Goosebumps #60:
Werewolf Skin
© 1997 by Parachute Press. Cover Art by Tim Jacobus.
Spoiler-Free Review
Werewolf Skin was a really fun late entry in the Goosebumps series. It was a fun premise, and it felt like an original take on werewolves. It did a great job building tension in the plot starting in the early chapters. I really enjoyed the characters, even found some of their idiosyncratic logic questionable. I was grateful that there weren’t an over-abundance of fake scares that Stine has a tendency to waste pages on. Alex’s interest in photography was put to good use in furthering the plot. The werewolf skin itself made for some excellent body horror, and it let to an wonderfully creepy climax. My chief complaint is that the ending was a bit too abrupt. It left me wanting to know more about the backstory and motives of a few key characters. It had a classic Goosebumps twist, but it was missing key information to stick the landing. In spite of my small grievances, Werewolf Skin managed to be one of the stronger books in the series. I even liked it better than The Werewolf of Fever Swamp.
Score: 4
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ERMAHGERD #60: Werewolf Skin.
© 2024 by Daniel Stalter. All rights reserved.
Photo and editing by Daniel Stalter.
Observations & Spoilers
Alex is staying with his Uncle Colin and Aunt Marta for a few week while his parents are traveling for work. He’s excited because his aunt and uncle are wildlife photographers, and he has a budding interest in photography. He even brought his own fancy camera along with him. They seem really sweet, but they have a really abrasive response when Alex says he wants to be a werewolf for Halloween. They introduce him to their neighbor Hannah, who has agreed to show Alex around the town of Wolf Creek. They go out into the woods so Alex can take some photos of nature. That’s because he’s from the big city of Cleveland and doesn’t get to see trees very often. They meet the local fuck boys, Sean and Arjun. The two boys try to take Alex’s camera but Hannah gets it back. She then insists they go back to his aunt and uncles because the woods aren’t safe after sundown.
The house next door to Aunt Marta and Uncle Colin is a rundown shack. The Marling’s live there, and Alex is warned to stay clear of them .He can’t help his curiosity regarding the beat up old house though, and he walks up on the porch to peer in the windows. Later that night, he hears strange howling sounds coming from their house. That’s around when Alex realizes he left his camera in the woods earlier, and it’s starting to rain. He runs out to get it, and eventually finds it before the rain really starts to come down. He hears two animals fighting nearby and runs back to the house. When he gets there, he notices large animal footprints in the mud going up to the Marling’s house. It’s really beginning to seem like they might be werewolves.
When Alex tells his aunt and uncle about the footprints, they tell them that the Marling’s have two large dogs. They also let him know that the Marling’s called the police about him snooping around their house; they stress again that he needs to stay away from their house. While walking to school with Hannah, she tells him it’s obvious that the Marling’s are werewolves. Then, staying on theme, their teacher lead a class discussion about werewolves. This is where we learn about werewolf “skins” that the werewolves shed after the moon sets. Then to Alex’s surprise, he learns that his entire class believes in werewolves. When Arjun and Sean tell him they can show him a werewolf in the woods that night, he suspects that they are putting him on. He ultimately agrees because he thinks he might get a good photo out of it.
When he goes to sneak out he finds that Aunt Marta and Uncle Colin have locked him in and installed bars on his window. He thinks he sees two figures sneaking out of the Marling’s back window next door. The next morning, he confronts him about the locked doors. They tell him they did it to keep him safe. When Alex gets to school he finds out that Arjun and Sean were indeed fucking with him, and never made it out. So he tells him he saw the werewolf and got some great pictures. The next night Alex puts gum in the door lock so that he can break out after his aunt and uncle lock him in. Through his window he sees two people leaving the Marling house again. They are wearing capes of some kind before they transform into werewolves and run off. Alex, being brave and stupid, follows them to try and get a picture.
He stays on the werewolf trail all night, worried that they might harm his aunt and uncle. That’s because I forgot to mention they are doing a wildlife photography unit about animals at night. When the sun rises he follows them back to the Marling house. The two shed their werewolf skins and reveal that they are in fact his own aunt and uncle. That’s because the Marling’s were made up to keep people from finding out about their curse, and to keep their skins safe at night. His Aunt and Uncle go back to their own house and Alex snoops and finds the skins. Then his Aunt catches him trying to sneak back into his room. They don’t seem to suspect that he’s on to their secret, though.
