Niki’s Review: Phantom of the Auditorium by R. L. Stine
Welcome back to Niki’s Reviews. I hope everyone is having a great New Year!
This is the first Goosebumps book I’m going to review (though if my quest to find them all is successful, I’ll do more). These books are short and obviously for a much younger audience than me so I’m going to dive a little deeper into the history of Goosebumps and Stine and this book than I usually would for one of my reviews.
Let’s go!
I don’t remember how I felt about this book as a kid. I know I read it. I don’t remember if I figured out all the twists. Probably not. I was 9 when I read this one and not great at picking up on hints in books for many years after this. Though…these are pretty obvious (it’s a kid's book, I’m not bagging on Stine here) so, maybe? What I do remember is the cover and my love of all things Goosebumps and since I kept reading the series, it’s safe to say I wasn’t unhappy when reading it. It wasn’t one of my favorites though and I honestly remember nothing about it.
**Spoilers ahead – The entire plot of the book is below. Ye be warned**
This book starts off just telling you what’s up. There has been a phantom haunting the school for over 70 years. Brooke is the one telling us this. She’s the book’s MC and she says that, prior to her and her best friend Zeke, people knew about the phantom, but no one had seen him. But Brooke and Zeke managed to when the school decided to put on the play The Phantom (not of the Opera, but based on the cover and my memory and the title of the book, I’m pretty sure it’s based on that), which the drama Teacher (she’s actually the math teacher, but whatever. I’ll call her The Teacher from here on) told them was cursed.
She takes us back to the beginning:
It’s Friday and Brooke is excited for the weekend when Zeke reminds her about the cast list for the school play! They have been waiting two weeks to find out if they made it! I only tried out for one play in my school career and I’m pretty sure it was in middle school. I didn’t make it because I can’t act and I went up for the lead part, which was a male and also (did I mention?) I can’t act. I’m pretty sure I knew that same day I didn’t get the part, but I don’t know how long it took everyone else to find out if they got parts. I don’t think it was two weeks. I’m pretty sure they let me and my friends be extras though. We were also bad at that, and I do believe we got kicked out completely before the show was ready. Thus ended my acting career.
They go to the cast list which everyone in school is fighting over to try and read (like that scene in Legally Blonde where they all want to see if they made Callahan’s group, or in Buffy where they want to see who made the cheerleading team. I never went to law school, but I was a cheerleader, and I don’t remember the whole school crowding around the list to see who did and didn’t make it…but what do I know?). There is a note for her, but it’s not about the play. It says she’s been suspended. Her heart sinks.
Then she hears Zeke laughing and realizes he hung the sign. Haha. She goes back to the list and sees that she and Zeke are the stars of the play! Yay! And Zeke is totally surprised, which makes no sense because why would he hang the note right above the list and not look at the list…but whatever. They are in the play! They don’t know what play it is though. Again, my acting career was a non-starter, but don’t you usually know what play you’re trying out for? Why would it be a secret? Is this a real thing that some schools do? Who knows and who cares, really. They are excited!
During their first rehearsal, Brooke’s adversary, Tina, says she knows all about the play and that her great-grandfather told her about it and went to their middle school and that the phantom is real, and the play is cursed. The Teacher stops her from telling the story, but all the kids really want to hear it. They start chanting ‘Tell us! Tell us!’ when The Teacher says it’s too scary of a story, and she breaks down and tells them.
Basically, a kid found the script to the play in the basement when the school was brand new and the night of the performance, he disappeared (he was playing The Phantom). He was never seen again, and the play was never performed. They did hear screaming and the school was searched a couple times, but nothing was ever found.
Tina says that even though the play was never performed, the school was actually haunted by The Phantom. And none of the kids had heard this story? I mean, come on. That story would be EVERYWHERE. My middle school was the old high school turned into the middle school when it got too small and the town needed a new building. It was built in 1918 so it had an actual bomb shelter in the basement that was closed off (unless you had a cool teacher that took you on a tour). There were tons of stories about how it was haunted by this dead kid or that dead guy or about the blood on the brick wall leading down the stairway to the bomb shelter that couldn’t be washed off or bla bla bla, and all the kids just knew these stories and I can’t imagine these kids wouldn’t know this story. It baffles the mind.
Anyway, while handing out scripts, The Teacher screams and then vanishes!
