Goosebump-a thon #18: Monster Blood 2

Hello, Spongey here

Welcome back to Goosebump-athon!

Time for our first sequel, and a book that wasn’t the best. Will this be better? …Uh…you’ll see.

Monster Blood 2

This doesn’t deserve roman numerals.

Cover: This cover is fine. Sure, it’s silly but I think Tim did a fine job with the idea, I especially like the dripping monster blood. An okay job.

Front Tagline:  “He’s one hungry hamster!”

Back Tagline:  “It’s baaaack”. Yes, it includes the extra a’s.

PREVIOUSLY ON MONSTER BLOOD: Whiny Evan visited his death aunt and met a far more likable girl named Andy. They got a thing from a toy store called Monster Blood that can make things grow when eatan and also become a discount The Blob. It turned out it was cursed by a witch named Sarabeth who got defeated by Evan’s giant dog. The Monster Blood vanished after that the book did well so it’s back.

Summary:

 The book opens with a dream sequence, featuring a giant trigger burying Evan alive. Good start! Too bad it wasn’t for real. Suddenly Evan wakes up screaming in his science class. Mr. Murphy, his science teacher, mocks Evan for having fallen asleep in his class. Classic asshole teachers!

Evan calls his teacher dumb. Fuck you Evan, seriously. Anyway, Evan’s talk of monster blood bugs everyone and he keeps insisting it’s true. Mr. Murphy punishes Evan by forcing him to stay after class to clean out the cage of the class hamster, Cuddles.

Evan is pissed since Mr Murphy made him look like an idiot…you did that all by yourself with your monster blood bullshit.

“Evan had eagerly told the kids about the monster blood. It was such a frightening story, Evan was sure his new friends would find it really cool”

…He honestly thought his story about green goo would wow anyone?!

So thanks to his idiocy, everyone hates him. Good, he deserves it. He heads out to his locker…and bumps into Conan Barber, the bully. Everyone calls him Conan the barbarian. Oh god, I love this guy.

Also, I read all of his dialogue in an Arnold Schwarzenegger  voice. Yes.

Conan likes Evan about as much as I do. He offers Evan one free punch to get back at him. Evan hits him…right as Murphy shows up, and Conan puts on an innocent act. I love this guy.

Evan gets in trouble, and heads back in the room to clean the hamster cage…but the hamster escapes In a pointless, stupid scene that is pointless. Oh, and we do a get a bit where Conan gets the hamster and makes evan sing for it.

I don’t get it either.

Evan goes home and bumps…into Andy!

“Here’s some advice. Don’t try out for the wrestling team”

Andy is here to continue to be awesome. Her parents are going overseas for a year…Wow, what kind of parent does that? Oh wait, this is an excuse to get andy in the story. Hey, I don’t mind!

So Andy is staying for the long run. Evan recaps the story so far to andy, up to when he told everyone about the monster blood.

“You TOLD everyone?!”

“Yeah, why not?”

“And you expected kids to believe you?”

“Yeah”

…

Wow, this is so dumb it literally mocks itself.

“You punch like a girl, Andy!”

“You’ll bleed like a boy!”

These guys are a true comedy duo. Andy tells Evan she has something, but won’t reveal what it is

“I love torturing you!”

Stop being awesome Andy, I can’t quote you forever.

The next day, they meet again and Andy shows what she has. it’s the old tin of Monster Blood. The two friends examine the empty can in the middle of the woods, only to discover that the can has now magically filled with Monster Blood. Conan shows up to be awesome, and Evan hides the blood from him, and he walks away

They bury the blood and move on with the “plot”.

Back at home, Evan visits his father, who has been crafting giant abstract sculptures out of sheet metal in the garage. Evan pauses in front of a giant aluminum cylinder that his dad calls “the Wheel,” which has been accepted into an art competition held at Evan’s school

So a grown man can enter a competition at a middle school?

“I’ll bet no one else made a wheel that spins”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor”

Troy Steele would beg to differ.

The next day at school, he bumps into Andy in the hall, but can’t chat because he’s on his way to try out for the basketball team. He walks into the gym…and a basketball slams him into the face, and he is knocked out.

I had to read that section about 20 times before I could stop laughing,’

He comes to, and it turns out the thrower was none other than conan.

“He’s got bad reflexes coach. He should’ve caught the ball”

You fucking threw it at him right as he walked in! No one would have caught that shit!  So yeah, the coach (who is Mr. Murphy…yeah, I don’t know)  doesn’t think about this and ignores that entire scene.

So the tryout happens and Evan sucks, but mostly cuz of Conan’s asshole-ery. During the game, Conan picks Evan up and dunks him in the basket..…No one can do that ever, especially not  a fucking 12 year old. Oh, and the coach? He does nothing. He just tells Evan he simply isn’t tall enough.

Uh…one of your students just dunked another. DO SOMETHING!

Later on, Evan meets with Andy. She  comes up with a plan to get back at Mr. Murphy: They’ll dig out the Monster Blood and feed a small bit of it to Cuddles, just enough to turn the hamster into the size of a dog.

You know Conan should be the one you’re after. He’s the reason you failed basketball, and the main person antagonizing Evan. Wait, this is  goosebumps, why am I asking for logic?