Alex tells Hannah what he witnessed. At first she doesn’t want to believe him, then she comes up with a plan to save Aunt Marta and Uncle Colin. That night is Halloween and a full moon, and they are going to sneak into the Marling house and steal the skins. To my gross surprise, they not only steal them but wear them. I can imagine too vividly how claustrophobic that would feel, not to mention how it would smell. The kids take off running when Aunt Marta and Uncle Colin spot them. What this leads to is a wonderful scene of Aunt Marta and Uncle Colin running through the woods screaming at Alex and Hannah to give them their skins. The skins give the two kids an edge on speed, and they stay out of reach until the moon reaches its peak. Aunt Marta and Unlce Colin collapse on the ground and writhe in pain.
The moment passes, and a newly sober aunt and uncle sit up and announce that the curse has been lifted. Alex and Hannah’s plan worked. They head back to the house to have a celebratory brunch. Alex stops by the Marling’s house to stash the skins back inside. He is surprised to find a third skin hidden in the house. Then Hannah surprises him that she just got her own. She then pounces on him and bites him in the chest. And that’s how it ends.
I really loved the whole “my aunt and uncle are werewolves” concept. I was left wanting to know more about their predicament, though. How long had they been cursed? They clearly had presence of mind to protect Alex when they weren’t werewolves. I would have liked more of that detail. It made me wish that the twist had been revealed sooner, or that the book just could have been a bit longer. Even being werewolves, Aunt Marta and Unlce Colin were still better parents than many in the Goosebumps lexicon.
My other issue was with Hannah’s motivations. I found them very confusing to me. Why did she feel compelled to help Alex cure his aunt and uncle? If she was wearing her own skin the whole time, why would both the aunt and uncle chase them? Did she want to be a werewolf? And how did she become one? I’m not mad at the twist itself but it needed a lot more context.
All of that being said, I still liked more about this book than I didn’t.
Score Card
For the scoring of each book, I decided to rate them based on five criteria worth 1 point each.
I then add that up to give it a rating out of 5 stars. Those criteria are:
Concept: the strength of the overall idea
Execution: the mechanics of storytelling
Character: the protagonists, antagonists, and villains
Intent: does it succeed in being the kind of book it wants to be?
Originality: subversion and reliance on genre tropes
Concept: 1
This was a solid concept, and a fun one at that. The whole thing with werewolf skin felt like a fresh and especially gross take, too.
Execution: .5
The book did such a good job with pacing it’s really a shame the ending felt rushed. It left a lot of questions and relied on some questionable characters logic.
Character: .5
Alex was a solid main character, and his interest in photography was used effectively. Hannah’s motivations were a lot less clear than they needed to be for that ending to land.
Intent: 1|
This one did a great job building a creepy atmosphere and using its setting to maximum effect. I can’t say it was the scariest, but it was more compelling than the typical series book.
Originality: 1
The whole skin thing felt like a fresh take on werewolves (at least it was new to me). It had the familiar tropes, but it was refreshing to not have an overreliance on them.
Based on GoodReads aggregate ratings, Werewolf Skin is:
Ranked 17th of 62 books in the original Goosebumps series.
TV Adaptation – Bullet Review
For every book that was adapted for the Goosebumps TV series, I will watch and do a bullet review.
“Werewolf Skin” is Episode 3×13 & 3×14.
• This is the last episode I am bullet reviewing!
• They made Wolf Creek a whole lot creepier in this.
• I really enjoyed the bus drivers energy. Throw this kids bag on the floor, try to scare him about local legends, then laugh in his face and drive off.
• I knew I recognized Aunt Marta from somewhere. She was in Cube!
• All of the kids at my new school take werewolf’s very seriously.
• Did they cast a white kid to play Arjun? I genuinely can’t tell, but it wouldn’t be a first for this series. Regardless, it sucks that they made him such an idiot.
• At first I thought I hated the werewolf costume but now oh think I love it.
• Eating chocolate before you fall asleep in the woods at night will make you dream of werewolves.
• They made Hannah way more sus in this and I approve.
• Aunt Marta is making pizza waffles?
• They put the skins in a garbage bag instead of wearing them, which is honestly way less gross.
• He is not nearly sweaty enough for having dug a hole in the ground that deep by himself.
• The skins having minds of their own was a nice creepy touch.
• I wish they kept the wonderfully creepy scene from the book of Aunt Marta and Uncle Colin chasing Alex and Hannah and screaming “give us our skins!”
• A little bit more of a wink and a nod about Hannah also being a werewolf there at the end. I didn’t hate it but I kinda wish they kept the darker ending of the book.
Don’t miss the next post in my Goosebumps blog series:
Goosebumps #61: I Live in Your Basement
Also, be sure to check out the latest from my Fear Street blog series:
Fear Street Super Chiller #10: Goodnight Kiss 2
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