This entry of Goosebumps has R.L. Stine writing his version of the Phantom of the Opera. This book is a play on a classic. I think this book has great potential. I hope I don’t get too drowsy from a potentially operatic Goosebumps book.

Synopsis:

There’s a phantom at the local middle school in Woods Mill, but nobody has seen him, until now! And by now, I mean in roughly 50 pages. This is how the book opens, as Brooke recollects about the events that are about to unfold.

Brooke and her best friend Zeke really like horror movies. When their middle school announces that a school play will be taking place, based around a horror story, both of them apply to be in it.

Brooke and Zeke rush after school to see the list for the cast. However, Brooke notices a flyer next to that saying she’s suspended and has to go see the principal. Luckily, this was just Zeke pulling a prank. There’s always a prankster in one of these books.

When Zeke and Brooke start reading through the cast list, they’ve got the starring roles. Zeke will play the phantom and Brooke is playing Esmeralda. This is very convenient, but okay. They also discuss how it’s a Phantom of the Opera type play.

The next week they have rehearsals. One of the other students, Tina, says the play is cursed. Tina says her great grandfather told her that he went to school in the early 1920s here and he says the play is cursed. Great, I really like cursed plays, super fun.

Before Tina can tell the story, Ms. Walker says no. Ms. Walker, not to be confused with Texas Walker Ranger is running the production of the play and doesn’t want to talk about the curse. However, all of the students ask her to talk about the curse. Walker gives into peer pressure and tells the story. Wow, this teacher changed her mind fast.

72 years ago, during the first year this school was opened, they decided to do the Phantom play. The play was discovered in some old archives. The school built the auditorium for the play. However, right before the play the kid playing the phantom disappeared, forever. Since he was never found, all copies of the script were destroyed, except one, hidden in the school’s secret vault. Also, there were never any news reports, police investigation, or anything for the missing student. This is so nice; I love incompetency, and I love common contrivances for ghost stories.

The phantom then appears and scares everyone. It’s just Zeke pranking everyone.

As they read through the script, Walker goes up on the stage. She then disappears. Turns out there’s a trapdoor on the stage. Walker gets stuck under the stage, since the trapdoor was built for the original phantom play and then never used again. So, you’re telling me the school has a trapdoor, made for one play, then never used again, and the teacher thought it would be a good idea to test it out while it’s clearly in disrepair.

Also, according to the book there’s a switch for the trapdoor on the middle of the stage, which when pressed descends the lift. So, during every school play, they’ve been really lucky no students have stepped on it and accidentally send a cast mate into the pit. This is just fantastic.

The students help Walker out of the lift. Walker tells the students not to play with the trapdoor, and they will fix it before the play.

After finishing up the play readthrough, and as the other students and teacher go home, Brooke and Zeke decide to play with the trapdoor.

Brooke and Zeke get on top of the platform and press the button. They go down; however, the platform speeds up and drops them into the abyss. They end up below the school in a tunnel. This school has tunnels, wow, is this Hogwarts theatre school?

Brooke then worries about being late for dinner. Based upon the book it’s only late afternoon to early evening and like a minute has passed since they descended in the lift. In the dark, Brooke somehow finds another switch. They’re saved as they ascend back to the stage, but get stuck five feet from the top.

Brooke boosts Zeke up. However, Zeke disappears. After a minute, Brooke is helped up from the lift, but it’s not Zeke. It’s Emile, the night janitor. He’s not too happy about two kids messing around after school hours and basically tells them to go home and don’t mess with the lift. I wish he had said stay out of the basement, or maybe stay out of the trapdoor, unfortunately, Stine didn’t see this peak writing idea.

Later, Brooke and Zeke think Emile is the phantom. Let’s think this through real fast. First, it’s a kid who died during the first phantom play, so if the phantom showed up, it would likely be a kid ghost. Second, why would the phantom help you? Third, if the play is cursed, I’m sure we would have gotten a lot more Final Destination like things happening.

The next day at school there’s a new kid. His name’s Brian. During class, Brooke has to get her textbook. She goes to her locker to get it and finds a monster mask with a note saying stay away. She thinks it’s Zeke pulling a prank. In class Zeke denies it being him.

Later that day, Brooke convinces Brian to join the play. After school Brian gets the amazing task of working with Tina on set design. This isn’t actually amazing as Tina isn’t exactly the nicest person and is trying to get Brooke’s role.

The lights in the auditorium go out. The phantom shows up. Then disappears into the trapdoor. Everyone thinks it’s Zeke. However, when the lift comes up, there’s nobody in it. Rehearsal is then cancelled. Okay, so does this mean the phantom costume is missing, or in the case of the book, it’s never stated.

