Point Horror: Beach House by R.L. Stine

 

First, let's address the picture. Why is there a mermaid candle? I didn't want to take a picture of the book by itself again and that's literally the only summery thing I own.

Today we're talking about Beach House by R.L. Stine. It's not part of the Fear Street series, this is a Point Horror novel. (I'll have several books from the Point Horror series coming up over the next several months.) This is it for the summer themed books! Partly because it's the last one I own and partly because I am done with summer. I hate it. Once July is here, the only thing I can think about is fall and Halloween. It happens every year, it's my coping mechanism for getting through the misery the hear and humidity bring on.

I get so confused between Beach House, Beach Party and Party Summer (all by R.L. Stine). If I call this book by the wrong name somewhere, it's his fault for giving all his beachy books similar names and covers. I have read this book before, but it was a million years ago so I'm a bit hazy on the details. Here are my predictions, with a massive spoiler warning ahead of the rest of this post because I do know what happens. In the past, a guy leaves a girl for dead at the beach. He has a secret closet or something that allows him to time travel. In the present, he's parading around as a rich kid and one of his servants is actually the girl he thought he killed in the past (all grown up now, so he doesn't recognize her). And I think he plays tennis at some point. Don't ask me why I remember that. Okay, let's see how much of this is accurate.

Part One - Summer of 1956

Maria and Amy are lounging on the beach, listening to the radio. This has nothing to do with anything, but since I keep reading these beach horror books, I guess now is a good time to say I hate the beach. I grew up on Long Island, I used to go to the beach all the time. But I had a bad experience once and now I'm absolutely terrified of the ocean. Sometimes I miss it because I also have really good memories of the beach, but I panic when I get near water. That being said, I'm pretty sure Maria is going to end up in the ocean at some point, so I may have to skim through parts of this book to avoid that.

Maria has never had a steady boyfriend, but she's hoping that will change this summer. And she already has two prospects! Buddy, who's a bit awkward, so Amy's boyfriend (Ronnie) mocks him. And Stuart, one of Ronnie's friends. Maybe it isn't fair to judge someone by their friends, but Ronnnie sounds like a jerk, so Stuart probably is, too. At the same time, I'm pretty sure Buddy has his own issues, soooo...Maria's better off alone.

Ronnie and Stuart come running over to the girls, laughing, and pointing to Buddy who is in the water yelling for help. These two imbeciles stole his swim trunks and deserve whatever is coming to them. Why do kids think things like this are funny? Maria thinks the whole thing is pretty hilarious, too. You know, I want to feel bad for what's going to happen to her, but she's kind of terrible. Not that that's an excuse to murder someone, but since this is only a work of fiction, I say go for it. Amy is the only one in this crew who deserves to survive, since she's trying to reason with them by saying sharks were spotted close to shore. Eventually, Maria grabs the swimsuit and throws it in the water, but it lands short and sinks before Buddy can get to it. Everyone, even Amy, laughs at Buddy like this is the funniest thing in the world. Get him a towel. You can't just leave him in the ocean like that. But guess what? That's exactly what they do. Even Amy. They just walk away.

Stuart invites Maria to see Creature from the Black Lagoon at the drive-in, but she already has plans with Buddy. Stuart says he's probably still in the ocean anyway and they both laugh some more, Maria saying how mean it was to leave him there. So...You know it was mean, but you're still laughing about it? Stuart encourages Maria to stand Buddy up and makes fun of him, so she laughs again because she's a pretty awful person. All it takes for her to agree to ditch Buddy is Stuart telling her about his dad's pink, convertible Thunderbird. Awful and shallow. Why is she even seeing Buddy at all? She agrees with every nasty thing Stuart says about him. Let the guy go so he doesn't keep wasting his time on you. Throughout this entire conversation, Buddy was hiding in the shadows like a creep, listening. And he's mad.

The next day, Maria lies to Buddy and says she wasn't feeling well the night before. To make up for the date she missed, Buddy suggests they go swimming. Maria is hesitant, as she's not a good swimmer and the weather is bad, but she eventually gives in. They swim farther away from shore, to escape the undertow. The fog obscures the shoreline...And this is where I'm starting to get anxious. Thinking about being in this situation is sickening. Skimming the book...Maria wants to get back on land, she's worried about sharks. (Nice how she wasn't worried when Buddy was stuck in the ocean yesterday.) Buddy tells her not to worry, they only attack when they smell blood. Hint hint.

