Tagline: N/A
Back tagline: A party to die for!
Summary: It’s Halloween in Springwood and the place to be is the old Appleby mansion where the lord of the manor is none other than Jack Spyder himself.
Born John Appleby, Jack Spyder changed his name when he was eight, right after he was discovered in a national talent search and landed a role on a hit television sitcom. But like many stars, Jack rose to fame too fast, and when he lost his parents suddenly in a terrible accident, he returned home to the mansion that they owned in Springwood.
Then teen idol Jack throws a Halloween bash — the party to end all parties. Not only has the local boy-made-good returned home, but it has also been rumored that an accident which Jack himself had been in had ruined his clean-cut good looks. Will he be as hideous as the gossip papers have suggested? Will the party be beyond Springwood’s wildest expectations? Everyone is literally dying to find out.
First impressions: This seems like a very different Tale of Terror plot than what we’ve had in the past, and it sounds promising! I have no idea how Freddy will fit into it, but I guess we’ll see. I have a feeling the party won’t be the main setting as the blurb seems to suggest, so I don’t want to get my hopes up that we’re going full slasher and having a bunch of kids being slaughtered at a party, but I can dream, can’t I? There’s also a lot of exposition in the blurb too, whereas the other ones have either had an excerpt from the book or didn’t really sum up the book that well.
Onto the cover, the colour scheme is quite dull compared to the other books, and the inside picture is hilarious. Why is he making that face?! He’s cute though. I wonder if this is teen idol Jack Spyder? We can’t see part of his face behind the mask, so I wonder if it is all scars or just rumours.
Anyway, this is the last book in the series, which I’ve really enjoyed so far, so I’m hopeful this one won’t disappoint either. Let’s find out!
Recap
Meet the crew:
Rachel — Our heroine with mixed feelings about Jack Spyder.
Jack — A down-on-his-luck teen actor who’s just moved back to Springwood.
Maria — A melodramatic aspiring actor who’s keen on Jack.
RePete — An annoying guy harbouring animosity towards Jack’s family.
Ron — Jack’s best friend/manager who has also acted in the past.
Vanessa — Jack’s self-serving ex-girlfriend who’s chased him to Springwood.
Todd and Van — A pair of thieves seeking to loot Jack’s mansion.
The prologue begins with Freddy Krueger raving about Halloween, his favourite time of year. To him, Halloween isn’t that much different to every other day; ‘We don our masks, hide our real selves, and pretend to be someone else. Everyone does it.’ [Lol, drag humanity] It makes you wonder about the people around you — Maybe your best friend is an enemy in disguise! Freddy offers the following Tale of Terror as his Halloween treat to us, quipping that it might scare us to death, [Doubt it] ‘but at least it won’t cause tooth decay!’
The main story begins at Jack Spyder’s Halloween party at Appleby mansion, first mentioned in the previous book. Our heroine Rachel Chan [Diversity! We love to see it] is there dressed as the floor of a movie theatre, wearing a black body suit with popcorn and candy stuck all over it, complete with some Christmas lights that run down her left side. [Hahaha iconic] With her are her friends, Help Wanted‘s Laura Walcutt and Doug Stately, who are dressed as Bonnie and Clyde. Laura gushes over how beautiful the mansion is and without even thinking, Rachel comments how much Shelby , Laura’s sister, would love this, causing Laura to go a bit weird. Rachel had been visiting relatives in Japan over the summer so completely missed the events of Help Wanted, and by the time she returned, it was no longer spoken of by anyone involved. Rachel only knows what she’s read in the papers about it; that a new boy in town had murdered three of her classmates. She’s aware Laura and Shelby were somehow at the centre of the whole thing, but both refuse to talk about it, and Shelby’s retreated into her books and collections, barely socialising again. [But having rumours spread about you was so much fun, Shelby!]
They head over to the punch table for a refill where their classmate Maria is working as a caterer for the party. She’s a bit glum because she wants to enjoy the party but she’s not off work until midnight. An aspiring actor, she’s very melodramatic and complains that she thought taking the job would get her behind the scenes, not stuck behind the stupid punch table. [Exactly how behind the scenes did you think a catering job would get you?] Another classmate working as a caterer tonight is Pete Peters, known as RePete, [Clever! Why would his parents do this hahaha] butts into the conversation. Bone-thin, slick and cheerful, no-one really likes him [Although it doesn’t elaborate why. I guess he’s just annoying?] and the conversation dies down as they wait for him to leave. He’s either too clueless to realise or doesn’t care, so Doug and Laura head off to dance, barely acknowledging him.
RePete and Maria are curious if Rachel knows if there’s any truth to the rumours about Jack Spyder, if he’s really a ‘”monster”‘ now, [Hmm, I don’t like that language] and they’re asking her because she used to be close with him. Rachel hasn’t talked to him in a few years, so she has no idea. Soon, the music stops and an electronically altered voice asks everyone to gather at the bottom of the elegant twin staircases of the ballroom. The lights dim as the staircase is spotlighted, then Jack Spyder descends the stairs dressed as the Phantom of the Opera. Halfway down the stairs the Phantom stops and tears the mask from his face, revealing blue eyes ‘gleaming through a mass of bright, pink scar tissue.’ [Is it his real face or part of his costume?]
‘The creature on the stairs’ [Oh god, I hope Bergantino isn’t gonna keep talking about Jack like this] watches the audience and continues to talk in that electronic voice, wondering how many of them have, or had, posters of him on their walls. He then begins laughing, and the electronic voice slowly changes to a more human one, and guests start laughing too. Jack then pulls off the scar tissue, a realistic rubber mask, revealing the handsome, unscathed face beneath. [Cheeky little devil!] The music resumes as Jack descends the rest of the staircase and begins talking to someone dressed as Elvis, who points out Rachel. Jack begins moving through the crowd, saying hello to his guests but not letting himself be drawn into actual conversation, and soon is right in front of Rachel, staring silently. [Sounds awkward] Rachel stares back and before she knows it, Jack’s swept her into an embrace. ‘Her fears surfaced’ as she struggles out of his arms, leaving him embarrassed. [OK there’s some sort of weird history there. I assume they’re dating?]
