Now this is one I'm definitely looking forward to revisiting. Welcome to Camp Nightmare scored high marks with me the first time I read it, and ultimately ended up as my second favorite book in the original 62. Will hindsight and a fresh reread destroy that, or can my opinion improve? Let's find out with Welcome to Camp Nightmare.
WELCOME TO CAMP NIGHTMARE
RELEASE MONTH: July, 1993
FRONT TAGLINE: It's the little camp of horrors!
COVER STORY
What I love most about the cover to Welcome to Camp Nightmare is the colors. We've had some that really pop in terms of color, but this is definitely the one that's most visually appealing with the hazy red sky, the shadowy purples for the trees, the hazy blues, the dark colors for the closer trees and the glowing green coming out of the tent. You'll be so astounded by all the visual appeal that you may completely miss the creature on the right with his creepy hand reaching toward the tent, tearing into the mesh. I don't think this cover is high on the scares, even with the shadowy figure, but it's still a gorgeous work. What I particularly like is that the cover feels sore of strange and almost alien in a way, which works in its favor, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Top notch cover from Tim Jacobus.
THOSE SCARY STORIES ABOUT CAMP ARE ALL COMING TRUE...
The food isn't great. The counselors are a little strange. And the camp director, Uncle Al, seems sort of demented.
Okay, so Billy can handle all of that.
But then his fellow campers start to disappear.
What's going on? Why won't his parents answer his letters? What's lurking out there in the dark?
Camp Nightmoon is turning into Camp Nightmare.
For real.
And Billy might be next...
STORY
We open the story with our protagonist Billy (no last name) on a bus headed to Camp Nightmoon. He interacts a bit with the other kids heading to camp, boys named Mike, Jay and Colin, along with two girls headed to the girls camp named Dawn and Dori. After the bus driver scares the kids with a monster mask, he then suddenly forces all the kids to leave the bus with their luggage, despite it being in the middle of the desert. Before the kids can react, strange wolf-like monsters try to attack them, only to be scared off by the sound of a rifle. Another bus had arrived and the man with the rifle is a large burly man named Uncle Al.
The kids load up in the bus and arrive to Camp Nightmoon for real. Billy, Mike, Jay and Colin end up in bunk 4 and meet their counselor, Larry, who doesn't seem too thrilled. As the kids unpack, suddenly Mike discovers snakes in their beds. In the midst of everything, one of the snakes bites Mike in the hand. Billy and Jay grab the bedsheet and manage to throw the snakes out. When they tell Larry that Mike needs to see a nurse for his hand, Larry tells them that there's no nurses in Camp Nightmoon, if you get hurt here, you're on your own. This already sets off alarms with Billy, but we're only 32 pages in, so plenty of time for those alarms to become air raid sirens.
The kids go to the first camp dinner where Uncle Al gives them their rules, with the most curious being the "forbidden bunk" which no camper is allowed to go to. Jay is excited at the idea of going there, but Billy is more against the idea. Larry later tells the kids that they should listen to what Uncle Al says. Oh, and they should be careful of Sabre, a creature that lives in the forest and eats campers. The kids engage in a game of scratchball, which just really sounds like softball. But there's nothing soft about what happens next as Larry catches the ball and throws it right at Colin, smashing the boy in the skull. Despite Larry's claims, Billy doesn't believe this to be an accident. Both Colin and Mike leave to get checked up. However, Colin returns and later, Billy returns to the bunk to see all of Mike's stuff is gone.
Billy's concerned about Mike being gone, but Jay and another boy named Roger are more focused on finally going to the forbidden bunk. Billy decides not to go and sticks with the still seriously concussed Colin. That night he hears screams and sees Jay running back to the bunk in a panic. He tells Billy that something tore Roger to pieces. And you'd think this would lead to the obvious "gotcha" in the next chapter, but no. Jay is legitimately frightened, made no better when the kids hear a monstrous howl. The three kids, scared of the chance of Sabre attacking stay up all night. The kids confront Larry and ask about Roger, but Larry and the other counselors saw nothing. No blood, no sign of a struggle. Larry goes to ask Uncle Al and returns to tell the boys that there was no camper named Roger.
Billy soon runs into Dawn and Dori, who tell him that the same strange happenings are going on at the girls camp. He runs off to the camp lodge and tries to use the phone, but soon learns that the phone is a fake. He ends up running into Uncle Al who tells Billy that he should write his daily letter to his parents, and that he should be ready for the canoe trip tomorrow, which catches Billy off guard. While writing his letter, he learns that Jay and Colin are going on a hike tomorrow as well. The next day, Jay and Colin leave while Billy returns to the lodge to deliver his letter. However, he soon discovers that none of the letters that the campers mailed are still sitting in a mailbag.