They find her on the lowered trap door that was installed in the stage for the first Phantom production. It was never used and totally forgotten about until they decided to do this play. Finally, it will get some use. Good thing The Teacher didn’t break her leg. The 70-year-old door that no one knew about seems totally safe. Sure.
They do a read-through then all the kids and The Teacher go home. But not Zeke and Brooke, they hide out so they can play with the trap door. And yeah, this feels like something kids would do. They find the switch, Brooke has an allergy attack, and they get the door open. They ride it down, but it drops below where The Teacher ended up, starts dropping faster and keeps going. Zeke thinks they have dropped below the basement. They end up in some kind of tunnel but it’s too dark to see or explore the place.
Both kids are freaked out, but they won’t admit it. They decide to leave…but, umm…how? They realize, too late, that the switch is up on the stage. They are stuck. They get mad/scared and start pushing each other in the dark and Brooke falls onto a switch that starts the thing back up. It stops just below the stage; in the same place The Teacher had fallen to. Brooke boosts Zeke out so he can hit the switch and get her up, but he doesn’t. She waits and waits, and he doesn’t answer her or raise the platform. Then he reaches down and pulls her out. When she’s back on stage she realizes it isn’t Zeke!
The guy has a big old scar on his face, and crazy hair, and strange gray eyes, and baggy clothes! He says he’s the night janitor and the school is closed and grills them on why they are still there. Brooke makes up a lie about forgetting her jacket.
The next day, there is a new boy (from here on known as New Kid) in class and he laments he wasn’t soon enough to try out for the play so Brooke tells him to come to rehearsal and see if there is anything he can do. Class starts and she realizes she forgot her textbook, and she runs to her locker where she finds it open. Inside hangs Zeke’s mask with a note saying ‘Stay away from my home sweet home’. She chuckles at Zeke’s joke, grabs her book, closes her locker, and runs back to class. Zeke denies the prank and after school, she leads New Kid to the auditorium where The Teacher says he can join the scenery crew.
The lights go out and when they come back on, the Phantom swings down from the catwalk and rides the trapdoor all the way down. Brooke blames Zeke and The Teacher is mad. When the trap door comes back up, stopping again below the stage, it is empty and Brooke is now doubtful it was Zeke. After all, he wouldn’t be crazy enough to go into those dark tunnels alone…probably.
The Teacher angrily cancels rehearsal and sends the kids home. Zeke is nowhere to be found. Brooke walks home and sees Zeke’s mom’s car and when she stops, Zeke steps out. Brooke confronts him and Zeke is confused because he didn’t go to rehearsal. He said he was at a dentist's appointment, but Brooke is convinced he did the phantom thing before he left.
The next rehearsal, they begin ‘blocking’ and Zeke and Brooke have to move around onstage. Zeke vanishes, again. The trap door rises and The Phantom (in full costume) grabs Brooke and starts shaking her. Brooke is amazed at how in character he is, but he is grabbing her a little too hard, then she sees Zeke off the stage waving frantically at her.
Brooke ‘messes’ up her lines and The Teacher tries to correct her, not realizing she wasn’t acting. The Phantom whispers to stay away from his ‘home sweet home’ and she recognizes his eyes (strange gray eyes)…but from where? Hmm, where could you have seen those before, I wonder. Like, yesterday, when you saw those strange gray eyes. But no, I get it. In the moment, I’d be freaking out too and probably not put it together. Brooke hasn’t mentioned many characters’ eye colors and we know it’s not Zeke or The Teacher or Tina, so it is New Kid, the Night Janitor, or Zeke’s understudy (who she hasn’t actually described, I just think he could have motive so, in theory, he makes sense as a suspect). Who could it be? I’m being sarcastic here. I know who it is. It’s not the only twist though, so don’t worry if you too have figured it out.
The Phantom runs away, and Zeke finally comes out. The Teacher realizes it wasn’t practice and asks what’s going on. Zeke tries to convince Brooke he isn’t behind the whole thing, and she starts to wonder if it’s Tina trying to scare her so she will drop out of the play. She’s not sure what’s happening but she doesn’t think it’s really The Phantom.
Let me take a second to point out that The Phantom’s mask is blue and green. Not white like on the cover of the book or in Phantom of the Opera. Nope, this mask is blue and green and that is wild to me.