It’s time for a whole chapter dedicated to Jack’s backstory now. Born as John Appleby, he’s been a performer form day dot and was discovered by a Hollywood producer at eight years old, who cast him in a prime-time sitcom, Nutt House. His family were already rich af, but they thought the experience would be fun and moved themselves to LA, where a producer convinced John to change his name to Jack Spyder, and soon Jack was melting hearts as the middle child in the Nutt family. During his first few years away, Jack would call and visit Springwood regularly when the show was on hiatus. He always made time for his girlfriend, Rachel, who had been dating him before he became a star. [When they were 7-8?] During the show’s fourth year, Jack’s calls and visits to Springwood were a lot less frequent. One time, he flew Rachel out there so she could see the show from behind the scenes, but Jack made little time for her during the visit so she got mad and left a day early, and she’s only heard from him twice since then.
Shortly after that, Nutt House was cancelled after eight seasons, [So were they dating long-distance for eight years? Or was it never actually a relationship, and they were just friends as they grew older? I don’t get the timeline here] and although -16-year-old Jack’s star was expected to continue rising, his feature-film debut was a critical and commercial flop. There was also several stalking incidents involving a crazy female fan, and one year after the show’s cancellation his parents were killed in a car accident. Devastated, Jack dropped out of the limelight, emerging six months later when he’d mentally recovered. But there were no film or television opportunities for him anymore because studios weren’t willing to invest in a potential liability, and he was shoved aside once more.
Next came the fire that destroyed Jack’s Beverly Hills mansion, and rumour had it that he almost died in the blaze and was burned beyond recognition. He stayed out of the spotlight and as the months went by, even the tabloids moved on to more current targets, but Rachel never stopped thinking about her childhood friend, though. [So friend, not boyfriend?] Then news came that Jack Spyder was returning to Springwood, and Ron Marchant, Jack’s manager who’d been a teen actor himself, had the Appleby mansion refurbished. In the fall, invitations showed up in the mailboxes of the local teens inviting them to a Halloween party at the mansion, and Jack had handwritten ‘Rachel—Please come’ on our protagonist’s. Now here at the mansion, Rachel wonders if there’s ‘anything left of John Appleby, the boy she had once loved’. [Still confused by their dating history, tbh] Anyway, Jack looks shyly to the floor, and ‘for a moment, he was eight again. John Appleby had returned to her.’ [It’s been like nine years, girl, why are you so fixated on his eight-year-old self? It’s very weird]
Rachel continues to be cold toward him anyway, and he tells her that he’s missed her and wasn’t himself back in LA when she’d visited. It’s clear he’s very torn up after his rough few years, and after he mentions his dead parents, Rachel offers her condolences for the first time since it happened. [Wooooooooow, Rachel. You could have sent a card or something] He blames this on the fact that he’d shut out everything that meant the most to him, [No, she was just being a cow] and declares that won’t happen again because he’s back for good. Rachel wants to know if it’s John or Jack who’s back, but it doesn’t matter to him so she can call him whatever she wants.
He’s not sure if he’s completely done with acting at this stage, but he wants to focus on making himself and those around him happy for once, especially Rachel. She tells him she’s glad he’s back and he embraces her once more, and this time she returns the hug. Then Rachel bursts his optimism bubble by pointing out that Springwood has changed a lot since he was last here, and she doesn’t want him to be disappointed. He’d like to know what could be worse than what he’s gone through, but Rachel decides the mortality rate of Springwood teens is too heavy a conversation, and instead points out Todd Winkle and Van McBride, who’ve become major hoodlums. He doesn’t mind, at least not tonight, because the only thing he’s concerned about is that there might be someone from the tabloids here, or maybe even a tabloid spy. It’s not what they might say about him that worries Jack, it’s the invasion or privacy; he just wants to be a normal teenager tonight!
Done with all the serious talk, Jack drags Rachel over to Elvis, who’s actually Ron Marchant, his manager. [I wonder how old Ron is? He seems youngish] Ron lights up and tells Rachel it’s ‘”way excellent”‘ to meet her and that her costume is wonderful. As he gushes about how nice Springwood and this mansion is, Rachel senses something off about him; his eyes are lifeless, contrasting the excitement of his voice, and it seems like he’s performing, but for whose benefit? He enthusiastically tells her that the mansion’s lamp fixtures are original from the time of gas lamps; the original gas lines are even still in place behind the walls! [And I’m sure they’ll play a big part in in the story!] Jack doesn’t share Ron’s passion for gas lamps, especially because while the house was being worked on over the summer, some derp opened a valve in the basement for the old gas line, thinking it was for water. The whole place was flooded with fumes, but luckily no-one was hurt. [What are the chances Ron played was involved in the Beverly Hills mansion fire and is trying to kill Jack for some reason?] Jack’s taken it pretty hard anyway, asserting that people could have been killed, including Ron, but Ron argues that everyone has moved on from it, so Jack needs to as well.
