Recap: Goosebumps "Ghost Beach"

There are some pretty interesting monsters out there. Well, not really "out there," I guess, since if "monsters" existed, we'd probably just call most of them "animals."

But unique and interesting monsters add flavor to the world's various mythologies and folk tales. Conversely, there are also some very mundane monsters. Wikipedia's exhaustive list of every mythological creature is simply inundated with "forest spirits." You could conceivably make an incredibly dangerous drinking game out of it.

But I'd personally say the least creative sub-category of monster is "Undead," which... well, I mean, just open up an old D&D Monster Manual and look at the undead. Wights, ghouls, zombies, ghasts, skeletons, liches... most of these things are some kind of variation on "Dead guy who doesn't act dead. May or may not still have flesh attached."

If I had to pick the least interesting monster, I would bestow that dishonor upon the humble ghost. (And if I had to pick the least interesting ghost, it'd be Casper, but that's neither here nor there.)

Throughout the history of storytelling, ghosts have been done to death, if you'll pardon the intentional pun. This is why many ghosts in modern tales have something to them that makes them more interesting than simply being a ghost. M. Night Shyamalan's first major twist ending was the realization that the main character was a ghost the whole time, R.L. Stine brought us a headless ghost, and J.K. Rowling topped that strangeness with a nearly-headless ghost.

Today, I'm delving into R.L. Stine's gimmick-free ghost story.

No barking ghosts, no headless ghosts, no ghost camps, no twist where the protagonist was a ghost the whole time, nothing. Just ghosts.

And a beach.

The episode begins with two kids in a beachside graveyard. One of them, Jerry (Sheldon Smith), is looking for his sister Terri (Jessica Hogeveen). And he finds her making a wax rubbing of a gave with the name "Harrison Sadler" on it.

Jerry: "Who makes wax rubbings?"

Terri: "I do. 'Cause I'm interested in things."

Um... sick... burn? Actually, that's pretty much on par with most conversations between siblings, in my experience.

Jerry gives us a spot of backstory on the situation.

Jerry: "We finally get to visit Brad and Agatha, and all you wanna do is rub gravestones all day."

Terri: "It's cool! See, Jerry? It's a death's head; an old Puritan symbol."

Just to double check whether or not the death's head was specifically a Puritan symbol, I googled the term and discovered that she was completely wrong. Death's Head is a robotic bounty hunter.

And I feel no need to do any research past the first Google result for "Death's Head," so there you go.

As the nearby ground begins to move, Terri and Jerry notice the name on the old tombstone: Harrison Sadler. Which is weird, because "Sadler" is also their last name.

Terri: "He died in 1642. One of the first guys to come to America, and he's got our last name."

One of the first guys... unless you count the Roanoke settlers. And the vikings. And the indigenous people who had been living there for quite some time already. But not Columbus. That guy never even stepped on American soil, let alone Canadian.

Terri: "Check out the epitaph. 'Though his bones are but dust, his spirit lives on forever.'"

Shouldn't that epitaph should be using the old-timey long S that looks like an F?

As Jerry continues to get his sister to want to head down to the beach, she spouts non-sequiturs...

Terri: "I love it that everything around here is so old."

....and the two of them are attacked by what appears to be a young Jewel Staite (Anna Majewski).

Not exactly sure why she's performing in a half-smeared fake tan, but it's a bold choice.

This is Louisa, who apparently has nothing better to do than hide in the straw and wait for kids to enter the graveyard, whereupon she pops up in a backwards raincoat and Halloween wig. She's soon joined by her brother Sam (Bill Turnbull), and these two kids tell our protagonists that they saw the two of them heading to the graveyard earlier and wanted to give them a little scare. Terri and Jerry aren't very appreciative, though.

Sam: "Hey, we're sorry."

Louisa: "We are! We're really sorry!"

I don't think they mean it. If they did, they'd say "sore-y," like all the other kids in this show.

Sam and Louisa introduce themselves as Sam and Louisa Sadler, which rings a bell.

Terri: "'Sadler'? That's our last name."

"And you can't have it."

With introductions made, Terri and Jerry open up to the two.

