After reading Halloween Night, I have high hopes for the sequel. R.L. Stine had better not let me down! In my last post, I made a prediction based on knowing absolutely nothing about Halloween Night 2. I've now read the description on the back of the book and OH MY GOD, I was right. I know R.L. Stine too well. Dina's getting out of the psychiatric hospital right before Halloween! Fun times! To expand on my prediction, I'm going to say the murderer this time is not Dina.
I have nothing else to say (except that I love the cover of this book). OH! And also!! This was the book that had the creepy murder note in it when I ordered it from Thrift Books!
I hope that someone just wrote down quotes from this book and that they didn't actually kill someone or whatever. Let's find out.
Looks like we're back in Brenda's kitchen, and she's arguing with someone named Angela over Larry (who is he?), when Angela picks up a knife and threatens her with it. Randy, Brenda's little brother, runs in and leaps on Angela's back to stop her, when both girls burst into laughter. Traci steps out from behind the table with a camera and Brenda tells Randy that he ruined the scene. The girls wrote a script, Night of the Jack-o'-Lantern.
Looking at the knife, Brenda remembers last Halloween and how her best friend, Dina, tried to murder her. Angela is new to town and asks what happened to Dina. She was sent to "some hospital." Brenda has bigger problems though. Her cousin, Halley, is still around and she's dating Ted, who was Brenda's boyfriend until Halley went after him. So much for those two getting along. Brenda's parents have custody of Halley because the judge decided both of her parents were unfit to raise her. Back to Ted though, why is Brenda even mad? She broke up with him and she has a new boyfriend named Jake. Ted was a jerk, he cheated on her with her cousin, good riddance. The two of them deserve each other. And Jake was seeing Traci first! So Brenda shouldn't be mad about the Girl Code being broken, this is the second time she's broken it herself. (The first time was with Ted, who dated Dina before dating her.)
Brenda goes back to the kitchen, where we'll probably spend half of this book, and she sees Dina standing there with a knife! No worries, she was just picking it up off the floor. She let herself inside when no one answered the door. Dina tells her she's going back to school next week and she's in therapy. She asks everyone what their problem is, she just stopped by to see her best friend. Brenda's like, ummm, nope, you're not my friend, you tried to kill me. Dina is hurt and claims she remembers nothing about the night of the Halloween party last year. She shoves the knife on the counter and leaves. That's not at all unsettling.
With Dina gone, Brenda, Traci and Angela begin discussing their plans for Halloween. Brenda is not interested in a party and Traci says Halloween might be cancelled anyway because there's a "maniac" on the loose. He's already robbed and assaulted two women and two kids. The girls call it a day on filming. After seeing Dina, Brenda isn't in the mood for a knife fight. Then Jake shows up, looking like he's been beaten to a pulp, courtesy of Halley's makeup skills. She's hanging out with another of Brenda's boyfriends? (I also want to note that Traci is still mad at Jake for breaking up with her, so Brenda sucks as a friend, which we already established in the previous book.)
That night, Brenda goes to the mall with Angela and they see Halley and Jake holding hands in the food court. What. The. Hell. Jakes kisses Halley...This cannot happen twice. Maybe they're rehearsing scenes from a play. I refuse to read through this same drama again. Angela convinces Brenda not to confront them when she's so upset. As the girls are leaving, they're chased down by an older man Brenda caught staring at her earlier. He yells to them, but they run to the car and take off. Brenda lost her wallet in the mall, he was probably just trying to return it to her. I sincerely doubt this man is the prowler.
When Halley gets home, Brenda is waiting for her on the stairs. She says she was studying with someone...I still think maybe she was studying her lines for the play and that she's too afraid to tell Brenda that she's studying with Jake because of what she did in the past. I could be wrong, but I'll be so disappointed if Halley is up to her old tricks again. Brenda asks Halley to come upstairs and slips a noose around her neck, scaring the hell out of her. Sadly, no one dies. Brenda was just getting revenge on her cousin by scaring her and having Traci record it for the film they're working on. Halley is furious and asks how Brenda could do that to her. So she confronts her about kissing Jake and Halley says, "It just happened." Like with Ted. Halley, you bitch. I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Brenda accuses Halley of wanting everything that belongs to her: Her clothes, her boyfriends...And Halley bursts into tears, saying, "Maybe I do want what you have, Brenda. I mean, you have everything. And I...I don't even have a family!" That is not a good excuse. Brenda walks away and Halley says, "You'll be sorry." Brenda takes it as a threat, but now I'm back to thinking maybe she really was just running lines and she means that Brenda will be sorry for falsely accusing her of going after Jake, although, "It just happened" sure as hell doesn't sound like that's all they were doing.
