Would you look at that, I am finally back here doing a review of one of the original series books. I've only been promising to do this since... last fall? Something like that. Anywhere, here it is. Lets go.
First of all I would like to nominate this as the most truly unsettling Goosebumps cover of all time. Just look at that person. The glaring eyes. The too big grin. The pants pulled up to the nipples. I was trying to play the gender of this person though I guess such things are less relevant in this day and age. I would say it's kind of androgynous but really I think drawing is so inhuman as to make considering a gender for it useless. What this thing is, is just creepy as fuck. Like it's staring into your soul and getting ready to consume it.
But hey, don't let the creep get you down. This book boasts a free decal of doom on the cover. Just what is a decal of doom? Well I don't remember, and I already used it 20 years ago. I would assume either a temporary tattoo or a sticker. Decal of doom sounds cooler though, right?
Let's not forget those sweet sweet taglines I love so much. First up is on the front, "Tennis... Ping-Pong... Monsters, anyone?" Which I don't really get. Like I get those are some camp activities and also monsters which one normally wouldn't expect at camp but uhh... is this some sort of play on words I don't really understand? Or is it just dumb? The back is better with "it's not whether you win or lose- it's how you stay alive!" Now that I get. it's a play on a popular sportsmanship saying. It's clever! Well, as clever as these things can get. B+ for the back tagline, a big ol F for the front.
Now shall we get on in to it? How will Camp Jellyjam stack up against Camp Nightmare? The name is less spooky that's for sure. Will it turn out that everyone is aliens at the end? Because I might just quit this fucking blog as a whole if that happens, I swear. As Mr. Owl would say, let's find out!
Getting Goosebumps
So you think they would die in a fiery crash or something, but no, the crash didn't seem to be that bad. Unfortunately instead of mom and dad coming to the rescue it is Buddy a counselor for King Jellyjam's Sports Camp. They've got all the sports! Even the ones they only air on ESPN 8. And for some reason Buddy thinks they should wait for their parents at camp. How far behind can there parents be? How long does it take to notice a huge ass trailer isn't behind you anymore? Surely they will be here any second. I guess 12 year olds are too dumb to realize this so they follow creepy Buddy into camp. They aren't even swayed by a little girl warning them to get out.
So what is camp like? Well there is the weird visage of "King Jellyjam" everywhere. He is some sort of weird purple blob with a crown and seems to be the camp's mascot. Their motto is, "Only the Best." Everywhere there are facilities for all different sports. You can do gymnastics, swimming, tennis, track, whatever you want. It's like the Rio Olympics without all the crime, pollution, and corruptions! Still, the camp counselors seem a little off. For example, Buddy the head counselor can't recall where he comes from when asked. A little odd. Also people seem a little intense about competing but hey I guess that's what sports are about.
So Wendy and Elliot get split up into boys and girls dorms. Our narrative follows Wendy as she is the main character here (and is telling the story in first person.) She meets her bunk mates when they lunge in at her in an apparent attack that turns out to be a lame predictable jump scare. Despite the rude introduction they seem to get along but the girls are way into competition. "Only the best!"
So the weird cult-like vibe is permeating pretty hard right now. If that wasn't enough her brother Elliot turns up dead! Oh wait, he was just pretending to be unconscious on the ground. Uh... hilarious right? His pretend death doesn't seem to affect his ping pong skills though. While Wendy watches she is sure the much bigger and stronger opponent he faces. I didn't know bulk and strength were a major factor in ping pong... Anyway Elliot wins his first king coin. Hurray?
The ceremony is filled with pomp and circumstance... But not the song of that title, that's only for graduations and the entrance of the Macho Man Randy Savage. But there are trumpets, drums, and torches lighting the way. The girls plan a party back at their lodge. When they get to their room Dierdre is nowhere to be found. She must be found!
