The Haunted Mask

infobox Book | | name = The Haunted Mask
orig title = The haunted Dunes Hotel
translator =


author = R. L. Stine
cover_artist = Tim Jacobus
country = United States
language = English/Spanish/French
series = "Goosebumps"
classification = fiction
genre = Horror fiction, Children's literature
publisher = Scholastic
release_date = September 1993
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 121
isbn = 0-590-49446-5
preceded_by = The Ghost Next Door
followed_by = Be Careful What You Wish For...

"The Haunted Mask" is the 11th book in R.L. Stine's "Goosebumps" series.

Plot Synopsis

The story begins a few days before Halloween in a canteen at the fictional Walnut Avenue Middle School. The story protagonist, eleven-year-old Carly Beth Caldwell, is sitting talking about her trick or treating costume with her best friend Sabrina. Carly Beth is a quiet, shy, and overly trusting girl. She is easily scared of almost everything, and repeatedly humiliated by two pranksters, Chuck and Steve, at school who call her a "scaredy cat", and delight in making her life a misery. After being tricked by Steve into eating a sandwich that contained a live worm, Carly Beth flees home in shame and vows revenge.

At home, Carly Beth discovers her mother has made a perfect likeness of Carly Beth's face from plaster of paris as a symbol of her love for her. Carly Beth is also annoyed to discover her mother has made her a silly duck costume. Carly Beth goes to her room, where her little brother, Noah, has dressed up in her costume and frightens her. After Carly Beth sends Noah away, she phones Sabrina and they talk about the cruel prank Steve played on her. Carly Beth swears she will never fall for one of their stunts again, and muses about buying a horrible mask from a new shop that has just opened.

On Halloween at a science fair, Carly Beth is once again made a fool of after Steve pretends his tarantula has escaped, knowing too well Carly Beth is terrified of spiders. Steve sneaks up behind Carly Beth and pinches her leg, making it seem as though the tarantula is biting her. Carly Beth runs off in tears, after everyone laughs at her, and once home she collects her money and sets off for the costume shop, distraught that it is closed. However the mysterious owner of the shop allows her entry and she unwillingly stumbles upon a back room filled with the most hideous, deformed masks she has ever seen. The owner refuses to sell her the one she wants, but she is insistant. Thrilled she goes home, puts on the mask and scares her brother. However the mask won't come off, and when it finally does, Carly Beth and Noah are unsure as to how she unintentionally changed her voice to a hoarse growl.

After changing into her costume and putting on the mask, Carly Beth steals the mould of her head that her mother gave to her and goes in search of Chuck and Steve, determined to make them pay. Yet strange things happen to her. She acts like a totally different person: she attacks Sabrina, frightens young children and vandalises the neighbourhood. After meeting Chuck and Steve and scaring them, Carly Beth is horrified to notice that the mould of her face spoke, imploring Steve and Chuck to "help" her. Steve and Chuck run off in fear and Carly Beth gleefully abandons the plaster face.

Back at Sabrina's house, Carly Beth cannot remove the mask. To her horror Sabrina discovers that there no space between the mask and her skin. The mask has become Carly Beth's own face. Rather than seeing her own normal eyes staring back at her in the mirror, Carly Beth sees evil, animalistic, orange eyes leering back at her. Sobbing, she returns to the shop where she bought the mask and finds the owner waiting for her. He knew she'd come back.

Despite her pleas, the shopkeeper tells Carly Beth that the mask cannot be removed as it is not a mask: it is a real, living face. He created them and they were once beautiful, but they decayed and became hideous, repulsive monsters. They are known as "The Unloved". Every so often a person, like Carly Beth, finds one, thinking it to be a mask, puts it on and the face finds a body to wear as its own. The shopkeeper tells Carly Beth the only way to remove the mask is to find a "symbol of love". But if it ever attaches itself to her or another, it will be forever.

Carly Beth's hysterical screams awaken the evil masks who pursue her down the street, and she finally realises that the mould her mother gave her is a symbol of love. Carly Beth uses it to deter the masks and remove the monstrous face that has attached itself to her. She abandons the mask and returns home to her mother. However, Noah apparently puts on the mask.

Sequels

In "The Haunted Mask II", Steve, one of the pranksters from the first book, visits the mask store that Carly Beth frequented in the first book and finds an old man mask. Steve puts on the old man mask for Halloween and finds himself in the same predicament as Carly Beth was in the first book, only the old man mask ages Steve rapidly instead of turning him into a monster. Instead of going to the store for help, he finds Carly Beth. It turns out that the "symbol of love" idea does not work for him, so they find the body that goes along with the mask and then it detaches itself. However, they learn that Chuck went back to the store and took a mask himself, and now he cannot get his off.