All of a sudden someone starts screaming, and everyone turns towards the ballroom’s entrance where a girl in a large hoop skirt is struggling with two security guards. She calls out to Jack for help, but she’s quickly dragged her out of sight. Rachel trails behind Jack and Ron as they follow them Jack’s raging so clearly doesn’t like the girl, [An annoying ex, maybe?] and I don’t either because she emphasises every second syllable or so when she talks: ‘”I’m Vanessa Chimera, happy to meet you.”‘ Vanessa’s not supposed to be here, but that’s just too bad for Jack, and she saunters into the party after a ‘”Let’s chat later, all right, hon?”‘ Ron follows after her, apparently not bothered by her unannounced appearance, [Maybe they planned this gatecrash together?!] and Jack tells Rachel Vanessa’s an ex from hell and he’ll explain it to all later.
Jack excuses himself and follows after Ron, finding Vanessa talking with a somewhat familiar-looking geeky guy [RePete?] who’s serving her some punch. [The book says he finds Rachel here, but that must be a typo] Up to her usual tricks, Vanessa flirts with the caterer, who is, in fact, RePete, although Jack still doesn’t fully recognise him. RePete gushes over being in the presence of two big stars, and Ron reminds him that he’s also done some acting work, which is very awkward. RePete’s frothing at the mouth over Vanessa, who’s eating it all up, and then he introduces them to shy Maria, a big fan of Jack’s. Jack can tell how into him Maria is, but unfortunately she’s not his type, despite how cute she is. Her eager body language reminds him of the stalker he’d had back in LA, who’d ignored restraining orders and broken into his house several times. He finally had enough and snapped. She stopped bothering him after that, but less than a month later his house was burned down and although it was never proven, Jack knows she was responsible. He’d almost cracked from all the stress, but lucky he had Ron, who’d suggested using the fire as an excuse to lay low, regroup and come back stronger than ever.
Jack agrees to take a picture with RePete, and he successfully ropes Ron and Vanessa into the photo too, much to the latter’s annoyance — she hates photos, apparently, which I find weird, because she seems so vain. RePete offers to take a photo of Maria with the celebrities, but Vanessa and Jack start arguing before that happens because he really wants her to leave. She tells him she’ll leave if he’s got the guts to personally throw her out, and he prepares to do just that, gripping her wrists tightly. She threatens to scream and they lock eyes intensely, ‘then the moment of danger passed and Jack released her. He had come so close.’ [Does Jack have an dangerous streak or something?] Jack asks Ron to deal with Vanessa and stalks off to get the Haunted Mansion going.
Back to serving punch a short time later, RePete admits bitterly to Maria that the actors are all trash. Maria is confused, and RePete scoffs that he knew John Appleby back in the day, but Jack didn’t even recognise him. Pulling Maria close, RePete reminds her that the Applebys, and now just Jack, own a lot of land around here. RePete’s father used to work for Raymond Appleby, but there was only room for one at the top, so Papa RePete left to make his own fortunes. He did exactly that, turning land Appleby deemed worthless into lucrative properties. Raymond then saw him as a threat and initiated several partnerships with Papa RePete’s firm, and when the time was right, ‘”Appleby took over my father’s company, kicked him into the streets. We lost everything.”‘ [Oof, what an ass] RePete’s father then drank himself to death, so RePete vowed to get his revenge and was super bummed when that went out the window after Raymond Appleby died in that car crash. He assures Maria he genuinely means that, and now that John Appleby’s home, ‘”I’ve got a skeleton full of bones to pick with him.”‘ Maria points out that Mr Appleby’s actions aren’t Jack’s fault, but according to RePete, sins of the father, as they say! He doesn’t care that he’s scaring Maria now, and when she asks what he plans to do, he just smiles. [Is this going to be another book where everyone’s a villain to some degree? 👀]
Jack heads to the top of the stairs and gives a speech about how it’s almost midnight, the witching hour, when dark forces are at their strongest. Tonight, Halloween Night, Death walks among them, having taken up residence in the mansion. Death has also done some remodelling of some of the rooms, and Jack invites the guests to journey on up to discover the joys and horrors of the Haunted Mansion. To punctuate those last words, a thick layer of fog rolls down the stairs, and the crowd ventures on up to see what their host has in store for them. Jack makes his way down the stairs to an impressed Rachel, and smiles as the first screams float down from the upper floor.
Over by the refreshments, Vanessa and Ron, who are seemingly a secret couple, are discussing the progress of their plan to destroy Jack Spyder. [I knew it!] Ron thinks her entrance was perfect, ecstatic that Jack’s having a horrible time now, and Vanessa, still annoyingly emphasising every second word, [I’m having a hard time imagining anyone talking like this in real life because how fkn annoying] maliciously gloats how she’d nearly sent him over the edge when she dared him to force her out of here himself. She could see it in his eyes! She couldn’t be happier right now because it won’t take much longer to send Jack completely over the edge, ‘Then everything that was his would be hers. And Ron’s, she thought dryly, for a little while.’ [I wonder if they both plan on double-crossing each other]
Ron’s glad Jack didn’t break already because the game would be over before it began, but Vanessa argues that the game began when Ron burned down the Beverly Hills mansion. [Knew it!] They both feign sadness and wonder out loud if they should call the whole thing off, because poor Jack, but then they burst out laughing because, as Ron puts it, ‘”Can you imagine? Developing a conscience at this late date?”‘ [I wonder if they killed Jack’s parents too?] Spotting Jack over by the stairs with Rachel, Vanessa suggests they work his old flame into their plan, setting them against each other ‘”like they do on Melrose Place“‘, but Ron’s not sure they’ll need to go that far. Making sure Jack and Rachel aren’t looking, the pair kiss, and Vanessa complains that it’s been too long because he’s been back and forth between here and LA, but he assures her it’s all for the greater good. Vanessa heads upstairs to her room to get changed [What? How does she have a room here? Surely Jack won’t let her stay] while Ron stays behind, planning to cut the power soon and end the party. ‘He was so focused on the task before him, that he didn’t hear the quiet click behind him.’ [What does this mean?! I don’t like this kind of ambiguity. Is it a gun?]
