This entry of Goosebumps stands out for being a pretty unique ghost story and so far, is one of the more standout entries. This review will see if piano lessons are actually a cause of murder.

Synopsis:

Jerome Hawkins and his parents have just moved to a new town. The town is called New Goshen. Oh gosh, this town name is inspired.

In the book Jerome goes by Jerry, not to be confused with Jerry Smith. Jerry is always pulling pranks on his parents. Almost as soon as the book begins this is shown.

Jerry finds a few dust balls in the new house. He tells his parents the dust is mice. His dad proceeds to beat the dust balls with a broomstick. Afterwards, his parents aren’t happy with him, but they should be upset with themselves, since I don’t see how they confuse dust with mice.

His mom has also brought her cat, Bonkers. Bonkers is bonkers as the cat is a menace to society. The cat on the car ride threw up on Jerry and is known for attacking members of the family. If nothing else, the cat is the real villain of the novel, at least to me.

Jerry goes upstairs to look around the house when he finds the attic. The attic is all one room and is empty. At least at first, since somehow Jerry missed a huge piano in there, literally the only thing in the attic.

That night, Jerry can’t sleep. He hears a piano playing in the attic. Of course he investigates the sound he heard. Jerry sits down at the piano and it looks like it was just played.

Jerry’s dad sneaks up behind him and scares him. His dad suggests piano lessons and Jerry agrees.

Jerry goes down to bed. He falls asleep hearing the piano play, at least the haunted piano offers relaxing music to fall asleep to.

On Monday morning, Jerry wakes up and notices the attic door is open. Which makes him think it’s even more haunted, and I think it is certainly haunted based upon all the Goosebumps books I’ve read.

In the kitchen, Jerry finds a large empty carton from moving. He hides in it and scares his parents from inside once they come into the kitchen.

That night, Jerry hears more piano music. Based upon the book, the music is actually pretty good, so I’d be totally cool with a free Ghost concert every night.

The next day, Jerry has school. After school the movers are moving the piano downstairs. The problem is the cat is about to be crushed by the piano.

At the last moment Jerry’s mom saves the cat. This results in the cat attacking her and ruining her clothes. This is worse than the cat in Pet Sematary.

Jerry plays piano, cool.

On Saturday, Jerry meets his piano teacher. It’s Dr. Shreek from Shreek School: New Method Piano Training. This is obvious foreshadowing.

Dr. Shreek is described as a jolly old man who looks like Santa Claus. Considering this takes place during winter, I wouldn’t be surprised if R. L. Stine included that description because it was fresh in his mind, also, the book was published in November, so pretty close to the holidays.

Jerry tells Dr. Shreek he plays the kazoo. Is this the kazoo kid?

Dr. Shreek really likes the piano. He also says if Jerry does well, he will get to play at the school. For some reason, Dr. Shreek seems most interested in Jerry’s hand, I’m sure this has nothing to do with the plot.

Jerry starts practicing piano from a work book.

That night Jerry is still hearing piano music. He goes to investigate again and is pushed from behind while checking it out. Turns out it’s the cat attacking him.

His parents show up to see what the noise is. Upon learning that the cat attacked Jerry, his dad says it’s time for the cat to go. Jerry’s mom says no, and says the cat was protecting the house. I don’t think so, I think the cat’s murder plot failed.

Also, Jerry’s parents don’t believe he heard the piano.

At school, Jerry meets Kim Li Chin. Kim plays the violin, so Jerry suggests they should play music together. He says he’s learning from Dr. Shreek, Kim runs away.

During the greatest dream sequence of all time, Jerry has to play piano for Dr. Shreek. Dr. Shreek keeps making him play faster until he can’t stop playing, Jerry wakes up. Piano lessons can be a nightmare, aaaaaaaah.

This causes Jerry to wake up in the middle of the night. He hears piano music, so he investigates. This isn’t repetitive at all.

Downstairs he finds the piano playing by itself. A ghost woman appears playing the piano. She says she lives here and tells him to stay away from her house and her piano.

At the same time her face, skin, and hair melt off revealing skull. Jerry screams.

His parents show up, who don’t believe him. He goes to bed, only to see the ghost, wait, it’s just his sheets.

The next day, Dr. Shreek shows up. He decides he wants Jerry to come to his school. Dr. Shreek compliments his hands. Jerry’s mom agrees to let him take piano lessons at the school.

Jerry’s mom hears a piano, but Jerry isn’t playing. Nothing comes of this.

Later, Jerry goes to see Dr. Frye. His parents are worried about him, so they set him up with a psychiatrist. Since Dr. Frye doesn’t believe in ghosts and doesn’t believe Jerry to be crazy, he thinks Jerry’s having a reaction to all of the changes in his life.

As Jerry leaves, he notices the waiting area is deserted, but somehow his mom jump scares him on his way out.

On Friday, Jerry goes to Shreek School. The school is in a huge creepy building. He goes into the school but finds himself lost in the halls. Jerry wanders into a metal monster.

He runs into Dr. Shreek who explains it’s actually just a giant Roomba. The robot is created by Mr. Toggles the janitor. Maybe the janitor should be the Dr. considering he made a giant Roomba in the 90s.

Jerry practices piano with Dr. Shreek. After the lesson, Jerry gets lost leaving. He tries to go through double doors but is stopped by Mr. Toggles who explains the exit is on the other side of the building. Mr. Toggles compliments Jerry’s hands.

After dinner that night, Jerry’s parents want him to play piano. He tries, but the piano makes weird noises. His parents become angry at him.

The next week, Jerry is back at Shreek School. Mr. Toggles shows Jerry his work room, which according to the book is the size of an auditorium covered in electronics.