Brooke goes to Zeke’s house after rehearsal. Zeke says he wasn’t there, since he had a dentist appointment. So, he has an alibi, that is verifiable by his parents, and so he’s innocent.

Anyways, the next day, Zeke gets in trouble, and Walker doesn’t believe that he had a dentist appointment. This teacher should just call Zeke’s parents, but whatever.

Zeke and Brooke go to rehearsal. Brooke is on stage practicing her lines. Zeke is supposed to come onto stage as the phantom. However, the real phantom shows up instead and says stay away. Zeke waves from off stage and the phantom disappeared.

This time it’s clearly not Zeke, and there are a ton of witnesses including the teacher, but somehow Zeke is still at least partially blamed for this. What!

Afterwards Zeke and Brooke are talking about how they need to catch the phantom. Great, another Goosebumps book is becoming an episode of Scooby Doo. Brian on the other hand could care less and just complains about having paint on his clothes. Well, I guess I know where his priorities are at.

Brooke and Zeke start to suspect Tina is behind it to scare Brooke out of playing the role of Esmeralda. Wow, Tina must be really masculine.

Before they leave the school, Zeke’s forgot his math book. They go to the school office to find it. There, Brooke asks the secretary about the janitor Emile. The secretary says nobody works there by that name. Uh-oh, that’s probably not a good thing.

That night, Tina calls Brooke and tries to harass her into giving up the part of Esmeralda. Okay, that’s not cool, and why would Brooke ever give Tina her phone number.

The next day, Zeke and Brooke tell Walker there’s a phantom in the school, and his name’s John Cena… I mean Emile. For obvious reasons, Walker doesn’t believe them.

This causes Brooke, Zeke, and Brian to start committing crimes by breaking into the school that night. This is a plan of all time.

They break into the school and sneak into the auditorium. They have to be really quiet because they plan to sneak up on the phantom and capture him. This has got to be the most inconceivable, ridiculous, poorly thought-out plan of all time.

In the auditorium someone has painted ‘stay away’ on the set. This is when Walker shows up and believes the three of them are behind the vandalism. Despite none of them really being able to explain more than they’re there to catch the phantom and they didn’t do it, Walker somehow believes them. Just not about the phantom.

As they leave the auditorium, they find a trail of paint. This trail of paint leads to Zeke’s locker. Walker forces Zeke to open his locker and inside is a bunch of paint cans. Zeke then gets kicked off the play and his parents are called.

Clearly Zeke has been framed. First, when would Zeke have time to do this, especially since the paint is described as still fresh and dripping in the auditorium. If he had just painted it, then gone to his locker, then came back, that wouldn’t make sense, and due to the short amount of time, it would have meant that Brooke and Brian would have witnessed this. Second, why would he leave so much incriminating evidence, and why not just leave the paint in the auditorium.

Finally, this is a bit clear so far, but literally the lockers are awful in this school and have been shown to be easy to open, or so old that they suffer from mechanical failures, so someone could have just popped his locker open. Also, all of Zeke’s pranks so far have been low effort or inoffensive, so this doesn’t line up with his other actions.

As Brian, Brooke, and Zeke leave the school, Tina rides by on her bike. This convinces Brooke that Tina is behind the phantom.

During the next rehearsal, a guy named Robert has taken Zeke’s role. Also, someone has glued Walker’s copy of the play together. This should further exonerate Zeke, but it doesn’t. Walker then cancels the play but changes her mind two minutes later. Walker is the most wishy-washy character I think I’ve ever seen.

That night, Zeke and Brooke break into the school to find the phantom, again. Yeah, it sure did go well the first time. Brooke then channels the force as she says she has a bad feeling about this.

They go to the auditorium and go down into the trapdoor. When they reach the bottom, the switch to go back up doesn’t work again. So, they decide to walk down the tunnel. The tunnel goes across the whole school and possibly further. This means that there may be another exit or entrance to the tunnel.

In the tunnel they find a door to a room. This room is fully furnished with a bed, books, and food. Brooke thinks this is the phantom’s home. As they look around the room, the door closes behind them. Of course, the door locks from the outside, this is my favorite thing in Goosebumps books, when the doors lock from the wrong side.

Brooke and Zeke are able to push the door open. Emile is on the other side. Turns out he’s been behind everything, and he just wanted to be left alone. This is literally an episode of Scooby Doo, and you can’t convince me otherwise. This is especially true as the proceeding events will show in regard to Emile.

First, Emile gives his life story and explaining why he did it. He just wanted to be left alone and had been living under the school for a while. Since no one else has used the lift in years, he’s been able to easily come and go, and remain unbothered. Living in a van down by the river sure seems a lot less appealing now that I can live in a tunnel under a school.