However, when the two go to retrieve the Monster Blood, they discover it’s been swiped, presumably by Conan. The next day, Evan asks Conan for it back, and of course, Conan just shoved him in his locker.

You know, I always see this done in fiction, but I’ve never seen a real locker that can fit a human being. Andy and Evan decide to break into Conan’s house to steal back the Monster Blood. Allow me to repeat that. They break into his house. That MAY be a bit illegal, guys.

They head in, snab the blood, and make it. And yes, that entire scene was ENTIRELY POINTLESS.

In fact…so was the entire first half of the book. Literally nothing that can be counted as a real story happens until around here. Why did we need that Conan/basketball shit?!

The next day, Evan stays home sick, so he’s quite shocked upon his return to school to see that Cuddles has grown to the size of a rabbit. Mr. Murphy blames Evan for overfeeding him.

…I don’t even care anymore.

The next morning, Evan sneaks out early to check on Cuddles. As soon as he enters the science room, Cuddles breaks out of the wire cage. Evan thinks quickly and grabs a dog leash, tethering the dog-sized hamster to Mr. Murphy’s desk.

Why does he have a dog leash? No idea. Andy even questions this when Evan tells her the story. But Evan is just as confused as we are. Evan skipped class to avoid the monster, and he talks to andy. She admits to having fed Cuddles the Monster Blood and insists she did it as a goof. She tells Evan what he missed: Murphy was  proud of the giant hamster, and wants to get him on TV. He became an attraction that day.

…This has to be the worst teacher in history. You have a hamster the size of a fucking dog and you don’t freak out, call the police, or anything?! Infact, no one cares about the giant fucking hamster!

Ugh.

They end up arriving at school on time the next morning– just in time to hear Cuddles, who is now ten feet tall, break free of Mr. Murphy’s leash. He’s now ramping through the school, attacking.

A giant hamster rampage. That is so stupid it’s almost amazing.mEvan remembers that his father’s sculpture is in the gym and it resembles a giant hamster wheel.

Andy and Evan wheel the giant sculpture up to Cuddles, who rather than run on the wheel, tears it apart. Gee, it’s almost  like that idea was incredibly stupid! Cuddles also picks up Conan…and he cries for mommy. Was that stupid or fun? Both. And neither.

Evan comes up with a new plan: He’ll eat some Monster Blood, grow bigger than Cuddles, and then lock him in the supply closet. Oh, Evan grows balls? I think hell just froze over.

So he does, and they fight…and Evan gets his ass handed to him. LAME All hope seems lost when suddenly a loud popping noise is heard and both Evan and Cuddles shrink back to normal size. Evan walks over and easily captures the small hamster.

So why did they go back to normal? Andy picks up the can and sees that the current date is also the Monster Blood’s expiration date.

Yes, this is very stupid and makes no sense, why do you ask?

Evan is hailed as a hero for the way he ate some stuff and Mr. Murphy even rewards him by giving him Cuddles as a gift. And no, the racket the hamster caused does not get notified by the police or anyone else.

TEACHER: That was a good fight…ever thought of trying out for the wrestling team?

…Okay, good brick joke.

Andy has also received a gift from her parents, a can of Monster Blood they found in Germany. …WHAT. The Monster blood was a normal can that Sarabeth put a spell on!

…Oh, so this is just a normal toy, not spell affected..So this is pointless.

Twist Ending:                            

Evan heads to his room to see Cuddles eating the new monster blood. It wasn’t spell  effected so LAME.

TV Episode: None

Notable Lines:

“It’s so dark”

“It usually gets dark at night”

Useless Fact:

None.

Final Thoughts:

The plot is incredibly jumbled, Evan is stupid, the characters act like idiots, and it’s incredibly dumb. And…I kind of enjoyed it.

Yes…guilty pleasure. I feel bad for enjoying this one. It’s so bad it’s good. It’s just so incredibly awful that I can’t help but have fun making fun of it. Conan and Andy help this by being funny, and it’s just…funny. Evan and Andy are a good pair, since one sucks, and one doesn’t. it’s an awful book, don’t get me wrong…but it’s a fun bad book. But it still gets…

Grade:  D

 UPDATED FINAL THOUGHTS:

Huh, I actually still agree here. This is one I weirdly got enjoyment out of. There’s just so many little dumb moments that make it incredibly fun to riff on. But it’s still pretty bad.

There really is no real story here and what little story here is super dumb, right down to the expiration date stuff. It’s the first sequel and it starts the tradition of them having no continuity.

Evan managed to get worse, especially with him daydreaming about hamster murder. Then there’s Andy. She starts out well, but then she’s randomly poisoning a small animal for kicks and got understanding how much trouble Monster Blood is.

She’s pretty much the reason the conflict happens, and her character takes a huge dive as a result. That’s the worst part of the book, frankly. So…yeah, there ya go.

UPDATED RATING: Bad

By the way, I want to once again mention More Monster Blood. It has the tolerable TV Evan, a spunky sort of love interest who is charming, a nerd who isn’t terrible and a bully who ends up teaming up with the others. You have no idea how refreshing it is to watch a Monster Blood product where the characters actually like each other.

By the way, Evan goes on for quite a bit how he admits Conan is a fine looking guy. I’d ship this if Conan wasn’t so toxic and Evan wasn’t…Evan. Okay, that is all.

See ya!