Full Moon Halloween (Nightmare Room) vs. Werewolf Skin (Goosebumps)

The first book I read for this showdown was Full Moon Halloween, a 2001 R. L. Stine release as part of the Nightmare Room series. I’ve long been intrigued by this series as it appears to have been released by Harper Collins around the time that Stine was involved in legal woes with Scholastic over the rights to Goosebumps (details on this seem a bit fuzzy, another excellent case for the pre-teen detective I hope to hire to solve mysteries such as this). Anyway, given the timing and what I suspect was probably some bad blood, I’ve wondered to what extent these books flagrantly ripoff Goosebumps plots. I guess we will see! In this book, our main characters (Tristan and Rosa) receive an invitation to a Halloween party at their teacher’s house. The invitation itself is pretty neat, thick black smoke poured out of the black and orange envelope (which is, indeed, pushing the envelope of party invitation design). Tristan and Rosa assume the whole class received an invitation but, alas, the teacher only invited four kids (that’s pretty darn weird). Pretty early on we get confirmation that this party is going to be sinister (the teacher and his wife press a secret button to activate a security system that bars up the windows and doors). The party is friggin’ wild and grosses me out. It features lots of standard party games but in an unusually disgusting form (for example, they play the classic game where you are blindfolded, reach into a bowl, and guess what you’ve touched. In this case, the bowl is filled with animal intestines. At another point, the kids are forced to eat raw meat.) This book definitely goes harder than Goosebumps books did around this same era (Goosebumps books generally got a lot tamer as the series progressed). Ultimately it is revealed that the party hosts (Mr. and Mrs. Moon, subtle, right?) are hosting this party because they are trying to find and trap the werewolves in town. The party devolves into psychological torture. The guests try to escape, but no dice, given the aforementioned security system. At this point, Tristan and Rosa confess to being werewolves, hoping that the Moons will let the others go, and then their released classmates can go find help. The Moon’s do not believe the confession, and the torment continues. Spoiler: The Moons then reveal that the whole thing was a big, elaborate prank (because werewolves aren’t real, right?). They start to let the kids go, and then, ohmygod, Tristan and Rosa actually do transform into werewolves. Right then the police show up. The Moons’ son Michael tipped them off as he is disgusted by his parents’ annual tradition of tormenting children at their house. The cops don’t believe the Moons’ desperate pleas that the kids really are werewolves, and the police arrest the Moons. Meanwhile, the two other innocent, non-werewolf kids are like… cops… please help. And the cops are like, nah, you’re fine, and leave the kids with the werewolves (this is the normative quality of policework in these kinds of books).

This book was actually pretty unsettling. While the werewolf stuff itself wasn’t particularly terrifying, between the disgusting nature of the pranks and the horrifying sociopathy of the teacher and his wife, I felt genuinely unnerved at multiple points during the book. At one particularly notable moment in the book, the teacher points to a pile of animal skins, declaring them “Werewolf Skins.” The children are forced to put on the skins, which “smelled like rotting food” and were “crawling with bugs.” The whole scene is disgusting and visceral, but most of all reminded me of the “werewolf skins” that appear in the Goosebumps book, conveniently titled Werewolf Skin, which made me decide that it would be the perfect comparison novel. This marks the first time that 99 Fear Street: YA Showdown features a comparison between two books by the same author. Historic!

