2: Stay Out of the Basement

Chris Campeau
Nov 7 · 4 min read

“The plants, in fact, resembled jungle plants…plants with gnarled, cream-colored roots poking up like bony knees from the soil.”

Let me start by saying that I was especially excited to dig into “Stay Out of the Basement” as it dons one of my favourite covers from the Goosebumps series — and it didn’t disappoint. From its Lloyd Kaufman campiness to its fun, flowery prose (yep, every plant pun intended), I loved it like my wife loves her succulent babies.

Here’s the run-down:

Margaret and Casey Brewer move from Michigan to California so their dad can take a botanist job at an unnamed university. (What’s that? A brother and sister moving to a new place?) But he quickly gets fired when his experiments get out of hand. Of course, that doesn’t stop Dr. Brewer, a Victor Frankenstein type, from immersing himself in his work at home. In fact, Margaret and Casey rarely see him, and when they do, they’re met with only a brief exchange. Gone are the days of playing Frisbee or Nintendo with their father. He’s on the brink of discovery now, but of what, the pair doesn’t know.

Until they sneak downstairs.

While Dad takes a rare break from his work to drive Mom to the airport to visit her sick sister in Tucson, Margaret and Casey, along with their friend Diane, discover a strange grow-op in the basement (and no, it’s not what you’re thinking). Harshly lit with fluorescent lights, the basement is sweltering and lush with jungle-like plants, a conceivable discovery given Dr. Brewer’s passion for botany. Only these plants are breathing, groaning, their tentacular arms beckoning the trio to come closer. And did I mention the David Cronenberg-style phone booth machines connected by a bunch of wires and cables?

The weirdness doesn’t stop there: the next day, there’s a lock on the door; a few days later, Dad’s wolfing down plant food and sprouting leaves where his hair used to be (“Just a side effect,” he says). At one point, Margaret finds lumps of worm-infested dirt in his bed.

Eventually, Dad goes to pick up Mom from the airport. While he’s out, the ever-skeptical kids pick the lock on the basement door. Downstairs, beyond the quivering, shimmering plants, they hear banging and moaning coming from the closet. Inside, they find an even stranger array of plants: human-plant hybrids with leafy arms and green faces like plump, unripe tomatoes.

In an M. Night Shyamalan turn-of-events, Margaret and Casey find their dad held captive in the corner of the closet, bound and gagged by vines. He claims he’s their real father, and that the dad that just left the house is a plant-based duplicate. But when that dad storms downstairs, Mom at his side, the kids find themselves caught in a who’s-the-real-dad scenario, a classic clone war.

Only by cutting one dad’s arm with a knife, and seeing the green blood spill out, does brave Margaret truly discern who the imposter is. Afterward, the real Dr. Brewer hacks the clone in half with an axe, saving his family from certain doom.

In a short bout of falling action, Dad explains that while trying to make a super plant by combining DNA from different species, he cut his hand on a leaf and accidentally created an identical plant-based copy of himself, one smart enough to overpower him. Hell, he’d been locked down there for days!

With the kids at ease, Dad vows to destroy the plants in the basement. But being a sensitive botanist, he saves a few for his garden out back. This gives R.L. Stine the fodder he needs to leave us with a goofy cliff-hanger: a little yellow flower calling out Margaret’s name, whispering, “Help, I’m your real father!”

Throughout the story, Stine has fun describing his freaky-foliage creations. The writing is lively and vivid, with every chapter coloured a vibrant green like Jordy Verrill’s living room in Creepshow (sans meteor shit, of course).

Unlike “Dead House,” “Stay Out of the Basement” reads in third person, but there’s plenty of internal dialogue. That said, I’m starting to notice Stine’s tendency to write sensitive, considerate protagonists (maybe because they resonate better with young, introverted book worms). Margaret, for example, doesn’t want to burden her mother, who’s already stressed out tending to her sick sister, by calling her and expressing her fears and suspicions regarding her father’s behaviour. As a result, Margaret feels helpless, and all the more vulnerable. It’s a great device to up the tension.

So, with two Goosebumps books in the bag — each with its own potentially too-graphic-for-kids climax — I’m looking forward to seeing what else Mr. Stine has in store.

So far, he’s set the bar high.

5/5 drops of Monster Blood.

The Goosebumps Project

All 62 original Goosebumps books. Reviewed.

Chris Campeau

Written by

Author | Horror Fan | Microphone Yeller | Writer @McMillan_Agency | chriscampeau.com

The Goosebumps Project

All 62 original Goosebumps books. Reviewed.

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