We jump over to Todd and Van now, the hoodlums Rachel pointed out earlier, as they linger back from the crowd shuffling up the stairs, slowly edging away. No-one’s noticed them, exactly as they planned. [I think we’ve got a heist on our hands!] By Todd’s inexplicable calculations, they have an hour to loot the west wing, and he sends Van upstairs with orders to to meet at the car when time’s up. We learn that the two boys had been protégés of Skrag Morton [More continuity, woo!] until he was killed by his own jumper cables, and have been laying low since his death, sure that it was revenge for a past crime and they’d be next. When they realised no-one was coming after them, they’d continued their criminal careers themselves, with Todd naturally taking the post as top dog. Van’s almost too dumb to do anything but obey strict orders and perform explicit tasks, but he is remarkably talented at finding valuables, no matter how hard the owner has hidden it. [Useful!] Anyway, Todd stays downstairs and finds the west wing mostly empty, but eventually arrives at a room filled with boxes sent from LA and is practically orgasming over what delightful goodies he might find.
Over to Rachel and Jack, who are about to explore the Haunted Mansion themselves, the last of the crowd to go through. They’re swarmed by mechanical bats in the first room and witness a guillotine execution in the next one, and Jack has spent a lot of money turning the east wing into a maze of some sort and getting these ooky spooky scenes put in. Rachel questions what he’ll do after Halloween because this is a lot of effort for one day, and Jack hasn’t figured that out yet, but might do tours or something like that. [Yessss, keep it all] As they head for the door to the next room, a huge ugly man jumps out from the shadows and Rachel screams in terror as he thrusts a severed head at them. [You literally just saw a fake decapitation, Rachel, calm down]
Upstairs on what seems to be the third floor, Vanessa’s changed into jeans and a fuzzy sweater and is now brushing her glossy hair. Although she’s never been to the Appleby mansion before, it feels super familiar — recently, she’s been having a recurring dream where a tiny fairy promised enormous wealth if Vanessa could keep up with her. [Is it Freddy in disguise?] Their surroundings were pitch-black and featureless except for invisible walls and the fairy, little more than a glowing ball of light, flitted up, down, and all around. Vanessa’s positive that it was the halls of Appleby mansion she’d followed the fairy through, and her hunger for riches enabled her to keep up the whole time. The treasure had been revealed for a short time, but upon waking up Vanessa would forget what it was, but knows that it was amazing.
She’s eager for tomorrow to come so she and Ron can kick the next part of the grand plan into gear. It’s kind of sad, because she had really loved Jack once, until he started to neglect her after his parents died. [Girl….] He’d been generous with his affection and especially his money before that, but after the ‘anonymous traffic accident’ [Meaning no-one knows what the accident actually was??] he became withdrawn. Vanessa was sensitive to his ordeal for the first few days to let him grieve, but then she got bored, [God forbid someone takes longer than a few days to get over the sudden death of both parents] and when he claimed to have a new perspective on things so he could cope, he was a different man; he wasn’t fun anymore, and no longer generous with his money or affection. [Let’s not pretend you loved him, Vanessa, you just loved his money] He eventually claimed they weren’t right together and ended the relationship, presumably after realising she’s a materialistic gold digger, but no-one breaks up with Vanessa Chimera, damn it! [Evidently, they do]
Back in the ballroom, the caterers are cleaning up and RePete tells Maria he’s found out some very juicy gossip, but she’s not too keen to hear it. [Well I am, so shut up] Despite her obvious crush on Jack Spyder, RePete is sure Maria won’t spill the beans of his vendetta thanks to recurring dreams he’s had of her lately. In the dreams, he’d talk and talk while she listened patiently, never judging him, so he knows he can trust her. [Was that Freddy manipulating him, too? Is he manipulating everyone?] Despite her reluctance, he whips out a microcassette recorder and plays her the tape, having picked up Ron and Vanessa’s conversation earlier. [Ohhh, is that what the click was? The recorder stopping?] He reveals he’s being paid $5,000 by The National Enquirer for the inside scoop on this party, and with a few pictures and an out-of-context statement or two, he’ll successfully bring down Jack Spyder — ‘”Mix in a generous dose of creative interpretation”‘ and Hollywood will never look at Jack again! And what will the locals think when they hear that ‘”an orgy took place here this evening, when the kids insisted it would all be good, clean fun”‘. [Yeah, I guess this probably would destroy someone’s career back in the ’90s. Not today, though] Now that he’s scored even more dirt, he can probably get more money! Or maybe he’ll wait for Vanessa and Ron’s plan to succeed, then write a book about the whole thing; he’s sure he can make a lot of money with the evidence he’s got now. Maria wants to tell Jack about Vanessa and Ron’s conspiracy and refuses to let RePete follow through with his plan, but RePete reasons that if Vanessa and Ron aren’t afraid to ruin a big star like Jack, what would they do a nobody like her if they found out she knew their secret? Imprisoned by circumstance, Maria promises not to say anything and heads home, no longer in a party mood.
