats. Even more bugs!

And one thing Greg hadn’t counted on.

More trouble.

Initial Thoughts

[Wing: Due to everything (picture me gesturing vaguely around the room which stands in for the whole entire fucking world), we’re extending Halloween through the end of November here at Devil’s Elbow. Hell, maybe through the end of the year. It’s a shit year, we need to make our own fun, and snark + horror is F U N. (Except when it isn’t, but at least then I get to Go Boom.)]

I got in touch with Getting_GB, one of the donors who commissioned a recap, and asked if there was any book they’d like me to recap for Halloween to make up for the delays in the recap they sponsored. GB selected Halloween Bugs Me!, the second of the two Halloween books in the Ghosts Of Fear Street series and I was happy to oblige.

Now this book feels more like your standard Goosebumps affair than the other GFS books. Particularly it comes across as a slight mix of Attack Of The Jack-O’-Lanterns, How I Learned To Fly, and Chicken Chicken. Unfortunately, the book only takes place during Halloween in the first five chapters. The rest of the story follows Greg trying to use the magic bag and hitting several snags in that direction.

But I gotta tell you this is one of the grossest books I’ve encountered in the GFS series due to the prominence of *shudder* cockroaches. The cover artwork doesn’t prepare you for how many roaches are in this book. I squirm if my hand happens to touch any section of the cover featuring the roaches.

That said, I gotta praise Steadman for the simplicity of the cover. Compared to the rest of the covers of the series, this one’s not quite as extreme. It’s an ordinary jack-o’-lantern with a few cockroaches, not a swarm. Yet it’s still rather sinister and lulls you into a false sense of security by how ordinary it seems to be. This is actually the last book in the series to utilize the jagged border, jagged lettering, and eye-searing color. [Wing: I like the cover too. It’s clean and simple, and I think it captures the mood they’re trying to capture without becoming fully cheesy and overdone.]

Also, the editors screwed up the back summary. The other kid’s name is DEREK Boyd, not Paul. I hate when that happens.

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Posted in Goosebumps Recaps

Recap #277: Give Yourself Goosebumps Special Edition #7: Trick or… Trapped! by R.L. Stine

Written by Jude Deluca Published 1 October 202028 September 2020 Discussion 1 Comment

Title: Give Yourself Goosebumps Special Edition #7 – Trick or… Trapped!, a.k.a. “A Thing’s Pumpkin Soup”

Author: R.L. Stine

Cover Artist: Craig White

Summary: No Treats On This Street!

Sunshine Court is the best spot for trick-or-treating this Halloween, and it’s all yours! Your mouth starts watering just thinking about all that candy…

But you better save your spit. There are no treats here! Instead, the five little houses are full of horrible tricks! Now you have to collect the right items to find your way out! Choose your house and your weapons wisely – or you could do battle with angry elves, aliens shaped like your parents, or the freezing Arctic…

The choice is yours in this scary GOOSEBUMPS adventure that is packed with over 20 super-spooky endings!

Initial Thoughts

You know me, the fighting freak Jude

And we’re at Sunshine Court

You ready?

Congratulations to those who managed to make it to October this year with everything being thrown at us. While I started working on this special recap in July, I’m assuming by now there’s no way any of us (at least those of us in America) can have a regular Halloween due to the pandemic. [Wing: But we’re going to celebrate it up around here, like always! Especially with that Halloween full moon that is also a blue moon and, of course, October has two of my three favourite full moons, Harvest and Hunter’s. Werewolf recaps are coming your way, culminating with this year’s Snark at the Moon. Let’s kick this month off right!]

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Posted in General

Halloween Extravaganza: Atypical Halloween Films

Written by bat Published 27 October 201713 April 2019 Discussion Leave a Comment

I, for one, welcome our new overlord: the Great Pumpkin!

It’s October! It’s Fall! It’s the best season of the year!

Each year about this time, there’s always the general consensus list post of “Halloween” films – among them Halloween, Friday the 13th, the Universal Monsters movies, Hocus Pocus, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Halloweentown (and its three sequels, though that fourth film is purely awful) – and there are the staples that several generations have grown up on, i.e. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!, which is the one film that still airs on a major network every year (or twice in the same month, some years.)

I don’t want to write one of those lists.

So, instead, I decided to pick some of my favorite spooky and/or horror-themed films that always seem to put me in the mood for Fall and its haunted delights. Join me and check this list of atypical not-exactly-Halloween films you should check out for the Fall season! Spookiness, ahoy!

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Posted in General

Halloween Extravaganza: How to Re-Halloween When You’ve Un-Halloweened Halloween (aka Donna’s list of Halloween feels)

Written by Donna Published 11 October 201713 April 2019 Discussion Leave a Comment

I was born and raised in Connecticut. The only way I could get more New England is if I pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd. Which I don’t. I don’t paRk my caR anywhere near HaRvaRd YaRd because I always avoided driving in Massachusetts as much as possible. At least in the eastern portion of the state.

I’m used to four seasons even though I absolutely despised one of them and was allergic to another. Humidity always sucked but it was always a thing and I reveled in those days when the humidity dropped to like 50% and it didn’t feel like I was choking on my own lungs in the summer.

And then came September. One: The Big E. It’s the state fair to end all state fairs. Technically it’s a multi-state fair and you can eat your way through that states. And your pants. It’s glorious. Two: Autumn.

OMFG I love autumn. For about five weeks, from September through Halloween the weather is divine. Mid-70s to 60s during the day, 50s at night. Perfect for jeans and sweatshirts, drinking apple cider and eating apple everything and maybe a little bit of pumpkin (I’m not part of that cult). I put out Halloween decorations and carved the shit out of some pumpkins. I burned all the pumpkin spice Yankee Candles (I AM part of that cult) and I absolutely loved cuddling in on those crisp autumn nights and watching scary movies. It was all so perfect.

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