R.L. Stine’s original run of Goosebumps ran from 1992 to 1997 and included 62 titles. Among many spin-offs was a choose-your-own-adventure series called Give Yourself Goosebumps, with 50 books published between 1995 and 2000. While the 7th episode of the new Goosebumps series doesn’t take direct inspiration from them, it’s fittingly titled “Give Yourself Goosebumps” because a character ends up with the ability to control what happens. Ready for another recap? Reader beware!
Episode 7: Give Yourself Goosebumps – Written by Hilary Winston
Harold Biddle (Ben Cockell) stands before Isaiah (Zack Morris), Margot (Isa Briones), James (Miles McKenna), Isabella (Ana Yi Puig), and Lucas (Will Price). He just revealed himself to have been in disguise as Mr. Bratt (Justin Long), which is how he knew so much about Harold Biddle while telling the story of Slappy. And then the burnt ghost evaporates before their eyes. The teens scream as they run to the front door of the Biddle house. They fling it open, ready to run away… but that’s not an option. The door leads to a black void of nothingness. Isaiah tries the door to the basement and it’s locked. Margot is the first to realize that they’re in the scrapbook. Harold must have drawn them into the pages and now they can’t get out. James and Isabella think their parents will realize they’re missing and come to their rescue.
(Disney/David Astorga)
In the real world, all six of the teenagers sit on a couch in the Biddle living room, their eyes solid black. Mr. Biddle, posessed by Harold, has all of their cellphones and texts each of their parents to say they’re staying over at a friend’s house for the night. They won’t know their kids aren’t safe for a while.
At the hospital, Victoria (Francoise Yip) tells Nora (Rachael Harris) that she’s cleared to be discharged, although she encourages Lucas’ mother to stay longer. Nora pulls a wadded up tissue from her pocket and opens it to show Victoria that she stopped taking the medication, accusing her old friend of drugging her to make her feel crazy. “There’s a ghost coming after our children,” Nora tells Isabella’s mom, saying she’s trusting her instincts like she should’ve done a long time ago. After Nora leaves her office, Victoria sends a text message to Sarah and Eliza letting them know she’s out.
“Just the person I was looking for,” Mr. Bratt (really Harold) says to Nora in the elevator at the hospital. She asks why he was looking for her. “You know, our mutual friend,” he responds. Nora is confused, until she sees their reflection in the metal elevator doors. Mr. Bratt is Harold! The doors open on the ground floor and Nora races out of the elevator, ducking past patients waiting to get on, who slow Mr. Bratt down.
In her departed husband’s old office, Nora pulls a duffel bag out from under the desk. We see the hand of a ventirloquist dummy sticking out of it. Her boyfriend, Colin (Rob Huebel), sees it too, because he heard from his separated wife Sarah that Nora was releasd. He’s upset that she didn’t call him to share the good news. Nora tells him she has something she needs to do before she can see anyone. “Even Lucas?”, he asks in confusion, having envisioned a celebratory reunion. Nora insists that it won’t take long as she moves past Colin with the duffel. “What’s in the bag?”, Colin asks, running after Nora to her car. She refuses to tell him anything as she drives away.
Mr. Bratt’s red car is secretly following Nora. She calls Lucas and leaves him a voice message apologizing for not telling him she was released. She tells him she loves him and that she needs to take care of something. A short while later, Sarah tries to call Nora. She declines the call.
Colin goes to Isaiah’s dad Ben (Leonard Roberts) to ask if he can talk about Nora. Since Ben went to high school with her, he wants to know if there’s anything he should be aware of. “Did you guys run over a doll in high school or something?”, Colin asks. Ben goes cold at hearing the question. Colin tells Ben that he saw a doll’s hand sticking out of a duffel bag that Nora grabbed before she left. Ben asks Colin where Nora went. “She took off and didn’t tell me where she was going,” he says. Colin is even more confused when, without saying anything, Ben grabs his keys, walks out of his house, and gets in his truck, driving away.
(Disney/David Astorga)
The teens were going a little stir-crazy in the Biddle living room until they discovered they weren’t alone. After hearing floorboards creek, Mr. Bratt enters the living room to their surprise. He insists he’s the real Mr. Bratt and tells them he thinks his body was possessed by a ghost. He reveals that he’s been stuck in this parallel version of his house since the night Isaiah broke his arm. Bratt doesn’t believe there’s a way out, but Isabella notices light shining underneath the front door. Opening it to investigate, it appears that the source is below the house, but there’s no easy way to get there through the void. She and her friends tear the drapes off the windows and tie them together to make a rope. She volunteers to go down there, instructing them to pull her up if she tugs twice.
