How to Kill a Monster

How to Kill a Monster

So, back in the early 1990s, writer RL Stine had finally carved out a niche for himself. He had spent 20 years writing anything and everything under the sun - joke books, colouring books, self help books, interviews, articles, liner sheets, TV scripts, comics - that would pay the bills as he tried to make his way as a writer. He wanted to be Jovial Bob, a MAD magazine style writer, but he struggled to get that successful paying job until he was in his 40s and an editor friend of his wife noted his love of horror and asked the infamous question: "Why not write a horror book?" Twisted was the result, for Scholastic's new young adult range and it quickly became a best seller in its demographic. So he got asked to write another, and another, and soon even his own series of books, Fear Street.

But then in 1992, the conversation that changed his life happened. He was asked by his editors, that since he had talented for the teenage horror market, and he was a well known lover of all things Twilight Zone and Suspense and shows like that: "why not try writing a Twilight Zone type book for the 8-12 year old range?" And Stine responded by...having a panic attack. He was convinced it couldn't work. That it was beyond him. So much so, he went home and quickly put together Welcome to Dead House, as evidence that he wasn't able to write for that age group. Only to see it accepted for publication, printed, and selling in the region of a million copies before you could even retort about it being too scary for kids. (Stine still thinks Dead House is too grim and needed more humour to lighten the whole mass murder aspect. It did however change his life forever.)

"We needed a title for the book series, to promote it, and we were all stuck until I saw a TV ad for an upcoming run of horror movies. "It's Goosebumps season on Channel 19!" And I said, "Guys, that's the answer! We can call the books Channel 19!"
RL Stine

Stine found himself writing a book a month for 6 years until he ran out of steam entirely and needed a break, writing 62 Goosebumps novels, selling 250 million books, and being cited as having encouraged in the region of 20 milion plus kids to start reading during the 1990s. When it comes to kids horror and kids books in general, RL Stine is a big ¤¤¤¤ing deal.

So it comes as no surprise that during the zeitgeist of the 90s, Canadian TV made a series based on the Goosebumps novels and short stories. Sold around the world, and authorised, it was still made on a shoestring budget. Hence some stories not quite living up to the images created in the mind (My Hairiest Adventure) and some they never even tried to get on screen (the Cthulhu inspired Camp Jellyjam as one example). Others got turned down for being too dark (Night of the Living Dummy), or were heavily lightened for screen (Werewolf Skin). Yet the show managed to put together the best Monster Blood story - a completely invented 20 minute tale about it attacking a plane in midflight - and casting Adam West in Attack of the Mutant was a stroke of genius.

But all this said, How to Kill a Monster comes from the latter end of the book series, when Stine was running out of steam and ideas, and whilst one of the shining lights of that climax, it was rather dark. So how would it translate it to the darkness-phobic TV series?

First off, Jack Lenz's music is great. His entrance theme is one of those iconic mid-90s TV pieces, but as we cut into the episode, with a taxi driving into the middle of a swamp, the incidentals go all Deliverance and eerie, setting the audience up for horror before a single worrying thing happens on screen.

Our main characters are hayfever stricken Clark, and older sister Gretchen. The taxi leaves the two kids in the middle of nowhere to find their grandma's house. A recurring theme in Stine's work is that all adults are feckless bastards. An important life lesson if you consider recent electoral results.

Granma's house is full of trophies from the swamp, crocodile skulls and other creatures. The two kids are new step-siblings, and their parents have dumped them to Swamp Granny to go have a holiday to themselves. Adults! Some creeping around the empty house finds a mysteriously locked door, and Granma! She's so delightfully happy to see the kids, Stepfordly in a way, and she feeds them up with lots of gator soup. We meet Grandpa Eddie, who looks like he just walked in from warning some horny teens about Jason Vorhees. There's mysterious screams that neither grandparents claims to have heard.

And then... the grandparents disappear, leaving the kids alone in the middle of a swamp. Only thing is, they aren't alone.

Now, the best thing about this low budget remake is they decide to keep one of Stine's darkest twists. You might have guessed there is a monster in the locked room. That's not the twist. That bit happens when the two kids find a letter from their grandparents, who aren't missing. No, they've lured their grandkids to the house with a false story to the parents, and have now ¤¤¤¤ed off to escape the monster leaving the kids as bait! The grandparents even LOCKED THE DOORS TO PREVENT THE KIDS ESCAPING! They manage to escape the one monster - in War of the Worlds fashion, it is allergic to the hayfever ridden kid - but are left abandoned in the middle of the swamp with the sound of more monsters from every direction as night falls. Ain't no happy ending for this duo.

The TV version tries to lighten that plot twist, and its very threadbare in its design (in the book, the monster is some sort of alligator mutant, with a subtle pollution/Godzilla reference, whereas in the TV its like a 80s Omega pet), but overall it helps remind that even when people thought they knew all his tropes, RL Stine could still, when he wanted, make an audience's jaw drop to the floor.

Director Ron Oliver of Prom Night II "fame" does his best with what he has, lots of shots from above and making the most of the limited set. Of the kids, Ricky Mabe is a regular on Canadian TV.

A reasonable 20 mins spent.