It's an easy and obvious collation: 90s Children's Entertainment rooted in Horror Anthology, both stories centering around a corrupted camera that causes death and destruction with each photograph, all versions of the story released within a four year period. If we're to ignore the Twilight Zone episode from 1960 titled "A Most Unusual Camera" then the earliest version of this concept goes to the Goosebumps book in 1992 (which openly borrowed from Twilight Zone). "Say Cheese and Die!" was the fourth book in the series, with the first one having been released just four months prior, so it's safe to say that Goosebumps-mania really went into full swing in '92. By the time this one came out in November I was in total Bram Stoker's Dracula mode, and so while the series didn't entirely fit in with my interests it was hard to ignore its presence. I was in the fourth grade, which is probably around the target audience if not precisely; not that teachers were assigning this macabre material as part of the syllabus, no, these were for the ones who read for pleasure. That wasn't me, and yet, I still amassed a stack of them simply because I was that enamored with the artwork on the covers.
Not just the sleek illustrations by Tim Jacobus, but the alternating color schemes of the Goosebumps logo and the border around it all worked together like some kinda candy, to the point that I just started buying them based on a literal judgment of a book cover. This was at an age when school had substantially soured the possibility of getting any enjoyment from reading, so I had to get my prepubescent frights from some other outlet. Fortunately just one month after the first Goosebumps hit shelves, our television screens were blessed with SNICK, and with it came Canada's Are You Afraid of the Dark?.
The pilot episode, titled "The Tale of the Twisted Claw" debuted on YTV in Canada in 1990 but the show didn't become a Nickelodeon series until '92 - as part of their Saturday Night "SNICK" block of programming. SNICK was openly aimed at "preteens" which, at 9 years old, I kinda was, and thought watching it made me feel a teensy more mature, the subject matter was still childishly tame - up to and including Are You Afraid of the Dark?. Still though, the show had an undeniable atmosphere that was particularly less juvenile than it needed to be and I recognized it and hooked into it right away. The budget wasn't huge which was good, and it was made in another country so it just felt slightly alien to me; I only ever saw it at night and usually in its Saturday time slot, and even those two elements added to the mood. But beyond the stories about ghosts and curses, there was a richness in the cinematography and set design that never felt heavy-handed but was always palpable.
So there it is: the Nickelodeon show and the omnipresent paperbacks were both pretty to look at and still remain indicative of early 90s youth culture. But who had the better "camera" story - or, who told it better because it's the same damn story. Predictably the first version I experienced was the Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode -- "...Curious Camera" aired in March of 1994 as part of the show's third season, and to be honest I was sorta aging outta the series and the channel around that time, so the fact that I actually caught this episode on the night it premiered was sorta incidental, but entirely fortuitous.
The episode follows Matt, a high school loner who's targeted by bullies. On class photo day the bullies squirt ketchup onto Matt's face before his picture is taken (wonderfully morbid foreshadowing), but Matt's photos mysteriously come out blank. When refused a refund from the photographer, Matt is instead gifted an antique camera - and soon realizes it causes disaster to anything and anyone it photographs. He initially uses it as a weapon against his tormentors but of course it soon begins to function on its own, putting Matt and everyone he knows in danger. Even back then the story felt predictable and familiar, but the absolute biggest seduction for me was the gremlin.
The story maintains its mystique for the most part, but in an attempt to explain why the camera is the way it is, they instead create a supernatural lore that left me blissfully bemused; appearing in the corner of each picture is a small, inconspicuous "gremlin", but it's not like a silly cartoonish gremlin, it's like a gothic tribal design drafted up by Captain Howdy and The Blair Witch. And at the end : : S P O I L E R : : when the camera is destroyed, the gremlin reincarnates itself in the family computer - which is such a typical analogy for the series that was constantly combining old-fashioned frights with hip 1990s flavors. I enjoyed the show on its many superficial levels, but the concept of the gremlin and this sorta transferable curse was truly fascinating and kinda scary to me - to the point that I wrote a short story spinoff in the 6th grade that furthered the adventures of the gremlin, and then as an adult I got the design tattooed on my body.
In all fairness, the greater portion of my personal nostalgia, between the two, belongs to Are You Afraid of the Dark?. I enjoyed the cover art and I actually read "Night of the Living Dummy" on my own time, but for me, Goosebumps merely existed. It wasn't until as recently as this past Summer, along with my son, did I read "Say Cheese and Die!". Borrowed from the library with some hideously updated cover, we read a chapter a night but it only took a few pages to recognize the formula; even when I was little the "cursed object" scenario was bogged down in predictability. I will say this for one Robert Lawrence Stine: he can stretch a premise with the strength of a hundred YA novelists; one could argue that he's developing character and mood, but even as a grownup I'm like "Get to the crazy camera stuff already!" Fortunately most of these books were adapted for the Goosebumps TV show that debuted in 1995, and there were really no noticeable omissions in the stories when you condensed them down to 20 minutes.
I was very much too old for this series when it came out - in part because the demographic seemed to be even younger than the one Are You Afraid of the Dark? was aiming for; this show felt like a loud toy commercial with puppets and colored lights and smoke machines and homemade slime (which ain't all bad). So for the sake of symmetry (and fun) I watched the "Say Cheese..." episode from the first season of the series - which apparently is the famous one as it features Canadian superstar (and Are You Afraid of the Dark? alum) Ryan Gosling.
Ryan plays Greg who, along with his friends, comes upon an old camera in a spooky abandoned house. Greg keeps the camera, he takes pictures with it, the pictures depict mayhem, mayhem ensues. One of the better angles that's in both the book and the show is the sorta existential mystery of it: Greg takes a photo of Shari and the photo comes out blank, so Shari disappears. When Greg tears up the photo, Shari reappears, not knowing where she had gone. Apart form that the rest of the story is by-the-numbers, particularly the reveal of the camera's origins which : : S P O I L E R : : is just your basic combination of magic spells and mad scientists. In a glorious bit of trivia, the scientist and original owner of the camera in the Goosebumps show is played by Richard McMillan, the same actor who plays the photographer and original owner of the camera in the Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode. (Both episodes were directed by Ron Oliver and were, of course, a Canadian production.)
MY CHOICE: Comparing a book to a teleplay or any visual medium usually feels pretty frivolous; honestly a Goosebumps book, however bland or sparse, can feel pretty tense and eerie in my own imagination. Clearly the TV show did not expand or even fulfill the spooky potential of the source material -- one need only witness the Fisher Price camera prop from the "Say Cheese..." episode to get a sense of how juvenile they aspired to be. Even at its silliest, Are You Afraid of the Dark? maintained a dignity and a darkness that felt respectful to its subject matter and its audience. But this is about the dueling camera stories, and though both are derivative of an even older story, there are strong enough differences in their respective executions, and particularly their resolutions, to pick a winner. While I was able to maintain an otherworldly sensibility while reading the Goosebumps book, the Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode simply and expertly provided its own, and that's an undeniable achievement. More than that, some bumbling mad scientist is no match for an abstract demon illustration.
- Paul
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