So the girls set out to find her. They dodge some people to stay undetected, nearly get attacked by bats, and endure another "earthquake." They don' find Dierdre though. What they find is the little girl Wendy saw at the start of book who warned her to get out of camp. She seems horrified and determined to get them all to leave camp immediately. She won't tell them why though. That would be too fucking convenient. They are convinced they've been caught by a counselor but really was just meeting up with another counselor. Meanwhile the little scared girl has vanished. The rest of the girls give up and go back to the cabin. Once their they find that all of Dierdre's stuff has moved out. Peculiar.
Next morning Wendy is in an understandable gloom but her brother is psyched for some more king coins. Buddy the creepy counselor showed up and has no recollection of Dierdre at all. His clipboard merely states that she is "gone." The little scared girl Alicia for that matter is also "gone." You'd think he could at least lie and say she went home if he was trying to cover up some horrible secret and didn't want anyone to know.
Everyone else is too concerned with competing to care about her problems. She tries to phone home but all the phones at camp just play a prerecorded message. Despondent she watches her brother lose a basketball game versus a much bigger opponent. Buddy "encourages" her to find a sport to compete in herself. By encourages I mean basically forces. King Jellyjam it seems, would not approve of her dilly dallying. She loses a tennis match. Then jones a softball team that also loses. King Jellyjam is gonna be pissed. Here is the thing though, when she was practicing batting she accidentally cracked Buddy right in the ribs and it didn't even phase him. Is he some kind of robot or something? Or just a major badass? All he does is give her batting advice. The next day the kids that took the winners walk that night all disappeared. Wendy is determined to do something about it and spends her softball time plotting instead of focusing. They lose again, naturally.
Meanwhile Elliot is mostly concerned about getting his sixth king coin. He does agree, however that is SLIGHTLY odd that it has been several days since they have heard from their parents (who should have found them within like, oh, 5 minutes?) And agrees that they will do something about it AFTER he wins his final king coin.
So Wendy decides to snoop. She follows some counselors to a secret meeting. Does she dare follow them into the mysterious building in the woods? Of course she fucking does, it would be a lame book if she didn't jeeze. What she saw inside was Buddy hypnotizing all the counselors into obeying their leader using the gold king coins. So are the king coins like... magic? Or is he using normal hyponsis and the coins are just what he uses as a focal point? Like how a guy who does it on stage might use a swinging pocket watch or something. I have no clue. It isn't clear. What is clear is that Wendy's loud sneeze gave her away. She tries to escape downstairs which is a very sound plan. The only entrance/exit is on the floor she is on. she is probably going into a basement. SO EASY TO ESCAPE LOCKED IN A BASEMENT. This basement, however, smells like shit. Why?
KING FUCKING JELLY JAM THAT'S WHY. A giant ugly ass slimey monster with a crown being mopped and washed by dozens of kids. So that's what that smell is. So that's where the kids are. Dierdre and Alicia are there. Snails are extruding from King Jellyjam's ... uh... skin... for some reason. Primarily to be gross I assume. Maybe he is the father of all snails though, what do I know? So if you haven't figured it out by now ONLY THE BEST kids get to be enslaved by King Jellyjam. He uses the the winners of 6 king coins to wash him down. He can't stand his own smell... apparently. So he needs to be washed constantly. Apparently kids who are good at sports are also the best washers? Listen, I don't know. This whole thing seems convoluted. You'd think he could just use any old kids do this. Hell, he could buy an automated car wash and sit in it, save himself the trouble.
So the kids decide to try to escape now. Why now? I don't really know. Apparently Wendy is the Spartacus they need to lead the revolution. Jellyjam lets out an earth rumbling roar. So that's what those earthquakes were. His caretakers get back to work but leave Wendy with the task of getting help. She escapes and finds Elliot who is running a race for his last coin. In an act of desperation she tackles the fuck out of him and hectically leads him to Jellyjam HQ.
Her plan is the following. 1) Stop washing him. 2) Everyone hit the deck and lie on the floor. 3) Let him die from his own horrible smell. Wait... what? That's stupid. Wait... shit... it worked? It seems so! Everyone being flat on the ground somehow made it impossible for him to grab them. Not washing him made his smell get so intense it literally choked him to death. How.
HOW?!?!?!