Werewolf Skin (1997) by R. L. Stine is one of surprisingly few original series Goosebumps books set at Halloween. In this tale, Alex is sent to stay with some relatives that he barely remembers because his parents are off to do some vaguely defined business in Paris for two weeks. (Note: When Alex meets up with these relatives, he internally comments that they don’t look at all like he remembers them (he last saw them when he was four years old), which I thought was going to lead somewhere, like that the people who picked him up at the bus stop aren’t actually his relatives, but nope, that does not end up being the issue). Alex describes his aunt and uncle as looking like “two skinny grasshoppers with tufts of gray hair on top of their heads”, which I found to be a wild thing to think. It is a bit strange to me how many Goosebumps books start with kids going to stay with relatives they don’t know and have barely heard of as their parents go on unspecified business trips. It makes me wonder how common of an occurrence that is IRL and how often it happened to R. L. as a child. Unlike most Goosebumps protagonists, though, this kiddo is not a fuddy duddy about staying with his relatives, in part because he is an incredibly serious photographer, and his uncle is a professional photographer, currently focused on “creatures of the night.” While I think we are supposed to be thinking of owls and bats and such, part of me wonders if this incredibly niche career journey might possibly just maybe be connected to werewolves somehow. No way to know just yet. Not at all ominously, the town that Alex is visiting is called Wolf Creek. Understandably, our protagonist wants to better understand what the deal is with that, and his aunt jokes that it is because “Chicago was already taken.” That joke really worked for me. The family drives past a rundown old house and the uncle is really, really weird about it, noting that it is the Marlings’ place, and Alex must never go there, Simba (bet he goes there!). The aunt and uncle tell him about a “cute” girl named Hannah who lives next door. In the book, The Ghost Next Door, the eponymous ghost is also named Hannah, making me wonder if this book is paying tribute to her (it also makes me wonder, right off the bat, if there is something supernatural about her, given R. L.’s occasional lack of creativity and previous use of a next door neighbor named Hannah as a vehicle for horror). When told that Hannah is cute, Alex seems disinterested and immediately asks if any boys live nearby (I doubt this was intentional, but this reads as very gay to me). This kiddo gets to attend the school in Wolf Creek for two weeks, leaving me wondering if short-term school attendance is a thing that happens (A quick Google search suggests that it would’ve been more likely to happen in the past than currently; pre-teen detective, please add this question to your caseload). Ultimately, this seems to mostly be a vehicle for Alex to attend a class session about “lycanthropy” (described in the book as the study of werewolves; this was a rare case where a Goosebumps book taught me a new word and then a supplemental Google search revealed that there is some research on a psychiatric condition where folks believe they are turning into werewolves—this one was not covered in my social work program, though, in earnest, I would be interested to explore the personal and contextual factors that potentially contribute to this particular manifestation of mental health concerns. Thanks R. L. for this professional development opportunity.)  Between this totally normal middle school lecture topic and repeated references to how Halloween is going to happen during a full moon (just like the relevantly titled Full Moon Halloween!), it’s hard to say whether werewolves will factor into the rest of this book. We don’t have to wait long- Alex becomes, shockingly, fascinated by the Marlings’ house (even though his dear uncle encouraged him to pay it no mind). He sees all sorts of interesting things near the property: Paw prints, shredded curtains, and eventually, werewolves running around the grounds. Alex is, above all else, a photographer and tries his darndest to get some photos of the werewolves, no matter the cost. This goes on for a while. He goes out in the middle of the night, but oh no, his aunt and uncle find out, and they are not happy! They are so not happy that they lock his bedroom door from the outside and bar up the windows (just like at the cursed party in Full Moon Halloween!). This hostage situation seems like a veritable safety concern. That said, it may be less of a safety concern than chasing around werewolves in the middle of the night in pursuit of your big break with National Geographic. Well, our kiddo is fairly enterprising and sticks a wad of gum in the door latch, enabling him to sneak out again to take pictures (which I guess his aunt and uncle are supposedly also doing… maybe? They might just be photographing owls though… boring….). Well, anyways, Alex sees the werewolves out and about and decides to follow them to: 1. Capture the perfect picture, and 2. Warn his relatives (it is very clear that his priorities are in that order). I will acknowledge that I do find the aunt and uncle’s behavior fairly suspicious by this point. I was fully willing to believe that they were creatures of the night photography specialists, but the combination of them being out all night, barricading the kid inside, and weird adamance that the Marlings are definitely not werewolves (but don’t investigate), just seem a little off. Spoiler: My wolfy instincts appear to be spot on here. As day breaks, the werewolves shed their werewolf skins (which appear to be cape-like wolf pelts), revealing themselves as Alex’s aunt and uncle (this seems like the hazard of being sent to relatives that seemingly no one in your family knows). Aunt and Uncle Wolfy climb into the Marlings’ house, depositing their weird werewolf capes. Later on, Alex sneaks into the house (with Hannah) to discover that the house is completely empty minus the neatly folded and stacked werewolf skins. What!?!? The Marlings were fabricated!? NO WAY! (Note: the werewolf skins sound similar to the ones in Full Moon Halloween, likely indicating that both books describe such skins with a carefully researched scientific accuracy, but surprisingly, Full Moon Halloween goes harder than Werewolf Skin does in terms of vividly and viscerally describing the skins). Alex and Hannah hatch a scheme (partially inspired by the incredibly useful werewolf lectures in school, confirming once and for all that someday you will absolutely need the random things you learn in school, even if it doesn’t seem like it at the time) where they will hide the skins from the aunt and uncle til daybreak, somehow breaking the curse. I’m not sure we were given adequate reason to believe that this plan might work, but I just finished Ted Lasso so I know the importance of choosing to believe. Somewhat weirdly, Alex and Hannah decide that the only way for them to hide the skins from the aunt and uncle is to wear them around town. Stunningly, Halloween night, the aunt and uncle spot the wolf-robed kids, but despite some conflict, the plan ultimately works. Things are really looking up. The curse is broken. Hell, they even have pancakes for breakfast. The vibes are very cheery. But wait, not so fast! Alex and Hannah go to return the skins to the abandoned werewolf skin house (Note: It is a bit upsetting to me that the aunt and uncle, who do not seem to have particularly lucrative careers as Creatures of the Night photographers manage to have a spacious home and a bonus home solely for their werewolf skins. I wonder how much avocado toast they had to forego to make that dream a reality?) But wait, WTF!? Inside the house, there is a folded up werewolf skin laying on the floor. But that makes for three skins!? That’s one more skin than previously discussed!? Where did that skin come from!? Hannah casually shares that she received her skin last night and seemingly immediately proceeds to murder our protagonist before our very eyes by devouring his chest. Well shit! And to think, National Geographic was soo close to being able to run a werewolf exclusive!