Over in the west wing, Todd finds a study that he suspects was used by Raymond Appleby. He’s convinced there’s a safe with a stash of cash somewhere behind one of the paintings on the wall and gets to searching right away. He’s so focused on his search that he doesn’t feel another presence in the room, nor does he hear the footsteps behind him, and he’s got no chance to react as a hand clamps over his mouth…
Outside the mansion, RePete’s just put on his mummy costume outside his car and is checking his reflection in the sideview mirror, all ready to infiltrate the party so he can roam the halls unrecognised and get more dirt on Jack. A sudden blow to the back sends him sprawling to the ground. His microcassette recorder lands by his face, and before he can reach for it, it’s viciously stomped on and smashed to bits. [This bad guy seems to be everywhere at the same time] RePete rolls onto his back and looks up at the hateful eyes staring down at him, and he spots clenched fists as the figure moves towards him. [Do you recognise the person, RePete? Or are they wearing a deadly disguise?] ‘RePete could not move. It seemed his only option was to lie there and prepare for death.’ [I mean, I’m sure you could do something]
Meanwhile, Jack and Rachel have gone through a zombie room and and a graveyard room featuring Dracula, and now find themselves in a room dedicated to Elvis Presley. Bloated and blue, Elvis is hunched over a toilet with pills scattered around his feet. This was Ron’s idea, since he’s a big fan of the King. Jack’s seemed a million miles away during this time and explains he’s had a bad feeling since Vanessa arrived that something, or someone, isn’t right here. Suddenly, he realises that it’s not Vanessa making him feel uneasy, but that caterer guy. Rachel doesn’t understand why Pete Peters is making him uneasy, and upon hearing the full name, Jack remembers a different version of their fathers’ dispute — ‘“This former employee of my father’s goes into business for himself. Gets lucky with a few developments and starts to do well. But this guy doesn’t really know what he’s doing, so things start to go wrong. My father, who wants this guy to succeed, helps out.”‘ ‘But why would Raymond Appleby want a competitor to succeed?’ Rachel and I ask, and Jack offers several reasons:
“Competition is way more interesting than always getting your way, which is how it was for my father back then. And he considered his employees sort of like family, so he wanted them to succeed. But there was a selfish reason, too. He felt that the failure of anyone associated with him, even if they no longer worked for him, was a reflection on himself. So, for everybody’s sake, my father formed partnerships with this guy, trying to take him under his wing again, give him some pointers.
“But the ex-employee had gotten very proud, despite the fact that he was a screwup. He wouldn’t listen to a word my father said. When properties started failing and deals began to fall through, my father still tried to help, and he pumped a lot of money into this guy’s business. The guy develops a drinking problem, things go totally to hell, and my father buys the guy out as the only way to salvage the business.”
Mr. Peters would then tell anyone who’d listen that Appleby cheated him out of his business, and with the last of his low funds he hired some goons to bash Raymond Appleby within an inch of his life. They didn’t do a very good job, though, and Mr. Appleby didn’t bother pressing charges. Jack thinks this was part of the reason they completely moved to LA when he got the part of Nutt House; if you’re going to live in a place where your neighbours will hire people to beat up or kill you, it may as well be LA so you can go to the beach every day!
Back to Todd now, [All this jumping around is annoying] who yells at Van for scaring him like that. [Ohhhh, it was a sneaky little fake-out] Van suggests they check out the Haunted Mansion because it sounds super fun, and even though he silently agrees, Todd orders him to get back upstairs and keep looting because it’s unlikely they’ll get a chance like this again. Van does as he’s told, and Todd continues to search for treasures in the study, ultimately finding nothing but an unloaded rifle on the wall, allegedly the one that killed the stuffed polar bear in front of it. Taking it down, he rummages through the desk drawers to find some ammo.
Over to RePete, who’s still on the ground expecting the guy in the Elvis costume to give him a gutter stomp. [Another bad guy fake-out! Cheeky cheeky, Bergantino] Instead, Ron helps RePete to his feet and explains he’s been looking for the tabloid mole all night and he’d been given away by Maria. Maria’s been one of Ron’s local spies since he first arrived in town, and she thought she was helping Jack by telling Ron of RePete’s plan, but really she’s introduced him to a new accomplice! [Fair enough she was working with Ron before tonight, but why would she want to now that she knows Ron is also plotting Jack’s downfall? She seems to really like Jack] Ron apologises for destroying the recorder but he can’t have any evidence of his plot getting out. He offers to help RePete get the photos he wants, replace the recorder and pay a hefty bonus on top of the tabloid pay if the story RePete reports is one that Ron writes. RePete’s an eager beaver and they shake hands on the deal before Ron instructs him to wait a bit, then come to the kitchen door.
10 minutes later, RePete enters the unlocked kitchen door, bitterly thinking about Maria’s betrayal. She’ll be next to feel his wrath, and then he’ll destroy Ron and Vanessa too thanks to Ron’s sloppiness — Ron had destroyed the tape recorder, but not the incriminating tape; RePete had changed the tapes already, locking that one safely in the glove box and replacing it with a blank to gather more dirt. Also, the violent blow to the back was unnecessary; they could have easily come to an agreement without any use of force!