How could evolution breed such a creature that can't exist unless it has 24/7 wash downs. Like it literally can not exist for mere moments unless it is getting soaped down. How would such a thing ever come to survive and breed? Or let's just say you don't believe in evolution. Let's say you are more into creationism. What God would create such a foul beast that literally stinks itself to death. Furthermore how does smell kill? Surely there is something toxic in his fumes, so how is that not constantly killing the kids? It is asserted that his chamber smells terrible. Surely the toxins are everywhere throughout. And why don't the kids die when they stop washing and he stinks himself to death? Are tiny little humans more resilient that a giant slime monster that extrudes snails?
Well anyway when Jellyjam dies his hold over the counselors is broken. So I guess those coins were magic? Also the cops showed up because the nearby town started smelling like shit and they tracked it back to the camp. So they call all the moms and dads to pick up the kids. Turns out they called the camp several times but the counselors said they weren't there. Buddy shows up later at their house to apologize. He also offers Elliot his sixth king coin, which he claims was earned since he would have won the race if his sister hadn't tackled her. Elliot reluctantly accepts. What bad could come of it now that Jellyjam is dead... Wait, what is that horrible smell?
Brussels Sprouts. His mom is making brussel sprouts. The end.
What I Thought
Oooh boy. Once again it is really hard to not just go straight to the dumb ending. Of course like a fool I've already talked about a lot of my problems with the ending during the plot synopsis. I am bad at this.
Ok so to start we have a kind of silly way to separate the kids from their parents. It seems like it would be pretty obvious that the parents would realize very quickly that their trailer came unhitched. The kids should have realized their parents should have come for them quickly. Am I really pointing out how unrealistic and silly a Goosebumps book is? You bet your ass I am.
Once you get past that though, I like the bulk of this book. The weird cult like vibe is actually pretty interesting. You begin to wonder why everyone is so competitive. Is it just human nature? Is something more sinister at play? Are those freaking king coins magic? When the kids start disappearing you wonder whats up. Sure things could be done a little more eloquently but this is freaking Goosebumps.
What could have helped this story? Go to more extremes to show how much the competitive streak is taking over people (presumably through the magic of the coins.) Yes we see that everyone already there is super competitive. The way to do this would be through Elliot. He was pretty psyched about sports camp right from the beginning. If they had him reluctant to compete at first but have him win a king coin and start to turn, it could have been more interesting. Like at first he wins with a team sport like baseball where he doesn't contribute much, but winning gets him totally gun-ho about competition until he is in a frenzy that doesn't care about anything besides king coins.
Of course we come to the ending. I already said most of my piece on it. Revealing Jellyjam to be a real entity was fine in an of itself. Him enslaving humans was actually petty clever. It is what they were doing that was dumb. Washing him so he doesn't stink himself to death? It is hard to put into words how stupid that is. He could have been recruiting the best of the best to become warriors for own personal cult army. Or if that is too violent for the youngins, he could desire a human host body to rid himself of his putrid old slime one, and be looking for the best of the best determined through competition to inhabit. Maybe it could be like space jam and he is trying to form up the best basketball team of all time to take on the Looney Tunes and Michael Jordan? Seriously, anything besides stinking himself to death. No matter how ugly, gross, and massive a monster is, if not washing it for 20 seconds causes it to die due to its own foul odor, it just isn't that scary. So once again we have a ridiculous ending ruin what in my opinion was a pretty decent Goosebumps book.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Jelly/jams
Up Next
So I know this review was pretty late. I also know I've been sidetracked by other books lately, like the Galaxy of Fear and Goosebumps comic book one. While I have other series of Goosebumps to do, and some related books I'd like to cover I do want to get through all the original series books I own. Possibly even do all the original series and track down the ones I am missing. So I do want to do the next original series book review in June. That book is Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes. I love that premise. As usual I remember nothing about this book beyond the cover. I know I read it as a kid though. So look for that in June. And then in July when I obviously neglect to do it in June. After that I might do one of the other series like Goosebumps 2000 or Goosebumps Most wanted. We'll see. Thanks for reading.
Best villain ever.
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