Jerry: "We're staying with Brad and Agatha, our fourth cousins, twice remodeled."

Terri: "Removed, Jerry. Twice removed."

Jerry: "Whatever that means."

You know, I hear it all the time, but I don't know what "removed" actually means in the context of family members. Let's see what Google has to say.

....

Okay.

So "fourth cousins" share a set of great-great-great-grandparents, and if we assume that "twice remodeled" doesn't mean they got a face lift and a tummy tuck, then "twice removed" means that they're two generations older than Jerry and Terri.

Terri: "It means they're distant relatives."

Yeah, what she said.

Terri: "They're Sadlers, too."

Sam: "There's lots of Sadlers around here."

Yeah, the place seems to be absolutely lousy with Sadlers. 100% of the people in this episode so far are Sadlers. And two other people we haven't met yet that we've been told about are Sadlers, too. And according to Sam and Louisa, there's even a dead Sadler walking around named Harrison.

Terri: "You don't really believe in ghosts, do you?"

Sam: "If you go near the cave down at the beach, you will, too."

Sam and Louisa suspiciously find an undisclosed reason to leave as a dog barks in the distance, so we cut to the dinner table at Brad and Agatha's house, where the family shares a delicious pot pie by candlelight. Apparently, Brad and Agatha live like it's the 1700s. Good thing Terri likes the fact that everything around here is old. Including their cousins, who seem to be about seven times as old as Jerry and Terri.

Agatha: "Everything tastes so much better cooked on that old wood burner."

Brad: "They've brought in the power, but we haven't bothered hooking it up."

That's right, kids, no phone, no lights, no motorcars. They have to Google stuff by mail. Paper mail!

Jerry says he might have a bit too much pie on his plate, and gets called a "little eater" for it... but it seems obvious that the kids don't care for tonight's meal. But Brad and Agatha are pleased as punch to have the two kids here, and the two kids are just as happy to be in the place that their dad told them so many stories about.

Brad: "Well, your dad always cared about keeping the family together."

"Any Sadler is welcome in this house, that's what I say. Any Sadler at all."

Jerry: "We met some other Sadlers today. Kids."

Terri: "Sam and Louisa."

"You keep those damn brats out of this house."

Dinner gets suddenly awkward when Brad simply mutters that they're "nice kids," and both Brad and Agatha evade any and all questions about whether Sam and Louisa are related to them.

Jerry: "They went on about some... some ghost in a cave."

Brad: "Never heard of it."

"What's a... 'cave'?"

But there is a limit to the amount of awkwardness a single dinner can withstand, and this one has reached its limit. So Brad heads off to do some important reading.

Agatha: "Oh, I'll help."

"You take the left pages, I'll take the right."

The next day, presumably after an awkward breakfast, Terri and Jerry walk the beach. And as you might expect, Terri is turning the whole affair into homework by getting all obsessed about seaweed.

Terri: "Some types of seaweed you can actually eat. It's full of iodine."

Jerry: "It's full of bugs. Let's see if we can go find that cave."

But Terri has more pressing matters.

Terri: "I wish I had a book on all the different types of seaweed."

Yeah, well, just be glad you're not in the episode "Be Careful What You Wish For." A weird lady would snap her fingers, and you'd get the seaweed book you asked for, only to realize the true horror: You wasted a magical wish on a book about seaweed.

Jerry goes to look for the cave himself, but instead literally stumbles upon an animal skeleton in the wet sand. That's when Sam and Louisa drop by to offer their opinion.

Sam: "Just a dog."

Sam says that the dog was killed and eaten, but Jerry says that no animal can pick the bones that clean.

I would add that no animal can glue the skeleton together that well.

Louisa: "I guess if you're going to be around here, you should know... it wasn't an animal that picked those bones clean! It was the ghost. The ghost of Harrison Sadler."

06:22, by the way. That's the timestamp for that line. Because, quite simply, this kid's melodramatic delivery has to be seen to be believed.

Louisa: "It killed and ate it because dogs can tell if someone's a ghost."

R.L. Stine really likes dogs. I'm not sure if you can tell by this point.

Sam: "Dogs always bark to warn about ghosts."