Before going home, Brooke and Zeke have to go to the office to see if anyone turned in his math book. He’d left it in the auditorium. He asks if Night Janitor turned it in and is told there is no Night Janitor. Dun dun dun! So if the gray eye thing didn’t tip you off, this should have. I mean, maybe not. I already told you I was dumb AF about this stuff as a kid so had I put it all together by now? Probably not. Maybe. Hard to say. I’ll need to finish up that time machine to get the right answer, I suspect.
Naturally, they decide to break into the school that night to find out what’s really going on. Brooke and Zeke take New Kid and when they get to the auditorium, someone else is there. The mystery person lowers a backdrop that New Kid had spent days making. It had been splashed with red paint and the words ‘Stay away from my home sweet home’ were scrawled across it.
Then The Teacher walks into a side door of the auditorium and scolds them for breaking in. She notices the ruined backdrop and gets very angry. The kids do that whole ‘we didn’t do it! You have to believe us! Let us explain!’ thing that all kids do in all kid's books and The Teacher says ‘Okay, explain’ and I seriously had to read it again. That never happens. I was so prepared for The Teacher to just blow up, but no. She gives them a chance to explain and listens to them. Not only does she listen, she believes them. It probably has something to do with how sad New Kid is about his destroyed work. I mean, she doesn’t really believe in The Phantom, but that someone is doing something. As they leave, they find a trail of red paint in the hallway. They follow the trail. Right up to Zeke’s locker.
When he opens the locker and the paint can is open inside, The Teacher kicks him out of the play and says she’s calling his parents. I mean, I don’t know when she’s calling his parents, but it’s not now. She kicks them out of the school into the night and tells them to walk home. Keep in mind that these kids broke into the school and vandalized property (allegedly). But whatever, this was the 90s and things were just different then so who knows. Maybe this could happen.
Also, I have been in my school after hours (not breaking in, I’m way too strait-laced for that) and it was the high school, not middle school, but still, there were gates blocking hallways so you couldn’t just roam free. Even if you got into the school, you only had access to whatever small part you’d gained entry to. Might not be the same for every school, but it was all I could think about when I read this part.
They split up when leaving the school and Brooke is all alone when she sees Tina riding her bike. Tina swears she wasn’t in the school. Pretty suspect if you ask me… Tina has been going on and on the whole book about Brooke getting sick so Tina can take her place.
Rehearsals go on without Zeke and the pranks and everything bad stop. Tina is busy gluing stuff together and hoping Brooke gets the flu and drops out, and New Kid is repainting backdrops getting everything all ready. All is going well.
Not for poor Zeke. He’s in plenty of trouble with his parents. They grounded him and took away his VCR. For some reason, this reference made me laugh. Kind of like that Offspring song, Walla Walla where they sing about that guy getting arrested with a VCR under his arm. It’s so outdated and I love it.
The Teacher picks up her script and it’s been glued together. She is so angry that she cancels the play and sends everyone home. What a weird and minor reason to do that considering all pranks had stopped until this one…but what do I know. She’s mad, I get it. But still, one week before the show, it’s all over. Bummer.
She immediately changes her mind though. While angry, rehearsal goes on. New Kid and Brooke stop by Zeke’s to tell him all about it and he’s happy he can’t be blamed for the whole thing. His dog gets really weird and won’t stop barking at New Kid.
Zeke convinces them to go back to the school, break in again and prove his innocence. And for some reason they do…these kids are not like me. They go down the trap door and wander around when suddenly, the trap door goes up without them. They try the switch but it’s been locked. They are stuck!
They wander around in the hallway until they come upon a room where someone has clearly been living. There is even a bowl of cereal that’s been poured but uneaten. It’s not soggy yet. Brooke’s allergies act up and she goes into a sneezing fit and when she’s done, the door behind them slams shut, locking them in. They are going to push the door with all three of them, breaking it open if they have to, when Brooke remembers it’s a pull, not a push. It opens easily. There is someone standing on the other side!
It's Night Janitor. The one that doesn’t work at the school. He is mad they didn’t heed his warning to stay out of his ‘home sweet home’ and honestly, it was telegraphed pretty hard from the beginning who was doing all the stuff. But still…as a kid, you have to learn foreshadowing some time.
They ask him what happened 72 years ago with the original play, and Night Janitor looks confused and says he’s only 50-something and just a homeless dude hiding out. He said his dad worked for the school and used to bring him to the basement so when he lost his apartment, he started staying there. It had been about 6 months.
