Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The Third Evil, or “Evil is Just Getting Lazy Here”


We’re back with Corky Corcoran and the gang, picking up from where we left off. Corky is now bffs with Kimmy, Debra and Ronnie, and this time is joining in with the usual prologue bitchfest. The topic is not the killer evil that is stalking them, or the recent deaths of Corky’s sister and boyfriend, but rather the new girl on the squad, Hannah. She’s beautiful and perfect and a freshman! Ew! They are quickly interrupted by the evil, which boils Corky’s split pea soup. Um, really? That’s the worst it can do? I think this evil is losing some steam here.

The big deal is the girls are going to cheerleader camp for springbreak. Sounds like … fun. Anyways, bitchy little Hannah demands that Corky run her a bath. I know my response to someone ordering me to draw them a bath, but Corky just takes it and agrees. If Hannah knew Corky at all she’d know to avoid her around any kind of hot water. Predictably, the water super heats and Hannah steps in without checking the temperature, scalding her legs. First off, who ever has actually said, ‘Can you run me a bath?’ Also, it just seems bizarre to throw yourself into a hot tub of water without noticing the water is boiling, but that’s just me.

The bad doesn’t end with Hannah, because she wakes up the next morning with her long hair cut off and braided in her lap. Yuck – R. L. even describes it as looking like a dead animal. She freaks out, understandably, and keeps it, less understandably. Why would someone keep their dead hair? Since she is rooming with Kimmy and Corky, Corky figures that Kimmy is still possessed. But then she finds scissors in her own dresser. Dun dun DUN! What could this mean?

The accidents keep on coming. A beautiful red haired competitor is mysteriously tripped and breaks her face. Then Hannah is nearly killed … by Corky. As she holds the scissors to stab her, Corky makes the horrifying discovery that she in fact is evil. Oh noes!

Corky goes all schizo, sometimes she’s her, other times she is consumed by evil and wanders around cackling. She also has visions of Sarah Fear. The best is when she vomits green gas, and the gas tells her to go kill everyone. It suggests beginning with Debra, then rains back on her, until Corky is completely gone.

Evil C then calls Debra up to meet at the mall, and tries to run her over in the parking lot. She misses, but cheerfully hopes that maybe Debra fell under the car anyways. That’s the spirit, Evil C. She convinces Debra she just slipped, and takes her to the old mill, climbing up to the top. Poised to shove her off the top, she’s interrupted by a cantankerous old man who yells at them for trespassing. Score one for the good guys, cantankerous old man! Debra is spared once again. When Evil C drops her off, she says: ‘I’ll kill you tomorrow’, all cheerfully. Debra’s all whu? – I misheard you, I guess. I thought that was awesome.

Corky wakes up the next day herself. Apparently Evil C is asleep, because even evil possessing spirits need their beauty rest (wtf?). So Corky uses the time to gain information. She realizes Sarah Fear is the only person to have defeated the evil – when she died, the evil went with her. So she tries to access Sarah Fear’s memories from the sleeping evil to figure out how. This is getting a little deep for my liking, R. L. She sinks into the evil to go back to the time when Sarah Fear was on the pleasure cruise. Sarah thinks of all the horrific murders she committed, then tells the evil she’s going to kill it, by killing herself while it’s in her. She jumps overboard and drowns. Then Corky gets a memory of the evil trapped for a century with a slowly decomposing body in a coffin. Ick.

Evil C takes over again and arranges to meet Kimmy on top of a cliff. But of course they go to a cliff. There’s not much lead up to this one – they get to the top, and she pushes Kimmy off. Evil C is pretty straightforward with her deaths. Sarah Fear was way more creative – she ground one man’s head under a mill, and boiled another’s head in a pot of potatoes until his hair and skin floated off. Evil C just gets the job done. Run someone over with her car, push them off the cliff, whatever, she’s practical. Corky tries to kill herself then, to kill the evil, and also throws herself off the cliff. Apparently, she succeeds, because she drowns in the river below. Happily, Kimmy survives her fall nicely, and sees Corky drown. She pulls her up and gives her CPR, saving her life. Corky is alive and back to herself again. The evil is … gone, apparently.

This series ends with a joke about pea soup. No, really. That ruined it for me. And what happened to the evil? Does it possess the river now? I’d like to know. Actually, an evil river would be kinda cool, although not really R.L’s style. Anyways, 3 possessed cheerleaders out of 6, because this ending was so lame.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Sometimes trilogies can be murder." Except, wait, did anyone even die in this book? I have to agree that an ending even less conclusive than the previous books does not strike me as much of an ending.

LAK said...

Why is there so much evil around cheerleaders? Weren't there evil cheerleaders in Sweet Valley too? Makes me glad that cheerleading isn't so popular here in Canuckland.
And I don't think it's actually over....

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/r-l-stine/evil-lives.htm

I'll even help you find it!

L. K. Stine said...

I'm sure the evil goes on ... and on ... but it's true that no one died in this book. The worst thing that happened is someone cut their hair, which I realize may be traumatizing to some people.
I'm doing The Awakening Evil next, the story of Sarah Fear. Some messed up things happen in that one, so we don't have to go too long without a gruesome murder!

A. M. Stine said...

Was that "hair = traumatizing" dig at me? Because I swear L.K., if I wake up one more time with my hair all cut off and braided by you, I'm gonna be pissed.

L. K. Stine said...

Actually, the keeping the braid of dead hair was a dig at you ... I thought you'd pick up on it.