As Isabella is lowered into the light, she finds herself in the hallways Port Lawrence High School in 1993. The halls are deserted and only one locker door is open, Harold’s. She goes to closer to inspect it, noticing Polaroid photos of the mask that haunted her, the cuckoo clock bird that made duplicates out of James, and a photo of young Sarah. She is distracted by the sound of laughter, and she follows it to the theater. Standing on the stage, she looks out at a full auditorium of people who have been turned into dummies. She runs back to the rope screaming tugging on it twice to be pulled up…
… In the real world, possessed Mr. Bratt is driving in pursuit of Nora. The chewing gum in his mouth has gone bad, and he looks on his passenger seat where the scrapbook is open. He tears half a page out, wads it up around his gum, and tosses it away…
… The walls of the school begin to crumple in on Isabella. She makes it out at the last possible second before she is pulled up towards the house. Her friends, including Mr. Bratt, are having a hard time pulling her all the way up. As they struggle, Mr. Bratt accidentally hits his head on the wall and…
… The real Mr. Bratt is back in his body in the real world! He’s driving his car! He looks around in disbelief. Then he looks in the rearview mirror and see’s not his own reflection, but the ghost of Harold Biddle. And just like that…
… Mr. Bratt is back in his living room with the teens in the scrapbook. Isabella is back in the house and tells everyone what she saw and how it seemed like the world was ripped apart as she was pulled out of it.
“We promised never to come back,” Eliza (Laura Mennell) reminds Ben as they pull up to a locked gate. “I think one of us broke that promise,” he responds as he gets out to unlock the gate and ventures inside. It’s the abandoned mine. Ben climbs down a rope into the caverns and proceeds to an area where he begins to dig in the sand with his hands. “It’s not down there,” a familiar voice calls. Ben goes back to the rope and looks up to find James. Ben asks James if Eliza told him about this place. “She’s not my mom, but I am going to deal with her as soon as I’m done with you,” he sinisterly replies, tossing the rope down so Ben can’t climb back up.
Eliza waits in the truck, but steps out when she sees her son James walking slowly and sinisterly towards her. She gets out, accusing her son of using the old mine as a place to do drugs. “Look whose projecting,” the dupe snaps back, picking up a wooden beam. “Did you really think you wouldn’t pay for what you did to Harold?”, the dupe asks as he prepares to harm Eliza. But just then, Ben comes up behind the dupe and they start to struggle. The dupe is able to overpower Ben, strangling him against the hood of the truck. But Eliza picks up the wooden beam the dupe dropped in the skirmish. She hits the dupe with it in the back of the head and it explodes. Both Ben and Eliza are covered in dupe soup. “I think it’s safe to say that Nora was right all along,” Eliza tells Ben.
In the scrapbook, Mr. Bratt tells the teens that he thinks hitting his head caused him to jump back into his body in the real world. Isabella volunteers to knock him back again. On the first try, Mr. Bratt makes eye contact with Harold in the mirror again and gets bounced back. His body is still in the car, but it’s parked outside of a general store. The next time, Bratt avoids the reflection. He sees Nora walking out of the store with a box. Mr. Bratt tries to call to her, but she can’t hear him. He tries to roll down the window, but his body is rejecting his movements. His hands won’t cooperate as he tries to start the car. His right hand is being controlled by Harold, who punches Mr. Bratt back into the scrapbook.
Mr. Bratt tells Lucas that he saw his mom leaving a general store. “I think I know that place,” Lucas shares. “It’s by our cabin in the mountains.” Mr. Bratt tells the teens that Biddle seems to be following Nora. Lucas wastes no time, punching Mr. Bratt back into his real body.
Mr. Bratt picks up the journal on the passenger seat. Harold fights back as the teacher tries to open it. In the fight, the journal goes flying out of the car window, landing in a puddle.
The teens stand in the Biddle living room, watching water drip down the walls.
That’s it for this week, but I leave you with a preview of what comes next. I’ll be back on November 3rd with the 8th Goosebumps recap.
Episode 8 – You Can’t Scare Me
Back in the real world, the teens rush to Nora's cabin and find themselves on a dangerous journey to try and save Nora from an old friend.
Songs Featured in This Episode:
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