And to top it all off, Louisa spins around just to point to where the ghost is supposed to have lived for over 300 years.

Louisa: "Do you see that opening in those rocks?"

One might even call it... "a cave."

"A what?"

Sam and Louisa have never seen the ghost that supposedly lives there, but they've seen flickering lights and the skeletons it's left behind.

Jerry: "It's probably just some guy with a flashlight."

"You know. Murdering people."

But Jerry sees the light for himself, which Terri thinks is just another joke, so Sam and Louisa decide to leave.

Sam: "I told you they were nonbelievers."

That night, Agatha gives Jerry the tiniest portion of beef stew.

Jerry: "Um, I can eat more than that, Agatha."

Agatha: "I just don't know how to feed you kids. First of all, you're not hungry, now you are."

Yeah. That's how hunger works.

Jerry says that they met up with Sam and Louisa again, who told them a story about a cave ghost who eats dogs and makes this weird flickering light. And the kids also mention that Jerry saw a strange light in a nearby cave...

Brad: "You ever hear of 'aurora borealis,' Jerry?"

Well, this is Canada, after all.

Jerry: "Well, it was the middle of the day, and-"

Brad: "Just stay clear of beach's caves, you hear me? I don't want you kids comin' home with any broken bones!"

That night, as a dog barks outside, Jerry sneaks up behind his sister and asks if she wants to go check out that cave like they're not supposed to.

Jerry: "Come on, Terri, where's your sense of adventure?"

Terri: "I don't know. Where's your sense of night and day?"

But the dog outside stops barking, getting Jerry's curiosity all up in a dander. And he manages to get Terri to follow him into the cave. Or at least, this show's foam cave sets. They encounter some bats on strings on loan from Batman, and end up finding a creepy old man (Hardee T. Lineham).

Old Man: "It's dangerous to get involved with ghosts...."

This seems familiar....

Old men really seem to like hanging out in caves and warning people.

Old Man: "You're trying to trap me, aren't ya?"

Jerry: "We were just looking around. Honest."
Old Man: "Silence!"

Did he just actually yell "silence"? Even apart from the inherent irony, who does that?

Old Man: "You think I'm a ghost, don't you? I'm not a ghost."

Sounds to me like something a ghost would say!

Old Man: "My name is Harrison Sadler."

Not exactly a point in his favor, what with that gravestone that says "Harrison Sadler."

Harrison: "I journeyed here from England a number of years ago."

Just like the guy in the grave.

Terri: "350 years ago. I saw your gravestone."

Harrison: "An ancestor's, not mine."

So, your family came over from England, went back to England, and you came back to Canada America?

Harrison: "I'm going to tell you a story, and I want you to listen very carefully."

"There will be a test."

Harrison: "In the year 1641, a group of pilgrims sailed from England to begin a new life here. But when they arrived, they faced the most horrible winter imaginable."

Sounds like Canada, alright.

Harrison: "No proper shelter, not enough food."

Just like with the Oregon Trail, you have to leave at the right time of year to avoid these problems. Did you waste all your money on oxen, Harrison?

Harrison: "There was no time to prepare for any of that."

If only these pilgrims hadn't spent all their spare time alienating the local tribes by trying to force them to cover their nakedness and start praying to a different god. They might have had enough time to learn how to plant fish in the ground to make corn.

Harrison: "So cold, so hungry, their blood froze in their veins. One by one, they perished."

Meaning that, if Brad and Agatha are related to the dead Harrison Sadler, more Sadlers came over on another journey to the same place... which I guess is exactly what Harry here says he did. Also, yet another freakin' Sadler. Literally every single character in this is a Sadler.

Harrison: "Their deaths were so awful, so painful, that some refused to go to their final resting place. And so they lingered on."

Terri finds his knowledgeability suspicious, so once again, Harrison has to claim that he's not, in fact, a ghost. Sam and Louisa on the other hand? Full-on ghost. Harrison tries to explain that he's been following Sam and Louisa and studying them and their evil deeds for quite some time, but Jerry thinks that all the evidence seems to point to this creepy old man who won't leave his cave instead.

Harrison: "My sanctuary."

"Where fears and lies melt away."

Harrison: "They know I'm watching. But here, I'm safe. But I dare not leave."