They hear the trap door moving and rush past Night Janitor toward it and safety. It’s…Zeke’s dad? He said he came home and Zeke was gone so he figured he was poking around the school and came in through an open door (the kids came in through a window…so…). The cops come and Night Janitor has cleared out and there is no sign of him, but the door down there is open so they do believe him. Zeke is excited because he’s pretty sure he will get his part in the play back.
And then the book says “Wow. Was I wrong?” in some serious fourth wall breaking. So, you know, it’s not over yet.
The night of the play has arrived, Zeke is the phantom again. Sorry to his crappy understudy. It’s going well. They use dry ice to make a bunch of fog, instead of, you know, a fog machine. Seems safe. But it’s fine. She remembers all her lines and takes Zeke’s hand at the end, looking into his eyes. It’s not Zeke, but the eyes are familiar.
Brooke tries to call out but The Phantom squeezes her hands and urges her to continue with the play, which she does. He then goes off script and says 72 years ago he was going to star in the play but fell to his death. He pointed to the trap door. He says he’s been waiting for the night he could play his role. The audience cheered and as the fog rolled to cover them, Brooke pulled off his mask.
He reeled backward and tried to cover his face before falling down the trapdoor, screaming the whole way. The audience stood and cheered.
Zeke comes running across the stage saying someone smashed him in the head and he’s been unconscious the whole time. They jump onto the trapdoor and ride it down. They found no trace of him.
At the cast party, they look for New Kid, but Brooke can’t find him. Wonder why…
Brooke goes to her locker and it’s cracked open. When she opens it the rest of the way, an old yearbook drops out. It had a page for the play with a picture of the cast. And who do you think The Phantom is?
** TV Episode **
This was a Goosebumps episode and while I’m not Dom and can’t do a Lost in Adaptation, I’m still going to watch that and see how similar it is.
Well, it starts out pretty different.
They start with Brooke having a nightmare about The Phantom. Then she is in rehearsal with like 4 kids and it must be the first day because she circles her name in the script. One of the kids congratulates her on the part and says to watch out for Tina who might poison her for the roll. Tina says she doesn’t want the role and the play is cursed and then tells the same story from the book (The Teacher is nowhere to be found AOY).
While telling the story, you see The Phantom up in the rafters, which is interesting (the mask is white. They didn’t even attempt the weird blue and green thing the book describes). The difference in Tina’s story is that they tried to do the play again the next year and everything went wrong. In the book, they tried it the first year and then destroyed all but one script and all the sets and stuff.
Then we meet Zeke who pops out and grabs him from behind the curtain. This is different than the book, but does show his prankster tendencies and that Brooke and Zeke are close and comfortable with each other.
Tina is again weird about the play, making her noticeably different than her book counterpart.
Also, the trap door is activated (somehow) and one of the kids gets lowered down while The Teacher is lecturing Tina for being annoying and whiney. So it’s a less dangerous introduction to that door.
Brooke keeps having these weird flashes with The Phantom and it’s like she’s having some kind of mental break more than anything else. It’s a weird change. I don't like it or understand why it's there.
The kids and The Teacher all leave, but Brooke and Zeke stay behind to go into the trap door. Instead of a coughing fit, she loses her glasses and Zeke is just kind of a jerk in the show instead of a goof, so that’s something.
They wander pretty far from the platform and there are actual lights in the basement. There is a rat that must flip the switch and they have to jump onto the trap door. It still gets stuck just below the stage and Zeke needs a boost out.
Again, they are greeted by The Janitor, but he doesn’t have the scar. He yells at them to ‘stay away’ which I thought was nice, considering the warnings I knew were coming.
The next day, they are back at rehearsal (this scene took place in math class in the book). Brooke tells the New Kid he’s in her seat, which is weird AF since it’s just a bunch of chairs on stage. It made sense in the book because it was assigned desks in a classroom. They could have just had her be like “hey, I don’t know you” and introduce herself instead of trying to make this awkward callback to the book. And, furthermore, if they wanted to do the line, they should have had Zeke say it because it’s the New Kid and Zeke is playing The Phantom. But they didn’t so they should have just cut this line altogether in my opinion.
New Kid just shows up and Tina says she can join the set design and is awkward with him in a way that makes no sense. But ok. Brooke goes to get her script from her locker (instead of her math book) and there is a skull mask in her locker with a note that says ‘Stay away from my home sweet home Esmerelda”. The principal gives us a weird little jump scare and tells her to get to drama. On her way, she throws the mask at Zeke who she finds in the hallway and tells him ‘nice try’. He says ‘it wasn’t me, it was the phantom’ with this weird delivery that sounds like he’s just being an ass and of course it was him and he’s messing with her.