Nope. Nope, nope, nope. The next day, Brenda runs into Jake and he tells her he still really likes her and maybe they can go out sometime, he just really hit it off with Halley. He's grinning and high-fiving his friends. He's awful and stupid. The universe must hate Brenda because she has science with Halley and Jake, who have partnered up for their lab assignment. Halley has the nerve to ask Brenda for some of her sulfuric acid because she didn't get any. Brenda hands a test tube over to her cousin, but Halley drops it and it spills on Brenda's hand, burning her. Of course, Brenda believes this was done on purpose. Here we go again.
One day after school, Brenda receives an orange envelope in the mail. Inside is a drawing of an angry jack-o'-lantern, sitting in a puddle of blood, with the words "HAPPY LAST HALLOWEEN" written on the bottom. Brenda believes Halley is responsible for this, too, which is kind of surprising since Dina is back and this is exactly the sort of thing she was doing last year. Once again, Brenda's mom doesn't believe her and defends Halley. Did Brenda ever tell her mom about Halley hooking up with two of her boyfriends? Because she should. Maybe then her mom would be more understanding.
Brenda and Traci head over to Angela's house, but when they arrive, no one answers the door, so they let themselves in. The house is covered in cobwebs and dust and there are two coffins sitting there to greet them. (There are also two skeletons sitting on the couch in the den.) Inside one of the coffins is Angela. The girls immediately assume she's dead, instead of checking to see if she's okay, and they get mad when they find out she's fine and it was just a joke. They're so gullible. Angela says her parents are really into Halloween and they decorated the house like this. Brenda and Traci have never met Angela's parents and while that itself isn't too strange, this is an R.L. Stine book and I have to assume that the reason they haven't met her parents is because they're actually dead. They're probably those two skeletons.
When Brenda goes to school the next day, she finds a rotten pumpkin in her locker. How does that happen? Like...How does someone get into your locker? Wouldn't she have had to give them the combination? Which would mean that it's someone she knows? You could argue that her locker belonged to someone else the previous year, but doesn't everyone have the same locker all throughout high school? It has to be one of her friends. Brenda causes a scene in the lunch room and accuses Halley of putting the pumpkin in her locker. She needs to stop. Just because Halley keeps chasing after her boyfriends, that doesn't mean she's evil enough to do all of these other things. She accused her of all sorts of things in the first book and she was wrong then, too.
That afternoon, Angela and Traci are at Brenda's house when they catch Halley and Jake arguing outside over someone named Theresa. Traci decides to film their fight, even though Angela warns her that Jake told her he hates being embarrassed. (When were they talking to each other??) Jake catches her and grabs the tape from the camcorder, throwing it on the ground and stomping on it. How did this guy get Traci, Brenda, Halley and whoever Theresa is to date him? Inside, Brenda asks what they're going to do about Jake. Traci suggests killing him. Why is that always their first impulse?? The next day, they're still discussing it when Traci says they should make him really believe they're going to kill him, while recording it. How embarrassed would he be then? Angela is suspiciously quiet. She did have a conversation, alone, with Jake, about the things that he hates. She's probably interested in him. Maybe she'll take him home and introduce him to the remains of her parents.
Dina continues to stare creepily at Brenda. It's a red herring. It has to be. No way is she the villain in both books. Still, Brenda is unsettled and who can blame her?
Jake approaches Brenda at her locker, saying he wants to apologize and that they had a good thing together. This is the same thing that happened with what's-his-name in the first book, why are we going through this again? Jake kisses her and at first, she wants to push him away, but then she decides to pretend she's still interested in him so that it will be easier to get him over to Angela's house and scare him. He suggests doing something together on Halloween and Brenda agrees. "Something scary," she says.
At home, Brenda finds Dina upstairs. Halley invited her over to study. You know what? I take it back. Halley is evil. Brenda confronts her and she turns the tears on again, saying that Brenda never tries to understand her. What is there to understand?? She went after two of her boyfriends and invited the girl who tried to kill her over to study.
Remember that man from the mall? The one who was chasing Brenda? Well, he's outside her house, knocking on the door. Immediately, she assumes this means he wants to kill her. We all know every murderer knocks before killing their victims, right? So Brenda does what any sensible person would do and calls the police. She then tells Halley that the maniac was outside, but now he may be inside the house. When the police get there, they can't find any signs of an intruder. Brenda is a menace. I'm telling you, this man is trying to return her lost wallet. That's how he knows where she lives, her address is on her license.
When Brenda calls Angela, she tells her about Halley inviting Dina over and Angela says they have to include her in the prank they're going to play on Jake. Brenda isn't sure how to convince Halley to go trick or treating with them, especially with Jake there. Brenda hangs up and pulls down the covers on her bed. Someone painted a jack-o'-lantern on her pillowcase and cut a hole where the mouth should be, filling it with worms. The bed? Again? In the first book, it was spoiled dog food and maggots. She needs to burn that bed. And, just like in the first book, Brenda snaps and attacks Halley, until her father once again separates them. This is why her parents never side with her. She needs to be smarter about all of this. Halley whispers to Brenda, "You want trouble? I haven't even started." Okay, this time, it does sound like a threat.
