R.L. Stine
Feiwel & Friends, 2013
$17.99, Hardcover
978-1250024343
Genre: Horror
Age: 12+
Description: Claire’s parents run a failing movie studio with the
parents of her best friend (and long-time crush) Jake. Unfortunately, they are
on the brink of bankruptcy unless they can make a big blockbuster film that
will make people rush to the theatres. That’s where Mayhem Manor comes in.
Years ago a creepy haunted house was built from the ground up on the studio for
a mockumentary horror film. Unfortunately, production was stopped when three of
the teens filming were killed in accidents on the set. Every since the house
has stood empty and people talk about the curse of Mayhem Manor. Claire’s
parents think a remake of the never finished true horror story would be the
ticket to saving their company. Luckily for her, Claire’s parents finally
decide to let her dream of acting come alive. She and her best friend get major
speaking parts and Jake gets work with the editor to work behind the scenes. Claire
thinks that she can also get Jake to finally see that she is girlfriend
materials but, of course, Jake is in love with Delia, Claire’s best friend, who
happens to be in love with the clues Shawn, Jake’s best friend, who is madly
stalking Claire even though she’s told him time and time again that she’s not
interested. However, they might not make it out alive as filming starts and the
new cast of teens start dying in mysterious accidents very much resembling the
original deaths.
Opinion: I give props to Stine for still writing but the writing in
this novel was very pedantic. It screams “Stine” though. It is very reminiscent
of his horror stories from the 1980s and 1990s, especially his Point Horror
single title books. Now saying that isn’t necessarily mean the book was bad. It
just wasn’t particularly good. If you’ve got fans of Stine who are growing up
from Goosebumps they’d probably like it. If you’ve got fans of horror that will
read anything, they will read it. However, there were just a few too many
things wrong with the story for me to get into it. First, it is supposed to be
a reworking of Shakespeare’s play. I don’t know many teens that will have read
or know anything about A Midsummer Night’s
Dream as that usually isn’t the Shakespeare read in English classes. Also
the odd combination of Shakespeare and horror, which could have turned out
awesome, didn’t really work here. There were too many love triangles and the “horror”
addition of the Puck character made no real sense (he did his messing with
people’s emotions via a bunch of potions—none of which lasted more than a few
minutes at a time). It seemed like two plots at once going on—filming a horror
movie gone wrong and a humorous tale of mixed up potions (that isn’t too humorous).
While the book says it is for those 12 and up there horror elements aren’t too
gory (a hand gets chopped off, a boy gets electrocuted, a girl falls down the
stairs and breaks her neck) the romantic elements of the book seem to skew it
older. Jake is a horny teen. Even though he is madly in love with Delia when
she shows no interest he keeps pursuing her but then hooks up with the snobby,
pretty girl on the set who, knowing Claire likes him, purposefully goes after
him. If I were Claire I would not be interested in him for much longer. There
is also some bad language making this seem more appropriate for older teens. There
were also some major plot issues I had with the novel. First, in the original
there were four boys and three girls yet on the set there are four boys and
four girls. Who is Delia supposed to be playing in the remake? There are too
many cast members! Secondly, the opening of the original teens making a Blair
Witch-like horror movie and all dying leads to the whole idea of how did this
even happen when the whole thing was filmed on a movie set? One of the murders
didn’t seem very plausible—when the character that was supposed to die by an
electrocution from a toaster doesn’t he is instead offed by having his head
placed in a microwave and have half his face melt. How does that even work? How
is that even an accident? Someone needs to be held in a freaking microwave and
how does it work without the door closed? Plus, the fact that more deaths occurred
in the remake and when (the twist?) Claire and her friends get “kidnapped” by
the killer (no surprise, Puck who has the ability to live a long time
obviously) and he attempts to film their demises what studio could ethically
agree to release the film using footage of the real deaths? That just seems not
likely to happen in real life. I can’t wait to hear what my teens think since
they didn’t grow up reading Stine’s teen horror books.
*Thanks to Emily Waters at Macmillan
for providing an ARC of this title for the YA Galley Group project!*
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