I don’t like this Zeke.
Brooke stops in the hall when Zeke goes away and gets this insane look on her face. Then she is in her room screaming, but it’s just practice. Some checkers fall out of her closet for another useless jump scare and when she closes the door, the phantom is behind her. It’s just Zeke in costume. The two don’t even feel like friends at this point.
Back in rehearsal, Tina is strangely aggressive considering this version of her doesn’t want Brooke’s part. The lights go out and the phantom flies across the stage, similar to the books. But then he just tells her to go away. He runs away and there is red paint on a door saying ‘Last warning stay away Esmeralda or else” and both of these missed the whole ‘home sweet home’ bit that made it clear who was doing it. Meh.
Zeke shows up and everyone immediately blames him even though he was at the dentist (something that should be super easy to verify, but this is not The Teacher in the book, so why bother?).
Tina points out the paint trail and it leads to Zeke’s locker where they find the paint. Tina was a red herring in the book but in this episode, it’s almost unbelievable that she’s not involved.
They talk to the janitor about helping clean the auditorium and he says he’s busy and they ask if Night Janitor can help. His delivery is so confusing when he says there is no night janitor. It’s almost sarcastic and also just kind of rude. I don’t understand it.
Some amount of time later, they are still in the school but everyone else is gone and Brooke insists that Zeke and New Kid go down the trap door. In the book, she was almost unwilling but didn’t want to be labeled as afraid so she gives in to her best friend. In this, they say no and she convinces them. Not a big deal, but just a noticeable change.
The trap door starts to go up as they are stepping off of it, and earlier when it did this, Brooke and Zeke had to run and jump onto it, but now they just walk away and say, oh well, even though they are right next to it.
They find the room Night Janitor is living in and the music choice in this part of the episode is…not good. It doesn’t fit at all, in my opinion.
Night Janitor is wearing the mask and is just mad they are down there. As they run away, some guy is there. I’m not really sure who it is. They take the police down and Night Janitor is gone and they just assume he’s some homeless dude, because Night Janitor didn’t have time to exposit this part for them before running away. They used up too much runtime with Brooke's weird and useless daydreams.
Now it’s showtime. Brooke is on stage calling for The Phantom and Zeke is down in the lowered trap door psyching himself up. For some reason, the trap door doesn’t move and then someone in costume chloroforms (I guess) Zeke and plays his part. Brooke looks him in the eyes and…they are flames…? It’s some really low-budget effects and looks laughable. He tries to take her with him and that’s why she unmasks him and he falls down the trap door. When they bring it back up, Zeke is laying down and basically unconscious. He’s laying next to a yearbook from 1923 and find a picture of New Kid in it on the page about The Phantom play. I don't like this change. In the book, the Phantom just wants to finish the play. In the show, he wants to kidnap Brooke for some reason.
Then Brooke is like ‘Oh, it was the Phantom how crazy!’ and Zeke is like ‘WTF, what do you mean? The Phantom isn’t real’ or something and she shows him the yearbook part.
It’s weird. This isn’t a great adaptation. Zeke is a jerk and doesn’t really feel like he’s that close to Brooke. New Kid is really just a background character so after the big reveal you’re like…k? The Teacher lost her charm and everything I liked about her. Tina was annoying but in a different way than the book and one that felt forced and stupid. I don’t know. The episode just wasn’t for me.
But, here’s the tea, this show was only ever okay to me. It was very low budget and I always enjoyed the books more. I had a friend that loved these shows so I watched them sometimes, but I never really went out of my way to watch them. So maybe that’s the problem. They don’t hold the same nostalgia as the books.
** Did you know there's a Musical? **
There is also a musical of this book. It came out in 2016 and says it's currently running, but I don't know where. I love that this exists but I can’t find anything more than a few small clips. It seemed so much better than the episode. Honestly, I’m here for it. The couple of clips I did see were still different than the book, but not in a ‘why did they make that choice?’ kind of way, so it’s probably fine.
Stine apparently does a cameo as the voice of the principal, and I think it's really cool that he stays so involved with the adaptations of his work (like the cameo he did in the Goosebumps movie).
