Based on The Haunted Mask, book #11 of the original Goosebumps series.
Carly Beth Caldwell, known for being a scaredy-cat, is sick of being the butt of everyone's jokes and decides to buy a mask from a strange costume shop, but the more Carly Beth wears the mask she bought, the more her personality gets warped and the harder it is for the mask to come off her face.
It was followed by the sequel episode "Haunted Mask II".
The episode provides examples of:
- Adaptational Heroism: The Shopkeeper. In the book, he sells Carly Beth a mask that he knows is cursed for only $30. In the TV adaptation, he flat out refuses to sell the mask, and Carly Beth winds up stealing it instead.
- Adapted Out: The book had 12 Unloved masks, but they got halved for this version.
- Big "WHAT?!": Carly Beth's reaction to Chuck and Steve asking what they should be apologizing for.
- Bowdlerise: Chuck and Steve, dressed as pirates, dance around and sing “Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest, yo ho ho and away we go!” This is the fictional pirate shanty from Treasure Island, but with the “bottle of rum” line changed to avoid referencing alcohol on a kids’ show.
- Character Catchphrase: “I hate mints”. Chuck really doesn’t like finding them in his Halloween candy, and he uses this exact phrase in both the original and sequel episodes.
- Chekhov's Gun: Carly Beth questions why her mother made a mold of her head. Mrs. Caldwell simply says because she loves her. It ends up being the symbol of love needed to get the mask off.
- Creator Cameo: R.L. Stine introduces the episode to explain the story and then closes things out to ask his (clearly terrified) parents if they enjoyed the show. Stine would do similar segments for a select few other two-parters throughout the show's run.
- Creepy Monotone: When the other masks come alive, they speak in this way.
- Despair Event Horizon: Carly Beth finally crosses it when she returns home after being humiliated at school and her brother manages to scare her using the duck costume their mom made for her. Left alone, Carly Beth breaks down sobbing as she angrily rips the costume up.
- The End... Or Is It?: Carly Beth is free of the mask, but her little brother has slipped it on.
- Eyes Never Lie: After finding the mask is stuck, Carly Beth looks in the mirror. She gets more freaked out by her situation over this, insisting those aren't her eyes looking back at her.
- Gratuitous Laboratory Flasks: When Carly Beth sneaks into the back room at the costume store, the shopkeeper has a chemistry set on a table for no readily apparent reason which passes by in the foreground. All of the vessels are filled with a bright blue liquid. We later learn he makes the haunted masks himself (and indeed his backstory in the Goosebumps Collector's Cap Book pegs him as a failed chemistry student), but the glassware in the episode doesn't seem to serve much purpose besides being set dressing because the shopkeeper never uses any of it or alludes to its role at all.
- Halloween Episode: Just like its book counterpart. The two-parter even received a special primetime premiere as part of the season.
- Hypocrite: For all his goofing on Carly Beth, Steve is creeped out in the cemetery and proves just as "scarable" as she is.
- I Ate WHAT?!: During lunch, Chuck and Steve sneak a worm into Carly Beth's sandwich and wait for her to chow down. The humiliation of this moment is what prompts her to scare others for a change.
- I Warned You: The Shopkeeper desperately tried to talk Carly Beth out of wanting the mask, either by offering her something else or trying to grab her before she could run off. When she returns after being unable to remove the mask herself, the Shopkeeper is apologetic but blunt about this.
- Ignored Epiphany:
- After running out of the store with the mask, Carly Beth has a moment of hesitation over what she's done and considers returning it. She then figures it will be fine and runs back home.
- After putting a scare into her little brother, Carly Beth has trouble getting the mask off. She sighs in relief when she does, but she doesn't think any more of this unusual moment until much later.
- Informed Attribute: Characters are constantly freaked out by Carly Beth's voice when she wears the mask, asking how she's even able to sound like that, when it's very clearly just the actress speaking in a creepy tone. It's possible a filter was meant to go over it and the editors forgot.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Carly Beth wants to get even against those who previously scared her. While she quickly gets even with Noah and sets out to find her most persistent tormentors, she also scares random people (including a couple little kids) just because she could.
- "Just Joking" Justification:
- Steve and Chuck try to invoke this via Loving Bully mentioned below, saying they only pulled those jokes on Carly Beth because they like her. Even under the Haunted Mask's influence, Carly Beth makes it clear that's a weak excuse and demands they apologize.
- Chuck also has this reaction in the cemetery when he pulls a little scare of his own on Steve before Carly Beth shows up.
- Lack of Empathy: Carly Beth has to literally terrorize her bullies into apologizing for their poor behavior towards her, as they genuinely don't realize how much they've hurt her.
- Loving Bully: Due to the mild Promoted to Love Interest mentioned below, Chuck and Steve were this to Carly. Carly is rather incredulous when told this, saying that's not how you treat someone you like.
- "Not So Different" Remark: When talking about how he made the cursed masks, the Shopkeeper likens himself to Carly Beth. He says he was also a very insecure person who tried to hide his inner faults rather than try to fix them or be comfortable with who he was.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The Shopkeeper reveals that his "face" is just another one of his masks, one he feels is starting to turn bad. He feels that what's underneath is too horrifying for words, though he wonders if showing Carly Beth would be a Cruel to Be Kind-style lesson for her.
- Oh, Crap!: Sabrina when she tries to help Carly Beth remove the mask and sees for herself why it can't be removed.
- The Power of Love: The Shopkeeper tells Carly Beth that her only chance to be free of the mask is a symbol of love. He doesn't explain further, due to getting sidetracked by discussing his own past and the other masks suddenly coming to life.
- Promoted to Love Interest: Done mildly with Steve and Carly Beth in this episode and its sequel. In the first, Chuck and Steve both claim that they only teased Carly Beth "because we liked her," something the book never mentioned or even hinted at. The sequel episode expands on this.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When the plaster mold of Carly Beth's head starts talking, Chuck and Steve run and never look back.
- Synchro-Vox: Used to depict Carly Beth's head speaking in this episode.
- Talk Like a Pirate: Chuck and Steve briefly get into this, while goofing around in their pirate costumes.
- A Taste Of His Own Medicine: After everything else she had to put up with, the worm prank pushes Carly Beth to be scary for once and even the score. She puts a scare into Noah and later seeks out Chuck and Steve, terrorizing anyone else in her way.
- Written-In Absence: Carly Beth's father is out of town on business.