Ultimately, you could combine the titles of these two books and generate a vague book title that captures them both: Werewolf Skin on a Full Moon Halloween. Though, let’s not overstate the similarities between these books! Werewolf skins are really crucial to the mechanisms of wolfing in the book Werewolf Skin (which is distinct from most other werewolf lore that I’ve encountered). The werewolf skins in Full Moon Halloween were really only there for the ick factor, and honestly, that was effective but not plot critical. I think there’s an interpretation where these books could plausibly take place in the same universe, potentially even in the same house (the window bars and doors that lock from the outside are, understandably, fairly unusual architectural characteristics in most small towns, after all. Ultimately, the sticking point for me with Full Moon Halloween is the combination of unclear teacher motives (why does this person move around from town to town to throw this incredibly over-the-top party every year? It seems like a high cost for a minimal reward) and what are the chances that they invited actual werewolves to their werewolf fake-out party? (I guess the chances increase the more times they throw the party, but I’m gonna need my pre-teen detective to run the numbers on that for me). Somewhat similarly, in Werewolf Skin, I don’t understand why the aunt and uncle, who are largely total strangers (but don’t seem to want to devour this kid) would agree to take him in during the full moon. Both of these books are pretty grim and bit more gory than I had expected. Both books have fairly good pacing, spooky ambience, and startling twists. Surprisingly for two R. L. Halloween books, neither is particularly revenge oriented, though Full Moon Halloween takes the Halloween pranking business to the next level. I’m a bit more familiar with the iconic Goosebumps double-twist, so I found myself a bit less surprised. Werewolf Skin gets some bonus points with me for having a less obnoxious protagonist than usual (Not to mention, I love a kid committed to their hobbies). Ultimately, with Full Moon Halloween, I’m still a bit stuck on why the teacher does this whole sociopathic party thing and how he keeps getting hired at new school districts, year after year (perchance this book is providing scathing social commentary on the shortage of quality teachers due to our society’s disinvestment in education and the perilous impacts of this shortage on the youth of today). My final comment is that although R. L. is clearly pulling from the same well of gimmicks here, Full Moon Halloween was less of a flagrant rip-off of his prior work than I had expected.

Showdown Winner: Werewolf Skin (Goosebumps) by R. L. Stine