In 2000, Stine wrote a third installment of the series, entitled "The Haunted Mask Lives!" for "Goosebumps Gold". Unfortunately, the book (as well as the other two books written for the series) was not published. The specifics of the plot are unknown, but it continues to follow the character of Carly Beth. [ http://www.timjacobus.com/gbsgoldcover1.html ]

A third book, entitled "The Scream of the Haunted Mask" was released in August 2008 as the fourth part of the "Goosebumps HorrorLand" series. It retcons "The Haunted Mask II". Menaced by the scream of the Haunted Mask, Carly-Beth starts to delve into its past - searching for a way to escape it. She uncovers a terrifying tale about an old stable she works near, but the mask isn't the only threat. At HorrorLand, she and her friend Sabrina team up with the other very special guests, and overhear a disturbing plot to dispose of them all.

Adaptations

The book was also the basis for an episode of the "Goosebumps" television series, which ironically starred Kathryn Long as Carly Beth and Kathryn Short as Carly Beth's best friend, Sabrina. It starts off with Carly Beth getting scared several times and her mom making a head that looked like Carly Beth. After getting tricked at school by eating a worm, Carly Beth destroys her duck costume in anger. She then goes to a store and steals a mask, but tosses $30 behind her to pay the man for it. Carly Beth then puts it on and takes the head her mom made on a broomstick. After scaring a few kids Carly Beth rips off two kids' costumes before meeting Sabrina. When Sabrina worriedly asks Carly Beth to take the mask off Carly Beth attacks her. At a house Carly Beth scares a little girl by bring the mask close to her face and says "You better watch what you say to me if you me if you know whats good for you". And then steals candy from the mom. Carly Beth then smashes a pumpkin, destroys more decorations, and scares more kids before running to the cemetery where she scares Steve and Chuck. She then howls and buries the head.

Carly Beth returns to Sabrina's house and they cannot get the mask off as it seems to have become part of her skin. She goes back to the mask shop, the mask maker tells her the masks were originally beautiful, but somehow turned evil. He also tells her she will have to live with it and says her only chance is if she can find a "symbol of love." She scurries away from the other masks (the mask maker called them faces, since it did take over her face) from the back room and digs up her mom's sculpture of Carly Beth's head - the symbol of love. Carly Beth frightens away the "faces" and can now take off the mask. She runs home, tells her worried mother she's all right and that she loves her. The episode ends with Noah putting on the mask that took over Carly Beth.

A sequel to the television episode, based on the second book, but with some differences, was also created. Taking place one year after the first episode, the haunted mask, through the power of Halloween, manages to escape the hole Carly Beth had buried it in. Making its way to the now closed down store where Carly Beth had originally found it, the mask possesses the shopkeeper, who had been in the midst of burning all his Halloween masks. The next day, as Steve, who had been pestering Carly Beth about where she had gotten her old mask, laments to Chuck that this could be their last Halloween, the two spot the haunted mask wearing shopkeeper and, recognizing the mask as Carly Beth's, follow him to the novelty shop, the inside of which, Steve finds an old man mask, which he steals.

On Halloween, Steve puts the mask on for the third time, allowing it to latch on to his face. Becoming increasingly cruel due to mask's influence, Steve terrorizes and steals from several trick-or-treaters before abandoning Chuck. Soon however, Steve discovers the mask, which can generate spiders, has attached itself to his face and is rapidly aging him. Seeking aid and finding none, Steve encounters the haunted mask, which offers him a deal - in exchange for bringing the haunted mask Carly Beth's model head, the mask will make Steve young again. Agreeing to help the haunted mask, Steve sneaks into Carly Beth's house and steals the model head, taking it to the haunted mask in the cemetery. Ordered to destroy the model head by the haunted mask, Steve is at first hesitant to do so after learning that the head is the only thing protecting Carly Beth from the mask, but ultimately relents when the haunted mask threatens to make his condition worse. With the head destroyed, the haunted mask, with Steve in tow, seeks out Carly Beth, who had been told by Chuck about Steve and his mask and has been searching for him all night, with Chuck and Sabrina's aid. Cornering Carly Beth, Chuck and Sabrina in the cemetery, the haunted mask has Steve restrain Carly Beth as it abandons the shopkeeper's body in preparation of possessing her. At the last second though, Steve pushes Carly Beth out of the way of the incoming haunted mask, which knocks him to ground before falling lifeless. The recovered shopkeeper explains to the children that Steve protecting Carly Beth from the haunted mask was an act of love, one that rendered both Steve's mask and the haunted mask inanimate once again.

After the shopkeeper leaves them, Steve, Carly Beth, Sabrina and Chuck go to Steve's house and throw the old man's mask and the haunted mask into the fireplace, apparently destroying them both. When the children leave the room however, the haunted mask regenerates and begins to stir, only to be mauled, dragged outside and buried by Steve's pet dog.

References

External links

* [http://www.scholastic.com/goosebumps Official Goosebumps Website]
* [http://www.foxhome.com/goosebumps Official Goosebumps DVD Website]
* http://www.protocolent.com/goosebumps/ Web Site Featuring Video Clips