Ron successfully cuts the power, and up in the Elvis shrine, Jack’s angrily regretting letting Ron convince him to hire a local company to do the wiring for his little haunt. As they try to find the exit in the darkness, Rachel hears Jack trip over something and go down hard. She turns on the lights of her costume, illuminating the wound on his head where a lot of blood is pouring out. And then the idiot trips over his body when she tries to go get help. [Hahahahaha Rachel, plz]
Down in the basement, Ron takes the flashlight he stashed nearby and heads for the stairs so he can start helping guests leave. He wants to be to be witnessed assisting everyone to avoid suspicion if there are any other casualties, and he’s sure there will be others. As he’s ascending the stairs, he calls out that the party’s over, only to be answered by someone coming down the stairs who snarls, ‘”Yes it is”. Ron is able to shine the flashlight on the person for a split second before it’s knocked out of his hand, and he catches a glimpse of bandages and a knife. [RePete’s dressed as a mummy but I don’t think this is him, that’d be too obvious. Unless it’s another fake-out]
In the study, Todd’s disappointed that the party’s been cut short because he hasn’t found any good loot yet, besides the rifle. The blackout seems to only have affected the house because he can see through the window the outside lights are on and the guests are leaving. It’s time to merge back in with them, but first he wants to pretend to shoot the stuffed polar bear. [???] He hears the door creak open behind him and assumes it’s Van trying to scare him again, so he waits a few seconds and then turns around to give him a fright with the gun. Except there’s no-one there!! The polar bear soon starts rocking, and it’s too bulky for Todd to see who’s behind it. He moves closer, warning who he thinks is Van not to knock the bear over, and then is super surprised when it actually starts toppling towards him. Instead of jumping inside, he attempts to run [Bruhhhhhhh], but trips in his panic and his crushed by the bear, its jagged teeth biting into the back of his neck and its sharp claws staking his arms to the ground. As he bleeds out, he thinks back to when he first learned Santa wasn’t real — ‘”The polar bears got ‘im,” his father had said gruffly. “And ate the elves like they was popcorn.”‘ [Oop]
Meanwhile, Rachel’s slowly made her way back to the ballroom where security guards with flashlights are guiding people out of the mansion. She finds Laura and Doug and explains Jack’s situation, and Doug tells security to call an ambulance and takes a flashlight. Because the mansion is so far away from the main town, the trio heads up to the Elvis room to see what they can do to help. They find the room empty, but follow a trail of blood droplets into the next room where they come face to face with Freddy Krueger!!!! [I bet it’s a robot like everything else up here. I wonder why he got robots instead of mannequins and cheaper props and stuff, especially for a one-night event]
Somewhere else upstairs, Van somehow hasn’t noticed yet that the power’s out and is heading back towards Todd with a pillowcase of treasures; Mrs. Appleby’s jewellery. He eventually notices that he can’t hear anyone else upstairs and spots everyone leaving when he looks out a window. Realising he can’t just walk right out with the pillowcase, he finds a dumbwaiter at the end of the hall and learns the electricity has been cut off. Luckily there’s manual pulleys, and although he struggles with them, as if someone at the other end is trying to prevent the dumbwaiter from rising, he finally gets it up to him.
As Van’s loading it up, the dumbwaiter drops so suddenly that he doesn’t have time to pull out his hands, and his forearms become trapped between the wall and the dumbwaiter, and he can feel whoever’s down there still trying to pull the dumbwaiter down. He resists calling out for help, not wanting to be caught stealing, but eventually the pain is too great and he shouts out for whoever it is to stop. The pressure does stop, although he remains trapped, and he realises that that last burst of pressure was someone wedging the dumbwaiter in place. [But how would he know what that feels like?] This would allow whoever it was to come find him, but by this point he doesn’t care about being caught; better that than to have his arms amputated! He calls out for help, and eventually hears someone behind him. The newcomer isn’t happy that Van’s trying to steal from Jack Spyder, and a plastic bag is placed over the thief’s head, secured in place by tape wrapped around his neck. [I thought he was just gonna have his arms chopped off or something, but this is an awful way to go too. Kinda wish his arms did get amputated and then the bag wrapped around his head] His brain starts going foggy as he realises what’s about to happen and he starts banging his head against the wall in frustration, before quickly suffocating. [I’ve always wondered if you could bite a hole in the plastic bag if you’re being suffocated like this]
Back to Rachel, who’s surprised by Laura’s terrified panic at the sight of the Freddy Krueger robot. Doug assures his hysterical girlfriend that it’s just a robot, but Laura is determined to leave the mansion right now. Doug agrees, and although they try to convince Rachel to come with them by suggesting Jack is OK and probably downstairs looking for her, she refuses to vacate until she knows for sure what’s happened to him. She agrees to walk them to their car, where Laura admits she could feel something wrong in the mansion, and she’s felt that particular feeling before. Doug unsuccessfully tries to convince Rachel to leave again because even security is gone by now, but she’s not going anywhere. Somebody’s still here, because there’s a flickering light coming from the third floor window! As they watch, a silhouette eclipses the light before the person and the light quickly disappear. Despite Doug and Laura clearly sensing that Freddy’s back, they don’t bother to warn Rachel and head off, telling her to be careful and call later to fill them in on what happened. Rachel ventures back into the mansion with the flashlight and is immediately abused by a strong odour that only gets worse as she moves through the house. She quickly realises what’s wrong — the mansion is filling with gas!
Over to Vanessa now, who was the figure with the candle in the third-floor bedroom. She’d heard Doug’s car drive off and believes Rachel was in the car, leaving her, Ron and Jack alone in the house. Ron had instructed her to wait here and keep the candle burning until he finishes his task and comes up, [She’s got a lit candle, shouldn’t the house have exploded if it’s filled with gas? I guess maybe it hasn’t reached the upper floors?] but now she’s getting bored. Soon, she notices the flame getting brighter and can smell rotten eggs in the air. She quickly smacks out the candle’s flame, relieved to have smelled the gas over candle’s cinnamon scent.
Realising she needs to find Ron as well as Jack because it’s too soon to off him just yet, [How? What was their actual plan? Were they not going to blow the mansion up with him inside?] she notices a light appear beneath the door as she’s walking towards it. Throwing the door open, she steps out and sees the light disappear around a corner. She follows after it and sees it in the distance, but can’t see who’s holding it. She yells out and the person turns around, shining a flashlight directly at her. She warns of the gas leak and moves towards the figure, but they turn and run off before she can get too close. She gives chase, and around another corner spots the light shining onto the floor out of a doorway up ahead. It’s not a room but a small landing, and the flashlight is resting on the top step what appears to be a back staircase. Annoyed at the mystery person, she decides not to bother with the others and starts descending the stairs, but slips on the rug draped over them. She catches herself on the railing, but drops the flashlight and the bulb breaks. As she waits for her eyes to adjust to the darkness before continuing down, she hears a sinister voice behind her warn try to pull the rug out from under someone’s life because ‘”You never know when someone might just do it to you, first.”‘ With that, the rug is yanked out from under Vanessa’s feet and she’s launched in the air. She lands on her head and goes tumbling down the staircase and is ultimately killed when her head strikes the fifth step from the bottom. [Bye bitch]
Rachel hears this commotion and heads upstairs towards the sound, believing it came from part of the Haunted Mansion. [Why isn’t she trying to find the gas source to turn it off first?! And how long can these people survive while inhaling gas?] In the guillotine room she notices a female victim seems to have been decapitated this time, and someone’s gone overboard with the fake blood. As she heads for the next room, she feels wet hair against her face and shines the light on the second executioner, holding a decapitated head just like before. Except this time, Rachel recognises the head — Vanessa Chimera! [The killer set that up quick!]