Out in the ocean, with Maria choking down salt water, Buddy finally comes clean about how hurt he was by that so-called joke. Hurt. Furious. Same thing. Maria is terrified and it sounds like she's starting to panic which is really bad when you're in the ocean trying to stay afloat. Buddy confronts her about lying to him, too. He's gazing over her shoulder when Maria turns to look at what he's staring at...Sharks. (I hate every second of this and I'm getting a headache reading it.) Buddy pulls a knife out. From where, I don't know. And he slashes Maria. Sharks won't attack unless they smell blood, right? He continues to stab her and then leaves her in the water to be eaten alive. Okay, I've changed my mind. Maria sucks, but no one deserves that. And Buddy enjoyed it a little too much, which kind of makes me think he would have turned out to be a psychotic murderer at some point whether she had been nice to him or not. He's got that serial killer vibe.

There's a search for Maria's body, but no one can find it in the water. Amy, Ronnie and Stuart are all commiserating together and now, all of a sudden, they regret being mean to Buddy and think he's not so bad. They think he drowned, too, so they're feeling guilty about how they treated him. The officer investigating the disappearances asks the trio where Buddy lives and they point him in the direction of the beach house he's been staying at. Officer Barrett heads in that direction with the three of them following him, because why not? There's an investigation going on and they could contaminate a crime scene or tamper with evidence, but sure, it's fine that they come along. When they go inside, they find the house empty. No food, no belongings, no sign that anyone was ever staying there. Officer Barrett says no one lives in the house and that Buddy lied.

Part Two - This Summer

I guess we're now in 1992 because that's the copyright date of this book. Here, we're introduced to Ashley, who's "done some fashion modeling" and her jealous, Matt Dillon look alike boyfriend, Ross. There's also Kip, a "townie" whose goal in life is to look like Vanilla Ice, and Lucy, who's dating Kip even though he's a jerk to her. Lucy has to leave the beach in two weeks so she can go to summer school and brush up on French. I'd rather do that than be at the beach. Learning another language is at the top of my list of things to do if I ever have enough free time. Anyway, who wants to hang around with a Vanilla Ice wannabe all summer? The best thing he's ever done was the "Ninja Rap" in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2.

Not important, but absolutely worth noting: Kip drives an ice cream truck. He offers to get Ross a blue Italian ice because it's his worst seller and no one will miss it. When Ashley asks what flavor it is, Kip replies, "Blue." This is the most accurate thing I've ever read.

Some guy names Denny comes charging out of nowhere, picks Ashley up and throws her in the water. And she's mad. "You got my new bathing suit all wet!" Is that not the purpose of a bathing suit? To go in the water? It's not like it's a new article of regular clothing that's ruined because it got wet. I understand being mad that some obnoxious idiot threw her in the water when she didn't want to go in. But the bathing suit getting wet is a weird thing to be mad about. When Ashley gets back to her MTV beach blanket, there's a new boy there. His name is Brad and he took tennis lessons with Ross the summer before. I KNEW tennis was a thing in this book. Brad and Ashley can't stop checking each other out and Ross notices this. Brad invites them over to play tennis at this mansion that he pretends to be embarrassed by, yet can't stop bragging about.

Ross is pretty angry after Ashley flirts with Brad and she chases him down the beach, trying to reason with him. They eventually sort out their drama and Ross suggests they go inside the abandoned beach house. You know, the one from 1956. Inside, to their surprise, they find Kip and Lucy. Ashley wonders why no one lives in the fully-furnished house and Kip tells her it's because of the murders. Ashley is officially creeped out and she wants to leave. The next day, she finds out from Ross that Lucy and Kip never made it home the night before. That's what happens when you hang out inside a murder house.

Part Three - Summer of 1956

It's been several days and Buddy and Maria are still missing. Amy thinks they were eaten by sharks because Buddy was a good swimmer and that's the only explanation that makes sense, besides Buddy sneaking off into a secret time warp closet after leaving Maria for dead.

Stuart informs Amy and Ronnie that he's leaving to go work at a drive-in and it's not much of a sendoff. So long, Stuart.

Amy sees someone inside the beach house and points them out to Ronnie. It's Buddy! He's alive. He comes running out to greet them, in a shirt with blood stains on it. Hmm. Don't worry though, he just cut his finger making a sandwich. Amy and Ronnie want to know where he's been since Maria went missing and he claims he was out of town, but he totally spoke with the police over the phone. Amy asks what happened to Maria after they went swimming and Buddy lies and says they never did. Maria went in the water by herself because he was afraid of the undertow. Buddy claims they argued and he left Maria alone in the water. Some guy. If he thought the undertow was that dangerous, why leave her there alone, even if they argued? Why not at least stay on the shore and watch to make sure she was okay? Oh, that's right. Because he left her to be eaten by sharks.

