You know what this means...
The Goosebumps book with the plant people.
In an unremarkable American suburban house, Dr. Brewer is doing some sort of experiment with plants in his basement laboratory. One day, he starts acting strange. He suddenly becomes secretive and paranoid, especially about his experiments. He stops calling his daughter "Princess". And for some reason his blood has turned green and he's eating plant food. There's only one thing for it. His children, Margaret and Casey, have no choice but to defy his order to stay out of the basement.
It was adapted into episodes 12 and 13 of the first season of the 1995 TV series.
It was later reissued in the Classic Goosebumps line in 2011.
Dr. Brewer, his clone, and Margaret Brewer all notably made a comeback in the video game, Goosebumps: Night of Scares.
The book provides examples of:
- Affably Evil: The plant clone (more in the book than in the TV adaptation) tried to be a good father even though he was ultimately out to turn everyone into plant clones, even comforting the kids when they worried about things.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Plant-Clone!Dr. Brewer isn't portrayed in a very sympathetic light, but watching him be mercilessly destroyed by his creator just because he wanted a human life is still pretty harsh.
- Alien Blood: Dr. Brewer's plant clone bleeds green plant fluid, which leads to his downfall.
- Ambiguous Situation: The ending shows a flower in the basement calling up to Margaret, claiming that it is actually his father. It is unclear if it is telling the truth, or just another lie from the plant clone to trick Margaret into believing her. Given the implications that the actual Dr. Brewer seemed to show that he was actually human, the latter is most likely true.
- Banging for Help: These occur in the large supply closet in the basement. These are revealed to come from the real Dr. Brewer, who was kidnapped and stowed away in there.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The Casey is the Blonde, Margaret is the Brunette, and her best friend Diane Manning {who occasionally hangs out with the two throughout the story) is the Redhead.
- Bloodier and Gorier: The real Dr. Brewer chopping his clone in half with an ax is considerably more graphic than would be seen in the later books.
- Body Horror: Doctor Brewer grows a series of horrific human/plant hybrids from his own blood, which are described as being in constant agony. They range from tomatoes with human faces to near perfect duplicates of the doctor. The main hybrid looks exactly like his creator, only with leaves growing from his scalp and chlorophyll for blood.
- Bound and Gagged: Margaret and Casey realize why they were told to never go into the basement: they find their father there tied up, and gagged to boot. While the clone claims that he had to tie up that Dr. Brewer by saying that he was the clone, the kids realize that's nonsense when the other figure bleeds red.
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Margaret is talking on the phone to her mother, and she brings up how her father is quite dismissive of him, which leads to an argument. Her mother explains that he is quite busy with his important work,and then adds that she's old enough to understand that. Margaret is saddened by this, so she decided to change the subject by bringing up how he is wearing a baseball cap all of a sudden.
- Counting Sheep: Margaret is having trouble sleeping after seeing the Dr. Brewer plant clone with plant-like physical characteristics, which makes her uneasy. She tries this trope, but it never worked. This causes her to then count to one thousand, but she stopped once she reached 375, and gave up.
- Creepy Basement: There's a reason it's in the title.
- Disappointed in You: A truly strange example of this trope. After being warned not to go down into the basement by their father, Margaret and Casey do that anyway, but their father caught them as they were trying to escape from there. He looked a bit angry, but seemed rather calm as well as caring for their well-being, then he told them he was very disappointed in both of them. He then gave a tranquil yet stern discussion with them of how they let him down. The two kids at first thought that when they were caught, they were going to be yelled at by him. but were felt worse by the way he acted instead. However, given that this behavior was so unlike the father that they know of, they were also taken aback by how unnatural it was of him. Given that this was probably Dr. Brewer's plant clone, it seems fitting.
- Discreet Dining Disposal: The plant Dr. Brewer gives his two kids an unknown green food that neither of them want to eat, and he eventually demands that they eat it. But when he is distracted and goes off to see what is up, the two kids decide to get rid of this green food burying them inside the contents of the garbage can in the room. They then act as though they ate it all when (fake) Dr. Brewer comes back in.
- Dreaming of a White Christmas: An averted variant involving the weather and the time of the year. The Brewer family live in California, which means that even though it is the middle of the winter, yet it feels as if it was the middle of summer. Margaret finds it weird.
- Empty Piles of Clothing: Margaret and Casey are snooping through the basement and find clothing from a business suit, and they decide to confront their father about it, thinking that it came from Mr. Martinez who visited yesterday and was not seen leaving the house after checking the basement. The (fake) Dr. Brewer replies that they were just taken off because Mr. Martinez did not like the heat in there, and forgot about them when leaving. He turned out to have actually lied about it, as the kids find more clothing that came from the same outfit down in there, and eventually find Mr. Martinez locked in the supply closet with the real Dr. Brewer.
- Entertainment Above Their Age: The Brewer kids and Diane are shown watching a movie that, from the sounds of how it is described, is incredibly violent and not appropriate for a person his age. He doesn't seem to mind, though. Margaret and Diane, however, are not impressed with this inappropriate movie.Margaret: It's neat if you like to see a lot of people blown up and their guts flying all over. (making a face to agree with Diane)Casey: (not taking his eyes off the TV screen) Yeah. It's neat.
