Reviews
For Zeke and Brooke, horror movie fanatics, the announcement that the school play is going have scary elements is absolutely brilliant news made even better by the fact that they were both cast as the lead roles. Plus, the script is accompanied by a creepy story about how the first attempted showing of the play resulted in a mysterious disappearance and ghosts! Unsurprisingly, this new attempt at producing the play is plagued with strange occurrences that are blamed on Zeke the prankster. However, it quickly becomes apparent to the kids that perhaps there is more truth to the story about a real phantom than anyone wants to admit. In an attempt to clear his name, Zeke, Brooke, and their new friend Brian journey beneath the stage to see if there really is a ghost at work, but find out that all the pranks and destruction were really caused by a homeless man trying to prevent people from finding out that he lives in the basement of the school. Once they alert the proper authorities, the pranks stop, and the show goes on! That is until the night of the big performance when Zeke disappears, and Brian takes over the role of the Phantom, a role he wanted to play seventy years previous, before he died on opening night! This is another Goosebumps novel where the twist wasn’t very well foreshadowed. Knowing the formula, it was pretty obvious that Brian was going to be some sort of ghost, but the story did little to build him up as a character, or drop hints that he was a ghost at all! In fact, throughout the book, the only truly ghostly moments happened at the very end. Relatedly, I was rather discomforted by the strange treatment of the homeless man in the school’s basement. His role in the story was a villain, and there was little sympathy or realism associated with his sad history. Goosebumps novels are generally not great sources of morals, but the treatment of this character bothered me quite a bit. He was also an exceptionally unnecessary character given the presence of Brian, as well as the seemingly antagonistic Tina who didn’t end up playing much of a role at all despite all hints that she was trying to undermine Brooke’s performance. While there was certainly some suspense, most of the plot was pretty mundane, and the ending wasn’t particularly satisfying.
