Bantam Skylark, $2.25, ISBN 0-553-15509-1
Suspense, 1987

The Movie Mystery is meant for very young kids to play, so naturally you are sent to somewhere perpetually bland and inoffensive – Canada. You (a girl, based on the illustrations) visit your Aunt Molly, a stunt woman, at the set of her movie in the Canadian wilderness, where for some reason you are given free rein to run around and even learn stunts. Insurance? Work site safety regulations? Lawyers? What’s all those things again?

Drama starts when your aunt’s stunt dog Sam is missing. You can either look for that dog, or let your aunt look for Sam while you take her place in some stunt scene. The former sends you to the wilderness where you will either find Sam or experience the kiddie-friendly fate of being eaten by a bear or falling to your death with a bear in tow, while the latter is more like what the title suggests: looking into a series of sabotages taking place around the set.

This is a very short gamebook – about 51 entries, some of which span two to three pages, and the narrative is heavy and clunky like lead bell bottoms. Sure, one can argue that this is for kids only, but surely kids have better tastes and will still be bored by this boring, plodding gamebook. Clearly, this is best tossed at kids below the age of eight in hopes that they learn a new word or two. Everyone else will have something better to read or do than this thing.