So... logically, there must be a very smelly corner of this cave where... ew..

Harry decides to let the two go, even though Terri is convinced that he's going to kill them and eat them, and he tells them to go to the northeastern corner of the graveyard, where they'll find proof of what he's saying. And so, they head right over to the graveyard to figure all this out once and for all.

Terri: "The ocean's behind us, so... it's this way."

Wait... the ocean's behind them? I hope they're approaching this graveyard from the East. Because if they're facing the northeast corner of the graveyard, then the ocean would be to the Southwest. Which would suggest that they're on the West coast of North America, which boasts very few pilgrim settlements from the 1600s.

After wandering through the dry ice fog, they find two gravestones for Samuel and Louisa Sadler. Speaking of them, they suddenly pop up behind Terri and Jerry. The two of them share their experience with Harry in the cave, which Sam and Louisa are amazed by. After all, they've never actually seen the ghost in the cave.

Louisa: "How'd you get away?"

Jerry: "He let us go. He says he's not a ghost."

And Terri admits that they came along looking for Sam and Louisa's graves... which they've found.

Sam: "That ghost is clever, making you think we're the ghosts."

Wouldn't it be ironic if nobody here was actually a ghost? That's how this would end if it were a kids' mystery novella from the '70s. It would all be an easily-explained misunderstanding, except for one small unexplained detail that keeps the existence of ghosts ambiguous as the story ends.

Terri: "If you're not ghosts, then where did these come from?"

Louisa: "Our ancestors. We just got named after them, that's all."

So either the creepy old man is lying about being named after an ancestor, or these two kids are. Or perhaps both. Why is this an explanation that several people are offering up?

Sam and Louisa take Jerry and Terri to a couple new graves with their names and pictures on them.

Sam: "Freshly placed gravestones for you and your sister. This is what the ghost didn't want you to see."

Terri: "What does he want?"

Louisa: "What do you think? To eat you and bury your bones right here."

As opposed to ditching the bones in an unmarked grave and/or ravine, which would be much more subtle. Although I'll admit that human souls condemned to an eternity of unlife might not exactly be too concerned with the cops.

But Sam and Louisa have a plan. If they seal the cave, then the ghost will never return.

Jerry: "But he's a ghost. Can't he float through that stuff?"

Louisa: "The legend says that the cave is a sanctuary."

Sam: "If something evil gets trapped inside, it can't get out. So that's what you have to do. Trap the ghost."

And since Harry said something about the kids being there to "trap" him, Jerry and Terri believe them. So they all head out to prepare a rockslide.

Sam: "We'll keep watch."

Jerry: "No! You'll come with us."

Sam: "I can't, Jerry. ...I'm scared."

But before Jerry and Terri get peer-pressured into making "rocks fall, everybody dies" happen, HR shows up.

Harrison: "You've done well bringing the ghosts to me."

Sam: "Ghosts? Us?"

Louisa: "You're the ghost!"

But Harrison whistles for his dog, which starts barking uncontrollably at Sam and Louisa. The same way that dogs are supposed to bark at ghosts....

Louisa: "We never had a chance to live!"

Sam: "The first winter! It wasn't fair!"

Louisa: "We never had a life at all!"

Sam: "We all died in the cold!"

The episode treats us to a special effect by having their skeletons flash like the reconstituted John Simms Master...

Hoodie and everything.

....and convenient lightning causes a rockslide to seal the two into the cave forever.

Terri: "Jerry, next time you see me sleeping, don't wake me up."

With that sorted, Jerry and Terri head back home to talk about the experience with their old cousins. Suddenly, HR's dog shows up outside the house, barking. Jerry lets it in, but it starts barking at Brad and Agatha.

Brad: "Bad dog, giving away our little secret like that."

Agatha: "Maybe he's not such a bad dog, Brad. Maybe he's... quite a... good dog."

Brad: "Maybe you're right. It's a little early for breakfast...."

But either way, Brad tells the two kids to set the table while the meal is prepared.

Brad: "And don't say you're not hungry...."

And with all the characters turning out to be Sadlers and more than half the characters turning out to be ghosts, the episode ends.