Screaming, she stumbles into the next room, where the zombies have a new victim — Todd Winkle! She continues forward anyway, not wanting to see Vanessa’s severed head again, [So you’re going to continue on through the whole attraction, inhaling more and more gas, even though you’re near the start and have no idea how many rooms there are? OK… Actually you know what, I like Rachel so let’s blame this on the gas fogging her brain] and in Dracula’s graveyard she finds Van McBride’s corpse resting against the crypt. [I love this whole set piece! This book would work well as a slasher movie] Growing delirious, she somehow finds herself ‘enjoying this real-lifer house of horrors’ [Honestly, I’d love to be caught up in a real-life slasher situation. As long as I survive xx] and wonders what gruesome sight the next room will behold. Moving on to the Elvis room, Ron Marchant’s body has replaced the robot Elvis, his neck sliced open like a big smile, blood dripping onto his shoes.
There’s a sound off to her right and Rachel aims the flashlight in that direction, illuminating Jack by the far door, pointing a rifle at her head. [Hmm. He can’t be our bad guy, right? Maybe he’s delirious from the gas and his head knock and has no idea what’s going on. We still don’t know where RePete is, and who knows if Maria actually went home? 👀] The poor guy looks just as groggy as Rachel is and she successfully manages to get him to put down the gun before wrapping him in a hug. He begins to cry as he lists the names of the deceased, understandably the most distraught about Ron’s murder. Jack thinks he might actually be responsible — ‘”I’m really not that well, y’know, in the head. I was institutionalized for a while. Ron knew that. That’s why he was such a big help to me.”‘ Directing him back the way she’d come, Rachel assures him he didn’t kill anyone, and he tells her he remembers falling and woke up in a closed part of the mansion upstairs. When he went back to the ballroom, everyone was gone, and he’d eventually found the rifle in the zombie room with Todd’s corpse. He’s upset about almost shooting Rachel [Did Todd even find any bullets?], but she’s very forgiving because he didn’t know who she was at first. He’s barely known who he was the last few hours! Rachel tells him about the power outage and the gas leak and reassures him again that he hasn’t murdered anyone, although she is having doubts now because maybe he’s a lot less stable than he’s let on. She goes back and forth with herself about this, because maybe the gas is deluding him… but maybe it’s making him tell the truth!
While passing through the executioner room, a mummy suddenly enters, swinging an axe at them. [RePete was in a mummy costume, but I’m 99% sure this is Maria. It’s a bit of a trope for someone to completely disappear from the story, only to show up as our murderer in the final act!] Distorting their voice to avoid being identified, although Rachel senses something familiar about it, the mummy spits out dramatic lines like ‘”He’s mine,” and ‘”Tonight’s a dream come true”‘. Rachel distracts the mummy long enough for Jack to whack it with Vanessa’s severed head, [Omg hahahaha] and the pair flee back through the zombie and Dracula rooms and into the Elvis room. They grab the rifle, which Jack says is loaded, and Jack points it at the door, ready to blast the mummy if it enters. The mummy does enter but is unbothered by the weapon, and it dawns on Rachel that the gunpowder will ignite the gas if he shoots.
Trapped, Rachel realises something else and asks if it’s Maria under the mummy costume. Sure enough, the mummy pulls the mask off and reveals Maria, and Rachel mocks her for giving herself away with the melodramatic lines. ‘”Mock me at your own peril.”‘ Maria responds, I guess unable to help herself, then confesses that she’s been a huge fan of Nutt House since it started, and knew she’d star in it one day. Jack had inspired her to act, after all! But then the show got cancelled and Jack was taken away from Maria, which is when the dreams began:
“They told me you were returning. And that you were returning for me. The dreams even told me about Ron, who was going to introduce us.”
“So, you dreamed all this?” Jack asked dubiously.
“Yes, and it all came true. You returned. I spoke to Ron, who claimed to have had the same dreams. So he said he would help. But there were so many betrayers, ones who would hurt you. They needed to be … dealt with. For you, for us, I struck out at them.”
Jack is shocked that she’s done all this for him, and Rachel questions why she murdered Ron, Jack’s BFF. Maria declares that Ron was the biggest betrayer of all and wanted to take Jack away from her for good, but now nothing stands in their way. Jack will take her back to Hollywood, and under his tutelage they’ll become a Hollywood power couple. Jack quickly drags Rachel through the next door to the Freddy Krueger room, where they try to push the robot over to block the door. Instead, the door is blocked by RePete’s corpse, which falls from the robot’s clutches, having been impaled by its clawed hand. As Maria tries to force her way into the room, Jack pulls Rachel behind a platform, where there’s a passageway, but just as they’re about to duck into it Maria lets out a scream. Jack and Rachel turn around in time to see Maria’s body thrown against the door by an incredibly strong force. The door swings upon, shoving aside RePete’s body away with ease, and Maria careens off the door and lands to the side of the door way. [Is she dead?] Jack is relieved when Ron casually enters the room, but Ron quickly sets the record straight:
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ron said, as if he had been extremely rude. He looked down at himself. “I still have my costume on, don’t I?” Subtly, Ron’s voice was changing. It was becoming deeper, more guttural. “Let me take off this mask. It’s getting hard to breathe in it anyway.” His voice was now totally changed. It had become monstrous.