Jerry goes to class but hears a voice coming from the closet asking for help. Mr. Toggles says it’s just a machine malfunctioning. Sure thing, dude.

The next day Jerry is shoveling snow. He sees Kim, who comes over. Kim checks out his piano and finds it to be pretty nice. She explains the other week she wasn’t running away but was late to her music class.

Kim tells Jerry that Shreek School isn’t what it seems. She says there’s monsters in the basement and students disappear at the school. This may be why Jerry wasn’t allowed to go through the double doors, there may be plant dads down there screaming “Stay out of the basement!”

Jerry doesn’t believe her. He tells her that the piano is haunted. She doesn’t believe him. Nobody believes anybody. The cat runs across the piano, which causes Jerry to believe the piano is haunted again.

That night the piano plays again. Jerry investigates again. The ghost appears again. The ghost says the stories about the school are true and look no hands! Jerry becomes frightened of her stubs.

Jerry’s parents wake up and think he’s having a nightmare. He says he wants the piano gone, his parents say he doesn’t have to take lessons or play piano anymore, but he has to show up for his last lesson. So, he still has to play up to a point.

The next time Jerry goes to class he tells Dr. Shreek he’s not going to take classes anymore. Dr. Shreek says he can’t leave or quit and grabs his hands.

Jerry is able to break away and run from Dr. Shreek. He runs through the double doors and into the recital hall. The room is full of pianos being played by floating hands with instructors watching the hands play.

So, this is the part where the book cover is shown.

Jerry falls over. Dr. Shreek grabs Jerry. Mr. Toggle shows up. He turns off Dr. Shreek who is actually a robot.

Jerry tries to leave, but Mr. Toggle grabs him. Mr. Toggle goes into his villain monologue, explaining he can build robots and machines, but can’t build hands to play piano, so he steals hands and make them play piano forever.

Mr. Toggle is totally a serial killer. No wonder people keep on disappearing. Also, he’s somehow able to build advanced robots, that are more advanced than anything that’s currently being built. Shouldn’t he be able to build great hands, I think this is just an excuse so he can indulge in murder.

The ghost woman appears. She had been trying to warn Jerry, which she made a choice to be cryptic with her warnings.

The ghost woman then awakens all of the ghost hands. They take Mr. Toggles outside and into the woods to never be seen again. Jerry is now safe.

A few weeks pass. The piano is sold, the ghost woman is gone, Jerry has made friends and is now playing baseball. Book ends.

Review:

Towards the end of the book, I realized there were some similarities between this story and the 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. Turns out, R. L. Stine based some of the story off that film.

There are a lot of good things about this book, but first there are a few things that aren’t so good.

The first quarter of this book is pretty boring. Kim seems to only exist for exposition in the story. The ghost woman was barely in the book and was only there to save the main character at the end. Also, why didn’t the ghost woman save other previous students? Clearly, she’s able to control the ghost hands and could have taken care of Mr. Toggles at any time.

Talking about Mr. Toggles, why wasn’t he able to make hands? He can build robots with working hands, that can communicate, and can travel long distances, so why can’t he make hands? Also, the cat in the book is a villain, but it seems like the cat will continue to be a villain, sucks to be Jerry, I guess.

Also, what happens to the other robot instructors?

There’s a lot of good aspects to the story. The ghost is done pretty well and is somewhat scary. Mr. Toggles and Dr. Screech work as villains. The ending is pretty good. Also, making Mr. Toggles an actually dangerous and murderous villain is pretty surprising for a Goosebumps book.

The main character isn’t annoying in this one, for the most part, which is a good improvement. All together, not too bad.

I’ll give this Goosebumps entry an 8/10. This is one of the better Goosebumps entries so far, I think the main problem is the slow beginning, and not much happens until almost the end.

Twist ending:

The ghost woman is actually good, and Mr. Toggles has been stealing hands.

Memorable line:

“What beautiful hands! What excellent hands!” Some people have a foot fetish, some people have a hand fetish. I think I know which one of those two categories Dr. Screech falls into.

Memorable moment, cliffhanger, etc.

Mr. Toggles gets dragged into the woods by ghost hands. Pretty handy.

Bad parenting:

Hey, kid, you can quit piano lessons, since you seem to be having nightmares about it, but first, go back for another lesson. They really have to get their money’s worth, I guess.

Random references:

Ping Pong, Nintendo, and Honda. I wonder if the Honda station wagon in this book is also a sports car.

Tropes in book:

Just moved, character is 12, nobody believes a character’s story, crazy cliffhanger, cat jump scare, twist ending, a character stays up all night, and pranks.

TV tie-in:

The episode is pretty decent. There’s a lot changed, and a lot of the book gets cut out in this Goosebumps episode.

The biggest changes include total fewer lessons, ghost encounters, it’s not winter, and there’s no regular school. Other changes include the ending where Mr. Toggle has to play piano until he dies or until the end of eternity, whichever comes first. Also, the ghost woman scares the entire family at the end.

The negatives are a weaker ending. Not the best acting in this episode, despite a lot of the cast being good actors. Also, the story despite being condensed, just isn’t as well done as in the book. Finally, a lot of the darker elements are cut out or not directly mentioned in this Goosebumps episode.

The positives of this episode are mostly the same as the book. I think the one thing that’s improved upon is Dr. Screech. He’s more intimidating in the episode and they fix some of the problems the character had in the book, such as going long distances and having decently working hands.

I’ll give this Goosebumps episode a 6/10. Not too bad.

Memorable episode line:

“He can build anything.” Except hands.

Famous Cast:

Barclay Hope, Aron Tager, Erica Luttrell, and Géza Kovács.

Come back soon for more Goosebumps fun and reviews.

To read the last Goosebumps review: https://goosebumpsblogger.com/goosebumps-12-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/

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