- Gender-Blender Name: Downplayed, Casey is a somewhat androgynous name.
- Gratuitous Laboratory Flasks: Not in the book itself, but they do appear on some of the covers.
- Hand Gagging: Diane clamps a hand to Margaret's mouth when the latter protested with the former over checking out the basement and seeing her father's lab, which they were forbidden from doing so.
- Harmful to Minors: Margaret and Casey's mother has left them alone with their father, who they cannot trust and who is actively trying to cause them harm by turning them into plants.
- Improvised Lockpick: To get inside the basement, Margaret and Casey had to get past the entryway door, which had a lock on it because they were busted with their previous sneaky entrance. So Casey has Margaret get a paperclip, and he does what he says his friend Kevin taught him last week, which was to use the paperclip to unlock the door. This is the method they use to get in there from then on.
- Lame Comeback: At the beginning of the book, Casey gets on Margaret's nerves, to which she tells him that he is eleven years old, so he should stop acting like a two-year old. Casey retorts that she acts like a one-year old.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: By a flower, no less, in the final chapter.
- Mad Scientist: Dr. Brewer and his clone. Margaret's friend Diane finds his behavior creepy, and when told about some of his odd behavior of acting like a plant, she reportedly said that she should call the police because she feels that there should be a law against being a mad scientist.
- Never My Fault: A tired Margaret goes downstairs at night to get a cup fo water to make her fall asleep, but she is startled by Casey, who is also awake and came by to check on her. Her surprise caused her to drop the cup, which caused the water to fall out and drench the floor. This caused Margaret to ask Casey to help her mop up, and he protested by saying that she was the one who dropped it, only for her to counter that he was the one who startled her and made her drop it. This causes him to wise up and help her clean up.
- Plant Person: Dr. Brewer's sinister hybrid clone, who wants to make more of himself.
- Please Keep Your Hat On: Dr. Brewer has started wearing a baseball cap, which his children thinks makes him look dorky. And then Casey threw a frisbee at his father playfully, which knocked his cap off, revealing that all of his hair had fallen out, and instead had leaves sprouting from his head. He tries to reassure them that this was actually a side effect of his experiments and is only temporary, his son and daughter are quite uncomfortable about it and prefer him wearing his hat on.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: The book ends with Margaret confronted by a flower on the flor, claiming that this one is actually his father, unlike what was previously believed to be revealed. This would lead her into a predicament, wondering if the flower is speaking truthfully, and that the real Dr. Brewer needs to be saved yet again. However, given how the Dr. Brewer that was found showed pretty decent clues that he is the real deal (most notably how he was shown shedding genuine human blood, something which the plant Dr. Brewer could not do), the best summation to make is that Margaret has nothing to worry about.
- Reed Richards Is Useless: Dr. Brewer originally tries to splice different plant species together into bigger crops, thus solving world hunger. Then he accidentally gets his DNA mixed into the equation, and decides to continue from there because a plant clone ties him up and impersonates him.
- So Much for Stealth: At night, Margaret is spying on her father, and sees her through a crack in the bathroom door tending to himself. She then is shocked to see that the blood that is seeping from his hand bandage is actually green, not red. This causes her to gasp and start running back to her room. This causes Dr. Brewer to hear her, and wonder if one of his kids was awake at night. Luckily, Margaret successfully pretends to be asleep.
- Spot the Impostor: Both Dr. Brewer and his clone implore Margaret and Casey that each is the real one. They both have plant leaves instead of hair, and their intonations are impeccable. Margaret realizes she can't tell them apart, but asks Casey to get a knife. She cuts one of them; on seeing his blood is red, she gives him the axe. As she recalls, the plant had green plant fluids rather than human blood.
- Stock "Yuck!": The plant Dr. Brewer decides to give Casey and Margaret an unknown green substance, which they find disgusting, and they refuse to eat it, much to his displeasure.
- Third Line, Some Waiting: In order to get his t-shirt, which he left behind in the basement while he was sneaking around down there, Casey tells Margaret he will get it and goes down there. The scene then shows Margaret staying in the room, worrying about Casey and seeing their father arrive back home, and she then grows anxious over what is taking Casey so long down there, so she goes downstairs to get him. It then cuts to Casey going down and showing what exactly he was doing that made him so preoccupied (he got tangled up with a living plant that was attacking him). These two scenes are described separately but not at the same time.
- Tickle Torture: While the Brewer children and Diane are in the basement, Casey touches a piece of equipment and tricks the girls by pretending that he got electrocuted, much to their shock. When he laughs at them, revealing the ruse, the girls get mad at him and do this trope to him. Diane held him down while Margaret tickled Casey's stomach so hard that he couldn't talk. This is stopped abruptly when they heard a moan (which was coming from a nearby plant).
- Tongue-Out Insult: Casey is the basement with her sister and Diane, and he is overwhelmed by the heat in there, so he takes off his shirt. That's when Diane sarcastically called him a bod to tease him. Casey responded by giving her this trope.
- Use Your Head: Among the odd behavior that Margaret witnesses her father doing, she sees him eating a bag of dirt, which sickens her. She tells Casey about it, which he finds funny, so he pretends to be the Incredible Plant Man, a superhero who fights crime. He then used his head as a battering ram against her shoulder. It takes her screaming at him to get him to stop.
