Then
Goosebumps had a formula and Say Cheese and Die! fit it perfectly: a weird object, a group of kids, mounting dread, a twist. But this one’s premise was better than most — a camera that shows the future, and always the worst version of the future. Every photo is a premonition.
I took the family camera out of the cabinet after reading this and looked at it for a long time.
The cover art was iconic even by Goosebumps standards. That green face in the viewfinder lived in my head for years.
Now
Stine was writing a book a month at peak Goosebumps and the quality varied enormously. This one holds up. The camera concept is clean and genuinely creepy — it has a real internal logic that some of the more chaotic Goosebumps don’t. Greg trying to get rid of the camera while it keeps coming back is effectively done.
The ending is ambiguous in a way that surprised me on reread. Not everything is resolved. The camera is still out there. Stine usually tied things up more neatly; the loose end here is the scariest thing in the book.