In the dim, available light, Jack and Rachel watched aghast as Ron brought a hand up to the slash in his throat.
“Ron …” Jack started but fell silent when his friend ignored him completely, digging his fingers into the wound across his throat. A wet, tearing sound followed, as Ron peeled his face off, much like Jack had done earlier with his latex Phantom of the Opera makeup.
Only this was not makeup.
Ron tore off his own face.
Beneath that resided the face of a monster. Wet with blood, surrounded by a tattered frame of flesh, a burned, scarred creature leered out at them.
“Trick or treat!” growled Freddy Krueger.
Rachel and Jack flee into the passageway and come out at the landing at the top of the ballroom. They rush down the stairs, but Freddy’s waiting for them at the entrance. He taunts them for a bit, gloating about easily manipulating Jack’s super-fan Maria and revealing Ron actually died this past summer during the gas leak, having succumbed to the fumes while sleeping on the job. Freddy’s had control of his body ever since and has been guiding the events leading up to tonight. With a whack or two with the gun and a kick to the ribs, Jack and Rachel briefly overpower Freddy and flee, escaping through the front door and locking the steel-lined security door behind them, which will stall Freddy.
A safe distance away, they face the mansion and watch with dread as Freddy eventually knocks the security door down and slowly walks towards them. Jack manages to fire off a few bullets at him, but they only cause him to stumble backwards a bit. Rachel comes up with a plan and before Jack knows it, she’s jumped into her car and is driving straight towards Freddy. Wanting to stop her suicide mission, Jack continues to fire shots at Freddy, hoping Rachel abandon the car if he can force the monster back into the mansion. Rachel doesn’t slow down, though, and at the last second she leaps from the car, and it hurtles straight into Freddy and sends him flying back through the mansion’s doorway. Sparks fly as the car follows Freddy inside and the mansion explodes, knocking Jack backwards. He quickly gets up to search for Rachel among the fiery debris raining down, eventually finding her unconscious in the grass, and waits for authorities to arrive.
Rachel dreams of sitting around a campfire with Vanessa, Ron, Todd, Van, RePete and Maria. They’re all toasting marshmallows, but soon the people catch fire and become human torches, except for Rachel. One by one, the group cast themselves into the bonfire, and Rachel is left alone. Then Freddy is suddenly sitting beside her, a s’more impaled on each of his talons. Rachel insists she’s defeated him, but Freddy just laughs and tells her not to kid herself — ‘”Freddy will always be back for s’mores!”‘ [Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaha I love him, this is so funny]
Rachel wakes up with some hearing loss and bruises, but makes a full recovery over the next week, although she’ll have to ‘learn to live with a head full of ringing noises.’ The memory of her dream returns to her often, and the main story ends with her being absolutely sure Freddy was telling the truth; he’ll be back. [No he won’t, because this is the last of the series!]
Time for the epilogue now, and Freddy’s satisfied with his Halloween takings. He’s collected six souls, and they’ve all taken off their human disguises to become their true forms. Ron’s the blood-sucking leech he’s always been; Vanessa’s an annoying mosquito, Van and Todd are dirty cockroaches, and RePete’s a fly. They all reside inside the boiler room’s terrarium, but it’s not exactly stress-free for them — Maria’s a hungry crow now, eyeing the tasty creatures inside. With that, the series ends with Freddy wishing us all a scary Halloween and a good fright.
Final thoughts
I think I’ve said it about most of them, but this one is definitely my favourite of the series. I think that’s because it plays out exactly like a slasher movie, complete with a final girl circuit, and that’s my favourite subgenre of horror! There was a lot of jumping around in the book between characters, which was kind of annoying because there were a few separate plots to follow, but I guess that sort of added to the slasher vibe as well. I think it’s just harder to follow in a book, for me at least. The story was well-paced too because it all takes place over one night; I’m sure we’ve all read a Point Horror/Fear Street that was hard to keep up with because the story spans over several weeks with an uncertain timeline!
There was some continuity with Help Wanted here too, which was a surprise to me because this author has mostly kept his Tales of Terror pretty separate save for a location or two, or a passing reference. I’ve enjoyed David Bergantino’s writing throughout this series, and my opinions hasn’t changed after this one. I really like that even the characters that are there to be killed off have some depth to them because, as I’ve said in the past, it makes their deaths more impactful. I might have to look into what else he’s written and check out any other horror/thrillers he might have done.
One complaint I have is that we really have no idea what Ron and Vanessa’s actual plan was to axe Jack. I’m assuming Freddy-as-Ron opened the gas lines, but it didn’t seem like that was part of Vanessa’s plan with Ron when she was trying to find him and Jack after noticing the gas. Freddy mentioned that Ron already had a plan to get rid of Jack, so I guess he just went with it and then had his own plan to murder people with the gas leak/possible explosion?
I liked that pretty much everyone but Rachel and Jack were somewhat of an antagonist, because that also makes it hard to pick who Freddy’s got control of. It was also a nice touch that he was manipulating several people simultaneously, although Maria started doing her own thing after hearing the tape. She even presumably killed Ron in the basement, so I guess his manipulation has its limits. Of course, Freddy didn’t die then, but it’s not like Maria knew Ron’s already dead corpse had been possessed by a dream stalker.
All in all, this was a strong end to the series, so 182 revenge plots aimed at one person out of 219!
Check out my recaps for the rest of this series here or by clicking the corresponding tag to the right.
