As a young child, from the time I was around 8 well into about 13, I was completely obsessed with the author R.L. STINE. I owned and read just about all of his books both GOOSEBUMPS and the FEAR STREET Series. One summer day, around 1998, my mom brought home one of his books for me to read. The title was NIGHT OF THE LIVING DUMMY. This wasn't an ordinary copy of the book mind you. It contained all three NIGHT OF THE LIVING DUMMY books and the front cover was oh-so-much creepier; it had red eyes that lit up when you pressed a secret button hidden in his mouth.
Just looking at the fiendish ventriloquist dummy on the cover had me excited to start reading. I began right away, reading well into the night. The book so far had no effect on me to speak of, until I laid down to go to sleep that night. I placed the book on the side table and went to sleep. That night I had the most frightening of nightmares of the fiendish dummy chasing after me trying to kill me! He chased me and chased me for what seemed like hours to me, until we reached the edge of a huge cliff. The dummy had me and he knew it.
Slowly backing away from him, I was cautious even though I knew being cautious would do no good to me now as I reached the very edge. There was no escaping him now. Just as this thought entered my brain, he lunged at me, causing me to fall off this cliff in my dream and plummet to my death.
Just as I was reaching the ground in my dream, I fell off my bunk bed, even though we had the guard rails on! As I hit the ground in a sitting position, I screamed as loud as my little lungs could manage. I never again picked up that book and I ended up selling it at a garage sale for a lot less than my mother bought it for about a year later.
I'm not sure why, but that dummy had me terrified and shaking in my platform tennis shoes.
They played one of those NIGHT OF THE LIVING DUMMY eps on GOOSEBUMPS (now playing on CARTOON NETWORK, but only through October!) the other night. I think it was PART III. Well, anyway, in scenes where Slappy was running around I had to admit to my 9 year old that he always made me uncomfortable and STILL DID! Theres just somethin' about ventriliquist dummies that gets to me everytime (My husband is always threatening to buy me one!)
The other day some people online were discussing "Chucky" from CHILDS PLAY and asking if anyone was really scared of him. I said "No", Chcuky didn;t scare me and that even GOOSEBUMPS Slappy was scarier than Chucky. In my opinion He is!
My daughter and I read the GGOSEBUMPS book and watch the show. My favorites are the HAUNTED MASK ones and the LIVING DUMMY ones.
I can't describe how much I hate ventriloquist's dummies. They are extremely frightening. Especially when the ventriloquist isn't around because they look like they are about to start talking! I hate those things so much. *shudder*