Time passes and no sign of Colin and Jay. Billy returns to his bunk and sees two new boys, Chris and Tommy, putting their stuff away in the bunk. They tell him that visitors day, a planned day where their parents would show up, has suddenly been canceled. The kids all end up canoeing with Larry. Suddenly, Larry ends up falling out of the canoe. Billy jumps in and rescues him, but sees no sign of Tommy, Chris or the canoe. When he tells Uncle Al about Tommy and Chris however, he's more concerned about losing his best canoe.
The next day, Uncle Al leads the kids to an area and starts to hand them rifles, telling them that Dawn and Dori have been missing from the girls camp and the boys are to find them and shoot them with tranquilizer darts. Billy is now in full on panic mode and grabs one of the rifles, aiming it at Uncle Al. Billy pulls the trigger...
TWIST ENDING
...only to hear a popping noise. Uncle Al then tells Billy that he's passed. He then tells everyone to come out. Suddenly Dawn, Dori, Jay, Colin, Mike and the others all show up. Not only them, but Billy's parents arrive. They reveal to Billy that this isn't actually a camp, but a testing lab. The campers and counselors are all workers for the lab. The test was to see if Billy could obey orders (not going to the bunk), show bravery (rescuing Larry), and knowing when not to obey orders (standing up for Dawn and Dori). Billy's parents tell him that he needs those skills for where they're going. A strange planet called EARTH! BOOM! SECRET ALIENS, BITCHES!
CONCLUSION
I still love this book. Welcome to Camp Nightmare is easily one of the strongest Goosebumps books. It feels like so much of it goes against the basic tropes that R.L. Stine loves to implement. The protagonist isn't whiny, or a prankster, or really generic. He's a kid who actually is very headstrong. He cares about his friends, and will help others when the situation occurs. Billy is probably the best male protagonist in Goosebumps for those traits alone. And then the story structure itself focuses almost entirely on the mystery. Very few gotcha chapter cliffhangers in this one. A couple, but nowhere as frequent as some of the worst offenders.
And the mystery ramps up really well starting with the strange disappearances, the incident involving Roger and Sabre, the inability to communicate with the outside world, ultimately building to the tense conclusion where Billy is essentially going to shoot Uncle Al after everything he's been through. The scares feel earned in this one, and the tension really works to keep the book interesting, making you want to know what happens next and what exactly Camp Nightmoon is up to. Even the minimal stuff with Sabre works. If it was a different Goosebumps book, the book would almost focus too much on Sabre, but here it's the one scene and we move on. A great example of less is more. It's a book that Stine should be proud of. It serves as an example that when Stine gets out of his comfort zone, you get excellent content.
And then, there's the twist. I love this twist. It's Stine trying to channel his inner Rod Serling with something that feels out of The Twilight Zone. It's so out of left field, so straight up bizarre that you also can find yourself accepting that "yeah, I can buy that". Now, after this reread and a lot of thought given to it, I do think that this smells of a last minute addition. A case of Stine not having a way to finish this book properly in the eleventh hour and just decided that the reason for Billy to be tested like he did was because they're all aliens who want to go to Earth. And there are kind of hints that things are somewhat alien with baseball being called scratchball, those weird wolf things early in the book and the kids being from places called Midlands, Center City and Outreach Bay.
But the fact that these aliens appear to be the same as humans in terms of their physical structure right down to bleeding red blood, not to mention animals like snakes, bulldogs and grizzlies, as well as the kids eating hot dogs and pizza, it muddies the twist a bit and really feels like Jovial Bob's only way out of this. Normally, I'd call that a case of lazy Stine, but I don't care. I still love this twist. It's what I want from Goosebumps, just go all out bizarre and offer strange horror with just as strange twist outcomes. And after reading so many books, I really wish there were more twists like this.
Welcome to Camp Nightmare is a crown jewel level Goosebumps book. One that, as someone who never read them as a kid, really wished more books ended up being. It also sets the precedent that does kinda stick in this series that the camp books wind up almost always being really good, which we'll see as we go further down the stretch. With real flaws, no bratty siblings, no Goosebumps parents, a likable protagonist, a twist that is flawed but functional. and is overall a story that actually feels scary in its tone and mystery. This remains one of the best Goosebumps books. Worthy of keeping in your bunk.
STORY: GGGGG
SCARES: GGGG
TWIST: GGGG.5
ENJOYMENT: GGGGG
OVERALL: 4.5 Gs
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