To Amy's credit, she has doubts about Buddy's story. Ronnie just takes his word for it, until Amy points out that while Maria was usually up for anything, she wasn't reckless. In the middle of this discussion, they notice a body floating face down in the water. It's Stuart, his scalp was smashed open and, gross, they can see his skull. Nearby is a log with blood on one end. Clearly this was not an accident.

The next chapter is titled "It's So Easy" and I know this must just be a coincidence, but with a character named Buddy and this part of the book being set in the 50's (even though that song wasn't released until 1958), I have to wonder if R.L. Stine was referencing Buddy Holly here, since he references everyone else in this book.

Buddy watches the scene on the beach (poor, dead Stuart) from his house. He's excited. Murder is easy, he thinks. We can officially say that Buddy did not snap because he was bullied, he's just a psychopath. He's absolutely resentful that they made fun of him, but the way he thinks about the murders, it's definitely more than that, he enjoys killing people. He's set on murdering Amy and Ronnie next, but he's undecided on who should die first.

Buddy pretends to feel actual human emotions as he approaches Amy and Ronnie on the beach and asks if there are any suspects in Stuart's murder. Amy remembers Buddy's blood-stained shirt and she's having a difficult time believing so much blood could have come from his finger.

Another new day on the beach! Because that's all anyone does in this book and to be honest, I'm not even really reading it anymore, I'm only skimming through enough of it so I can finish writing this post. I already know how it ends. Amy is alone and Buddy shows up looking for someone to talk to about Maria. Because he's so sad. He asks Amy to go back to the beach house with him. Will she go? Or will she trust that voice inside her head that keeps telling her she should be afraid of him?

Part Four - This Summer

Lucy and Kip are still missing, but that's not going to stop Ashley from trying to convince Ross to go to Brad's mansion so she can flirt with him some more! Who cares if your friends are dead when you've been invited to play tennis at a rich guy's house?

It starts to downpour, on the beach, where these characters apparently live, and Ashley decides the best course of action is to take shelter in the murder house where her two friends disappeared. Searching for towels to dry off with, Ashley steps into an enormous closet...And finds Lucy's scarf. (I don't think they even reported this to the police.) No worries though, it's time to go to Brad's mansion!

When they arrive, a middle-aged woman answers the door, one of Brad's servants. She's covered from head to toe, even in the summer heat. Hmm. Brad tells Ashley and Ross not to worry about Mary and says she's just weird. Brad has a cousin named Sharon...Why are they introducing new characters more than halfway through the book? (And spoiler, this character never shows up again, what a waste of time.)

Brad sucks at tennis, but Ashley's into him anyway and agrees to come back the next day to go swimming, while Ross is standing right there. At this point, I don't even think Ross is jealous, I think he's angry that his girlfriend is openly hitting on and making plans with another guy right in front of him. "That's the definition of being jealous." Okay, but there's unwarranted jealousy and then there's this. Ross storms off and Ashley doesn't care because it means she go swimming with Brad now.

The next day, Ross tries to apologize, but Ashley is over him and doesn't want to hear it. And then Denny, whom I had completely forgotten about, shows up to "save the day." I'm rolling my eyes. Ashley can't stand him either, I sincerely doubt she wants him playing hero. Denny punches Ross in the stomach...Seriously? What is wrong with guys that they think this kind of behavior is okay? Ross was being annoying, but he wasn't threatening Ashley, he was apologizing. That doesn't exactly justify punching him in the stomach. Denny leaves as the cops show up and then Ashley does, too. She's not even going to wait around to make sure Ross is okay?

That night, Ross calls Ashley and she tells him, again, that she's not accepting his apology and they're over. He's better off, she was into Brad anyway. I know Ross is supposed to be the bad guy here because he's jealous, but she was constantly thinking about how interested she was in Brad, so...Ross wasn't 100% wrong. Ashley hangs up and when the phone rings again, she assumes it's Ross calling back. Nope. Just someone with a hoarse voice, warning her to stay away from Brad or she'll die. First Ashley thinks this might be Ross because, you know, he's so jealous. (Rolling my eyes, if I hear one more time about how jealous he is, I might scream. It's his only characteristic.) But then she thinks she recognizes the voice as Sharon's. Can you really confuse the two? I guess Sharon exists as a red herring. But seriously, Ashley is absolutely terrible at recognizing voices. The person on the other line says, "I am not Sharon. I am dead." That's fine. I'm not questioning it.