This guy somehow got a full bed down the tiny lift; there has to be another entrance. Emile further explains he was trying to scare them off from his home. Wait, so this dude in his late 50s somehow dressed up as the phantom, did a bunch of stunts, and convinced everyone he was 12 years old. Huh?

Brooke and Zeke escape up the lift. The switch somehow works now, again. Zeke’s dad is at the top of the lift. Does everyone just break into this school?

His dad says he knew he would be here, great guess, and says Zeke is in trouble, of course. Brooke and Zeke tell his dad about Emile. In an unusual change of pace, Zeke’s dad calls the police. This almost never happens.

By the time the police arrive Emile has left with his possessions. Obviously, there is a second exit, but I think Emile must be the Flash with how fast he was able to leave, especially with the majority of his belongings.

The book then skips forward to the night of the performance. The lift has been fixed, Zeke is playing the phantom again, there have been no more strange hauntings since Emile has left, and everything is running smoothly.

However, R.L. Stine doesn’t understand how middle school works. So middle school is 6th to 8th grade. Then there’s junior high, which is 7th to 9th grade. However, this book all of a sudden introduces that 5th graders go to this school as well. So, is this an elementary to high school type place, or does Stine just not understand which grades go to which school?

The first act goes by without issue. Zeke shows up as the phantom for the second act to make his first appearance as the phantom. Brooke states it’s weird Zeke isn’t talking to her, as they prepare for the second act, but she doesn’t talk to him either.

During the second act, Brooke is on stage. Zeke comes up from the trapdoor as the phantom. However, it’s not Zeke! It’s the phantom.

The phantom on stage during his first appearance tells his whole story. He says he fell down the trapdoor and died during the first performance, and that he was the student who discovered the script. The audience applauds his performance.

This makes no sense. First, this would make no sense to the story, this is the start of the second act, which plays usually have three acts. This type of speech story wise, I’d think would appear in the third act. However, more importantly, it doesn’t make any sense within the continuity of the play itself, especially based upon everything we’ve seen so far. This means the audience would be very confused and the story wouldn’t make any sense to them. If I were in the audience, I’d think the actor for the phantom forgot his lines and is just adlibbing.

This improvised scene comes to an end when Brooke tries to remove the phantom’s mask. Before she can, the phantom falls to his death, again. He stumbles into the trapdoor. This seems like a safety hazard, especially since there’s fog on stage.

Afterwards, Zeke shows up and says someone hit him in the head. By the way, this happens right after that scene, so I guess the play just kind of got cancelled after an act and a half. Great, this makes so much sense. Also, Zeke’s been knocked out this whole time, I think he should go see a doctor, that must be a pretty bad concussion.

Brooke and Zeke go down into the trapdoor, but they don’t find the phantom. This is all happening while the audience is watching. Again, if I were an audience member, I’d be so confused.

Walker congratulates all of them. Brooke and Zeke head to their lockers to avoid the crowd and to grab their coats. Brooke’s locker is opened and inside is a yearbook.

The yearbook is from the school’s first year and has a bookmark on the page of the phantom play. There’s a picture of Brian on that page. The book ends.

Review:

This book is better than the last one, but it’s still not the greatest ones I’ve read yet.

I think there are some good aspects. I like the urban legend type of set up, and it’s quite fun in that regard. There’s also some great characterization of the central characters and all of them are at least somewhat developed. Emile is a nice red herring. The storyline is well paced. I think there’s a lot of cool moments in the story like the trapdoor going into tunnels and the ending is pretty well done for the most part.

However, the story isn’t devoid of problems. It makes no sense Brian got into this school. Who did this ghost bribe? There’s a whole registration process to school, you need to at least have a parent or guardian, and how did Brian get in without some form of identification. This makes no sense, for multiple reasons outside of those primary reasons as well.

Next, it seems like anybody can sneak into this school and somehow people don’t know there are tunnels under the school. The ending doesn’t work with the play just ending, or the speech, which doesn’t add up. Also, the phantom is underutilized in this story. By this I’m referring to the actual phantom and not all of the people who just dress up as the phantom, since Brian only really appears as him at the very end. This leads to low stakes, or I should say almost no stakes. Even Emile, who could be seen as dangerous, just ends up being a dude wanting to be left alone and not a risk to anyone.

Part of the reason I didn’t capitalize the phantom in this Goosebumps book is because I only see it as necessary when we’re talking about the actual phantom, but since the actual phantom isn’t in it until the very end, and it turns out it’s just a role that Brian had when he was alive, I didn’t deem it necessary, since that’s not the character’s actual name. I may change this in the future, but I don’t see a reason to.

Overall, this book leaves me feeling somewhat mixed. I think the core ideas are done well, but the ways they get to it aren’t done very well. The biggest change I would make is Brian being only a small side character to keep him more mysterious. This can be achieved by having him only show up during rehearsals, since then he wouldn’t be in class, and you can fix the plot hole of him being a student.

