Goosebumps #04: Say Cheese and Die

I actually don’t have the third book (yet), so I just proceeded to this one. In Say Cheese in Die, I think RL Stine easily portrayed not only the dim-witted things kids do when they’re bored, but also the petrifying costs of these acts. Living in a small, old town like Pitts Landing (“Pitts Landing is the pits”), all Greg, Shari, Bird and Michael ever wanted was to do something. But they can’t because it’s a boring town (very much like My-Subdivision-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named). So they challenged each other to go into the deserted Coffman House; enter then leave – nothing would have been simpler than that. But then Greg finds the old camera and all hell breaks loose.

The camera isn’t broken, but it was definitely creepy. It was one of those automatic-developing cameras, and the four friends thought it was really kewl. But when Greg takes a picture of his father’s new Taurus station wagon, the photograph showed a wrecked car – and some days after, it did get totaled! Strange outcomes also resulted when Bird’s and Michael’s pictures were taken. Bird got smacked in the head with a baseball and Michael fell off the banister. What’s worse was the annoying Shari asking Greg to take her picture during her birthday party when Greg was very much against it. And when the photo came out, she wasn’t in it – then she mysteriously vanishes without a trace! It’s as though the camera knows the future or – as written on the back cover – “maybe it makes the future”. Anyway, that camera has some issues, and Greg knew it. The only problem was that, no one wanted to believe him.

If there was one character in the story who definitely made things more complicated, it has to be Fritz Fredericks, whom we’ve known as “Spidey” up until the last three chapters. Spidey is your typical neighborhood hobo; an old vagabond, wearing black clothes; allegedly sneaks into the Coffman House to keep himself sheltered. The camera belonged to him, period. And because Greg was the one to steal the camera, Spidey suddenly starts stalking him. One time, Greg even came home and found his room trashed (Spidey’s doing, as the book wanted us to presume), as though someone had been looking for something. Now, I never would have guessed that Spidey was a scientist. An evil one at that, too. And it was quite a story he told. If Shari and Greg hadn’t escaped from his clutches that night at the Coffman House, I can only wonder what Spidey would have done to them. His demise was a shocking one, of course. After years of anguish and seclusion, the camera has finally taken his soul.

When I read Say Cheese and Die, I thought it was going to be boring. Some years back, I have perused upon the opening lines one too many times; I have practically memorized them. But it’s not really entirely uninteresting. Yes, some parts were tiring, like Bird’s Little League game in where Shari and Greg just examined the camera, waiting for Bird to get hit by a baseball. Also, I noticed that every time a frightening event occurs, a storm appears. That's getting rather annoying. Anyway, once I got past those, the story facilitates itself. It’s sort of funny reading about a camera that kills, but at least it’s better than a phone that does the job. It sort of reminded me of the movie Feng Shui. In the movie, the bagua takes the soul of anyone who catches a glimpse of their eye in its mirror. Whereas in Say Cheese and Die, the camera takes the souls of people whose pictures it has taken. I only hoped this book has a little bit of twist It Came From Beneath the Sink has. Also, when Spidey was telling the story of the camera, he mentioned that he pilfered it from his lab partner because it would cost him a fortune. How is that? Did it already develop pictures that would show the future when it was created? Really, it isn’t clear, and it’s not written. And Spidey’s lab partner put a “curse” on the camera? A scientist who was into black magic actually bewitched some thing? Wow, that just sounded even more annoying when I wrote it!

Anyway, despite all the hubbubs of the last three chapters, this book was nice. I thought it was a little exciting, plus the dialogues were graphic. The ending was far better than what RL Stine did in Stay Out of the Basement. The cover must have also been derived from one of Greg’s dream – except there are two boys and two girls when there really are supposed to be … oh well. Too much spoilers. Read it.

3 out of 5. Say sorry, Last Chapters. Could have been a better rating.