Ashley goes to the movies with the object of her infatuation and the conversation she has with Brad afterwards is troubling, because I had an ex like this and to me, it's a red flag. Ashley thought the movie was funny. Brad gets on her case about it because he has no sense of humor and can't take a joke and he's really kind of nasty to her. Over the fact that she laughed when Chevy Chase fell off a ladder. He says, "It wasn't even him. It was a stuntman." Okay, AND? It was a stuntman. SO? What is his problem? LEARN TO LAUGH, BRAD.

They end up back on the beach. The entire town is just the beach, the entire world is the beach. Brad gets really intense, telling Ashley that she isn't like other girls and he wants to share a secret with her. She's kind of freaked out, she thinks he might propose when they've only been on three dates. Brad wants to take her to the beach house. She follows, reluctantly, and wonders what he wants to show her.

Part Five - Summer of 1956

Amy and Buddy go inside his beach house to avoid the rain outside. Amy asks if she can look around and discovers the large closet, when Buddy warns her to stay out of there. And then he starts to scare her. He keeps saying she's "gone" and staring at her menacingly. He says Ronnie is gone, too. (When did he find time to kill him?) Buddy starts going on about his feelings and how everyone humiliated him, including Maria, and Amy finally realizes, without a doubt, that yes, Buddy did have something to do with her disappearance. He admits it. He also admits to killing Stuart and Ronnie. It doesn't matter, he says, because he doesn't really live here. Amy has no idea what that means and questions him, but Buddy ignores her.

Amy runs from the beach house and Brad chases after her with a shovel, which he swings at her head. When she wakes up, she feels cold water and realizes her hands are tied around a wooden post...The stilts of the beach house. And the tide is coming in. Buddy leaves Amy there to drown. I'm not sure who had it worse, Maria being left to get eaten by sharks or Amy being tied up so she'll drown as the water rises. Buddy goes back inside the beach house, walking away like they all did the day they left him in the ocean.

Part Six - This Summer

Ashley is suddenly afraid to be in the beach house with Brad. She tries to avoid going inside and changes the subject, asking why she smells gasoline. He's not concerned about it, he just wants to talk about himself and his family drama and I'm not getting into that here because this post is long enough and it doesn't even change anything. Brad said he was exploring at the beginning of summer and found the beach house and he wants to show Ashley what is inside. At first, Ashley doesn't want to go in there, but then she thinks she sees Ross watching them and because she's immature and petty, she goes inside even though her intuition tells her not to.

In the beach house, Brad guilt trips Ashley into following him to the bedroom and leads her to the closet where she found Lucy's scarf. He wants her to go inside with him, but she says no and he snaps. He gets extremely angry and if she didn't already know there was something off about him before, she does now. Brad grabs her by the hand and pulls her into the closet with him. As he tries to drag Ashley further inside, another hand grabs her, pulling her away from Brad. Back inside the bedroom, Brad's servant, Mary, appears. When Brad tries to exit the closet, Mary tells him to get back inside, threatening him with a torch. And she calls him Buddy.

Brad/Buddy wants to know who Mary is. She asks, "Don't you recognize me, Buddy?" When he says no, she begins to tear her clothes off, revealing the scars covering her body. It's Maria, from 1956. She survived. And she wants revenge. Ashley doesn't know what the hell is going on right now, but she's scared. Maria explains that the beach house was built on a time warp and Buddy discovered its secret. Going into the closet takes you back to 1956. She tells Ashley how Buddy killed all her friends and that really makes Buddy lose his mind. He attempts to leave the closet, but Maria burns his shoulder with the torch, forcing him back in. Maria admits to calling Ashley to warn her about Buddy and then tells Buddy to go back to 1956 where the police are waiting to strap him into the electric chair. She asks him if he smells gasoline. (He should have listened to Ashley earlier.) Maria has poured it all over the house. She sets Buddy on fire with the torch, before dropping it into a puddle of gasoline, causing an explosion that sends Ashley flying out of the house. Isn't that lucky?

Ross is outside and Ashley runs into his arms because her new boyfriend is a serial killer. They drive off into the sunset together like nothing ever happened.

My mind was probably blown by that ending when I was a kid. And maybe I would have liked it more now if I didn't still remember everything that happened in this book. But reading it again, I really wanted it to end. I couldn't stand most of these characters by the end of the book. And what the hell happened to Denny? He made like, three appearances and for what? They could have edited him out of the book and it wouldn't have changed anything. I guess the book did make an impression on me when I was younger, for me to remember it after all these years, but knowing everything made it boring to read through again and I think I need to take a short break before reading the next book.