Traci purchases the last four skeleton costumes the store has. Yay! The cover is relevant again! Is Jake dressing as a skeleton, too? How will they know who to "attack" if they all the dress the same? They don't seem too concerned about it. The plan is for Brenda, Traci and Jake to go trick or treating and stop by Angela's house. The door will be open, so they'll all go inside, to the living room where Angela will be in one of the coffins. When Jake checks on Angela, the girls will grab him and tie him up, making him believe they're going to kill him. Traci will record the entire thing.
On Halloween night, they arrive at Angela's house and Brenda sees a jack-o'-lantern on the porch that resembles the one in the drawing she received in the mail. She rationalizes this by saying Angela had to create the scariest looking jack-o'-lantern possible for their plan. When no one answers the door, they all go inside. In the den, Jake sees the two skeletons and exclaims, " They look real!" That's because they probably are real. (Angela did say they'd been in her family forever.) When they check the coffins, the lids are shut tight and there's no sign of Angela. That's weird. Jake decides to open the coffins anyway, while Traci sneakily picks up the camcorder she hid there earlier. However, both coffins are empty. That was anticlimactic.
Brenda and Traci decide to search the house for Angela, worried that something has happened to her. Brenda doesn't find her, but she does see Dina, in a witch costume. Dina says Angela invited her and Halley over, telling them everyone in their class would be there. It looks like the rest of the students didn't get the memo. Once Halley finds out that Jake is there, she wants to leave, but then the girls hear Traci scream in another room. They run to find her and see her staring at the previously empty coffins. Now Jake occupies one, but he's dead, with a knife sticking out of his chest. Who cares?
Dina picks up the phone to call for help, but it's dead. There are no neighbors to run to and they're in the middle of the woods. And there's someone making noise upstairs. Halley wants to leave, now, but Brenda says it could be Angela upstairs and they can't just leave her there. She runs up the stairs to Angela's bedroom, where she finds her tied to a chair in her closet. Angela said the maniac from the mall is there and he's going to kill them. Sure he is, Angela. Once she's been "rescued," they're all about to leave when Traci says she left the camcorder running and the murderer must have been caught on tape! Brenda turns back to the front door, where Angela is standing with a knife in her hand. She says, "If it's all on tape, I have no choice. I have to kill you all." Shock, horror. Who ever would have guessed?
Angela says she murdered Jake and then tied herself up in the closet (how?), but she didn't realize the camcorder was on. Traci then admits it wasn't, she just thought that by saying it was, it would force the killer to come forward. Ugh. This is all over a guy. Angela loses her damn mind and tells Brenda that Jake said he wanted to go out with her after they broke up, but Brenda wouldn't let him go. Brenda says she's crazy and then Angela screams not to tell her she's crazy in front of her parents! The skeletons! Angela goes after Brenda with the knife, but Halley steps in and slams a jack-o'-lantern over her head. Like, actually over her head. LIKE A MASK. Night of the Jack-o'-Lantern indeed. This probably isn't supposed to be funny, but it is. Halley saved Brenda's life and they're friends again, until Halley hits on her next boyfriend.
The police are eventually called. From where? Who knows. Jake is dead for real. Oh well. He was a jerk. (Trust me, I didn't even get into a lot of it in this post.) And the skeletons were only plastic and not Angela's real parents, so that's disappointing. Where are her real parents?
The next morning, Brenda goes downstairs and sees the man from the mall outside again and she flips the hell out. WHY? It's MORNING. He clearly wasn't the one trying to kill her. Just see what he wants. Brenda yells for her parents and her father goes to the door to do exactly that. LIKE I SAID, he wants to return her wallet. He's been trying to return it for days. Brenda's father gives him ten dollars as a reward and the book ends with Halley saying, "Next Halloween, let's pretend it's Thanksgiving."
I didn't like this book nearly as much as the first one. It was just okay. It's still predictable, but it wasn't as much fun and Angela's motives weren't as solid as Dina's. I figured she was into Jake, but I don't understand why she blamed Brenda for him not dating her. He broke up with Brenda for Halley, if anyone got in Angela's way, it was her. And what ever happened with the so-called maniac that was going around attacking people? We're just supposed to forget that plot point ever existed? Also, I now know that the murder note I found inside the book was not quoting lines, so...That's creepy. Anyway. I'll be back with more YA horror in December. I have some other things planned for October and November, if I actually stick to my schedule.
No comments:
Post a Comment