PROLOGUE
JESSE RANGER
There are a zillion things that make my hometown of Riddle weird. Like Tricks, the three-legged dog that hangs outside the library and growls at you if you have overdue books. Or the three gigantic windmills that just appeared one day out on Route 5. Or stores at Petroglyph Mall that everyone swears are haunted. But nothing in Riddle rates higher on the weird-o-meter than Leery Castle. It sits at the top of Nerve Mountain, all creepy and quiet, like itâs watching me.
Iâm beginning to think that maybe it is.
Leery Castle was built in the early 1900s. The first Leery to live there was Lucas Leery. He made silent movies. Then there was Desmond Leery, Lucas Leeryâs son. He was born in 1910 and made movies with his father. Together they made some of the most well-known movies of the time: dramas, romances, thrillers, and comedies. They created a new filming technique with a special camera no one had ever seen before. It made everything pop off the screen, almost like 3-D vision, but without funny glasses. People loved it.
Then Oswald Leery came along. Heâs Lucas Leeryâs grandson. When he inherited the family movie business, Oswald Leery decided to make only one kind of movie: the monster movie. But his movie monsters werenât your typical Frankenstein or Wolf Man. Leeryâs monsters had crooked fangs, laser-beam eyes, and fake blood like ketchup. You could actually see on-screen where fur was glued on. They had funny names like Rodiak and Chomp-O.
Critics made fun of Leeryâs movies. They called his creatures B-Monsters. But Leery didnât mind the name. He loved it so much that he renamed the special Leery family filming process B-Monster Vision. It made even the most fake-looking monsters come alive on-screen. With B-Monster Vision, flying bats seemed to fly for real , off the screen and right into my face.
Tuesday is the one night each week that Mom works late at the art gallery, so Dad and I always watch movies together during dinner. It was on a rainy Tuesday night last year when Dad showed me my first-ever Oswald Leery B-Monster double feature: Bog Beast and Island of Dr. Dim.
I will never forget the exact moment when the Bog Beast jumps out of the swamp and swallows this mutant crocodile in one gulp. I snorted chocolate milk out of my noseâI was that scared. But I couldnât look away. Those special effects were so bad, they were great.
Iâve been hooked on Bs ever since.
All in all, Leery made sixty-three B-Monster movies, including sequels. I wish he had made even more. But seventeen years ago, he stopped making Bsâjust like that.
Dad says that one day Leery disappeared into his castle and never came out again.
Most people in Riddle say that Leery went bonkers. But I donât think thatâs possible. The guy was a geniusânot nuts. I should know: My Great Uncle Rich was a stuntman for B-Monsters once. He and Leery were best buds.
Other people think maybe Leery got a bad case of agoraphobia. That means he got so afraid of public places that he couldnât leave his castle anymore. But heâs not agora- anything. He always loved his fans. Oswald Leery used to give guided tours of his castle to show off his huge collection of B-Monster stuff. Dad told me Great Uncle Rich took him inside the castle a few times when Dad was a kid.
Hereâs what I think.
I think maybe Leery got spooked by one of his own monsters. Just the smell of Slimo is supposed to be enough to make someoneâs nose fall off. Or maybe, just maybe, Leery woke up one day with a terrible case of amnesia and just forgot how to make movies.
It could happen. Riddle is the land of the weird, after all.
Since I started watching Bs, Iâve written Oswald Leery a letter every week. I have told him all of my favorite parts from each of his films, asked him about how all the special effects were done, and, every time, Iâve asked him for the real
JESSE RANGER
There are a zillion things that make my hometown of Riddle weird. Like Tricks, the three-legged dog that hangs outside the library and growls at you if you have overdue books. Or the three gigantic windmills that just appeared one day out on Route 5. Or stores at Petroglyph Mall that everyone swears are haunted. But nothing in Riddle rates higher on the weird-o-meter than Leery Castle. It sits at the top of Nerve Mountain, all creepy and quiet, like itâs watching me.
Iâm beginning to think that maybe it is.
Leery Castle was built in the early 1900s. The first Leery to live there was Lucas Leery. He made silent movies. Then there was Desmond Leery, Lucas Leeryâs son. He was born in 1910 and made movies with his father. Together they made some of the most well-known movies of the time: dramas, romances, thrillers, and comedies. They created a new filming technique with a special camera no one had ever seen before. It made everything pop off the screen, almost like 3-D vision, but without funny glasses. People loved it.
Then Oswald Leery came along. Heâs Lucas Leeryâs grandson. When he inherited the family movie business, Oswald Leery decided to make only one kind of movie: the monster movie. But his movie monsters werenât your typical Frankenstein or Wolf Man. Leeryâs monsters had crooked fangs, laser-beam eyes, and fake blood like ketchup. You could actually see on-screen where fur was glued on. They had funny names like Rodiak and Chomp-O.
Critics made fun of Leeryâs movies. They called his creatures B-Monsters. But Leery didnât mind the name. He loved it so much that he renamed the special Leery family filming process B-Monster Vision. It made even the most fake-looking monsters come alive on-screen. With B-Monster Vision, flying bats seemed to fly for real , off the screen and right into my face.
Tuesday is the one night each week that Mom works late at the art gallery, so Dad and I always watch movies together during dinner. It was on a rainy Tuesday night last year when Dad showed me my first-ever Oswald Leery B-Monster double feature: Bog Beast and Island of Dr. Dim.
I will never forget the exact moment when the Bog Beast jumps out of the swamp and swallows this mutant crocodile in one gulp. I snorted chocolate milk out of my noseâI was that scared. But I couldnât look away. Those special effects were so bad, they were great.
Iâve been hooked on Bs ever since.
All in all, Leery made sixty-three B-Monster movies, including sequels. I wish he had made even more. But seventeen years ago, he stopped making Bsâjust like that.
Dad says that one day Leery disappeared into his castle and never came out again.
Most people in Riddle say that Leery went bonkers. But I donât think thatâs possible. The guy was a geniusânot nuts. I should know: My Great Uncle Rich was a stuntman for B-Monsters once. He and Leery were best buds.
Other people think maybe Leery got a bad case of agoraphobia. That means he got so afraid of public places that he couldnât leave his castle anymore. But heâs not agora- anything. He always loved his fans. Oswald Leery used to give guided tours of his castle to show off his huge collection of B-Monster stuff. Dad told me Great Uncle Rich took him inside the castle a few times when Dad was a kid.
Hereâs what I think.
I think maybe Leery got spooked by one of his own monsters. Just the smell of Slimo is supposed to be enough to make someoneâs nose fall off. Or maybe, just maybe, Leery woke up one day with a terrible case of amnesia and just forgot how to make movies.
It could happen. Riddle is the land of the weird, after all.
Since I started watching Bs, Iâve written Oswald Leery a letter every week. I have told him all of my favorite parts from each of his films, asked him about how all the special effects were done, and, every time, Iâve asked him for the real
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