Without Brian being a student in that way or having him just be at rehearsals with Walker not knowing him, it would allow for the character to be better overall. This would maybe make the twist a bit more obvious, but it would help out the story a lot.

The other big change I’d like is don’t have Emile be the guy dressed up as the phantom. While it isn’t explicitly stated he’s the one dressed up as the phantom early on, during these appearances, Brian is working painting with Tina, even a ghost can’t be in two places at once, it leaves only Emile as an option for the phantom. While I could see the argument that Brian is the phantom during these scenes, it just wouldn’t make sense for the reasons mentioned above. As well as Emile being the only one who wants the kids to stay away. To add credence to this, he literally has paint on him from working on the set.

Also, how did nobody find Brian’s body. He would literally have died on the platform, which means his body would have been found when they brought the platform up. Or if his body had fallen off at the bottom, at least Emile, a janitor, or somebody back then would have found it. There would have also been a police investigation or at least news reports that could be accessible or known about. This is so dumb.

This is a Goosebumps book that tries to do too much for a story that could otherwise be way more straight forward and simple. Luckily, it’s not as bad as the last Goosebumps book.

I’ll give this entry of Goosebumps a 6/10. Not the best, not the worst. At least the story didn’t ghost me.

Twist ending:

Brian is the phantom. Emile is the phantom. Zeke is not the phantom.

Memorable line:

“His last little joke, if I have anything to say about it.” Oh, damn, Walker is going to murder Zeke and make him the phantom permanently.

Memorable moment, cliffhanger, etc:

The phantom swoops down, enters the stage, says ‘stay away’ in a voice like a 50-year-old man, then drops into a trapdoor. Who could it be, Zeke, Tina, or maybe the man who lives in the tunnels. The world will never know.

Bad parenting:

Well, Brooke’s parents aren’t in this book, her brother shows up with her, but her parents aren’t really anywhere to be found. Zeke’s dad doesn’t really do anything wrong. So, it’s a bad teaching book. Walker doesn’t realize anything’s wrong when the phantom starts delivering the wrong lines. She also blames Zeke for everything.

Random References:

Poltergeist, Pontiac, Kermit the Frog, Guys and Dolls, and Friday the 13th. Stine putting an R-rated horror film into a children’s book is pretty wild.

Tropes in book:

Sibling pair, pranks, ridiculous dream sequence, Zeke jump scare, crazy cliffhangers, twist ending, character is 12, and nobody believes a character’s crazy story.

TV tie-in:

This episode of Goosebumps is certainly an interesting adaptation.

First, the abandoned tunnel is really well lit with modern lights, which doesn’t add up. The episode also starts with an awful dream sequence. The platform now gets stuck three to four feet from the top, but the kids still need a boost, but literally they can just climb out. Emile attempts murder with a falling door.

Also, Emile somehow knows that Brooke is Esmeralda.

They do a better job with finding out Emile doesn’t work there by asking the regular the janitor to clean up the paint and he doesn’t know about Emile. Emile also cosplays as the phantom when the kids are in his home. It’s so funny that Emile dresses up as the phantom in this episode, like clearly, it’s not Zeke, but a grown man.

Emile escapes again but now is looking at an attempted murder case. I can’t believe that the episode has more stakes and danger than the Goosebumps book.

The phantom at the end has flame eyes, which is hilarious. It’s so poorly done. He also gives the same speech as the book, and the same ridiculous series of events happen at the end of the book, except Brian tries to kidnap her again. However, he dies again. Also, the phantom knocks out Zeke, but puts the yearbook under his head, which is way less effort than in the book.

This Goosebumps episode remains the same outside of that. I think some of the changes are helpful and make the story a bit better. However, Brian still being a student is pretty ridiculous. I guess he finally graduated after 72 years of school. However, the acting isn’t the best and the dream sequences, and some of the phantom appearances and shots are a bit too cringe, even for me.

I’ll give this Goosebumps episode a 5/10. It’s not the best, it’s not the worst, it’s so middle of the road in terms of quality, I can’t say too much about it.

Memorable episode line:

“My grandfather went to this school 72 years ago.” How old is your grandfather? Actually, I can do some math. He would have been at least 86 years old in this episode, if we base it off of when he left the school, if the school is only up to 8th grade. If it goes until graduation, then he would be 90.

Famous cast:

Stuart Stone, Kathryn Greenwood, Julia Chantrey, Neo Edmund, and Boyd Banks.

Come back soon for more Goosebumps fun and reviews.

To read the last Goosebumps review: https://goosebumpsblogger.com/goosebumps-23-return-of-the-mummy/

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