YMMV / Spinetinglers

• Ensemble Dark Horse: Downplayed, but Shad and Virgil are often spoken of as the only positive element in We Wish You A Scary Christmas due to their proactive personalities and consideration towards Emery Slagel.
• Nightmare Fuel: From Snow Day:
  • A group of kids and their bus driver are caught in a snowstorm, and when their bus breaks down, they have to take shelter in a seemingly abandoned house in a nearby field. The house, called the "Muhlzae Maze Manor," is dark, empty, and built like a funhouse due to the fact that most of the doors don't lead anywhere. This is spliced with chapters where the kids suddenly lapse into very vivid dream worlds handcrafted to suit their individual desires. But one girl, Debi, keeps interrupting their dreams and makes them wake up every time. As people start to go missing, Debi takes it upon herself to figure out what is going on. This is where the story goes into And I Must Scream territory. Debi and the kids are still asleep, and are trapped in the house's walk-in freezer. They've been strapped into machines that harvest their blood but keep them alive in a comatose state. It turns out the bus driver is actually a time traveler from a Bad Future where humanity is dying out because they lack immunity to various diseases, and are using the kids to keep them alive. Debi is told she has been fighting them for decades and has actually aged into an old woman, because unlike her friends, she won't cooperate and accept her dreams. Eventually though, it seems like the kids are let go because they realize through Debi's resistance that what they're doing is wrong. Life goes on for Debi and her friends, until one day she has a horrible thought. What if her freedom is the dream she most wanted?
  • The book actually opens up with Debi dreaming that the world is ending. It's actually legitimately distressing when her teacher breaks down into tears when she's informed "The cat's in the cradle." The cat being a meteor called Cheshire that is hurtling down to Earth and will kill everyone. Even if it was just a dream, reading that kind of despair and hopelessness as the world ends in a kid's horror book is not something most people would be prepared for.

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