6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Night of the living dummy 2 (how i see it), April 30, 2001
By A Customer
Amy Kramer wants a new dummy cause her old dummy Dennis is beat up and his head falls off!!! One day her father brings home a new dummy he bought from a pawnshop named Slappy. After reading words off a slip of paper is when all the trouble starts. It slaps her dad, winks at her, makes rude remarks about her parents. The birthday party is trashed, Sara's room is destroyed. Until one night when Slappy needs to talk to Amy about something. He says shes his slave. Later on Dennis comes in. I'm on my knees! read this book! it's great! Slappy rules!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
RL Stine's Magnum Opus, July 12, 2009
Night of the Living Dummy is quite possibly the greatest Goosebumps book ever written, with only The Ghost Next Door in serious competition. Granted, it's not a particularly prestigious title, but Dummy is still fairly effective as a piece of children's "horror" lit.
The book succeeds, first of all, for its quality of writing and atmosphere. Stine does have some bits of the cartoonish prose he would become infamous for (thanks to Troy Steele if nothing else) but on the whole it's a very well-written book by Stine's standards, with convincing dialogue and prose and great pacing. The book has the creepy atmosphere of "banal dread" which appeared in most of the early Goosebumps books; you feel like you're in a real world setting, and yet that something bad is lurking at the end of the next chapter break. The slow pace, establishing the story, characters and slowly-building events, makes the denouement - Mr. Wood coming to deadly life - all the more effective. The scenes of our protagonists wrestling Mr. Wood in the middle of the night is one of the most disturbing scenes in Goosebumps history. It truly captures the feel of the generally creepy cover (let's forget the hideous thing on the recent Horrorland tie-in release, please - Tim Jacobus is the only Goosebumps artist for me).
Stine should also be credited for creating, in Mr. Wood, a truly memorable and disturbing enemy. In sequels Slappy's antics would become repetitive and predictable, and try to compensate for this lack of creepiness by exploring Slappy's background - kind of silly given that he's a ventriloquist dummy. In this book Mr. Wood's purely malicious nature is inexplicable and made all the more creepy for it. He's just an evil character without apology or explanation, and lacking in Slappy's self-awareness - he's a truly menacing and evil antagonist.
In all, Night of the Living Dummy is one of RL Stine's best achievements, and shows that however far he has fallen over time, he did have some knack for this kind of story at one point. I can still read this book as a cynical twenty-year-old and be entertained - that in and of itself should say something.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
which dummy, August 23, 2003
R.L. Stine has done it again with another fantastic goosebumps book.Night of the living dummy was a fantastic book about a dummy who comes to life when these mysterous words are read out loud.Kris wants a dummy and gets one which turns out to be an evil dummy.....
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