The biggest downside to the decision to reread the original 62 is that sooner or later, it means revisiting one of your least favorites. I've been dreading this one. But I'm at least more willing to give it a shot I guess. Let's see if Monster Blood III has that chance.
MONSTER BLOOD III
RELEASE MONTH: March 1995
FRONT TAGLINE: Evan's growing up way too fast!
COVER STORY
Cover is really good this time around. If Monster Blood has nailed one thing, it's the covers, even if I did find II to be goofy. This one however is just a beautiful piece to look at. In terms of environment alone it's incredible, with that warm orange sunset, lush green scenery and well designed playground equipment. I bring this all up fist as I'd guess it'd be less noticed given the giant legs on the front cover. Great detail on the Converse sneakers, just in case you thought Tim wouldn't sneak a chance. I like the destruction that Evan's already caused by destroying the swing set, and the slide looks to be next. Also, the oozing Monster Blood can is a nice touch in case you needed a further reminder. I mean, if you judged a book by its cover, this would be a top ten book, but sadly...
IT'S THE SLIME THAT NEVER DIES!
Evan can't stand baby-sitting his genius cousin, Kermit. Kermit refuses to play video games. He won't even play frisbee. All he likes to do is hang out in the basement doing strange experiments and playing mean practical jokes on Evan and his friend Andy.
But now Andy's found something that will teach Kermit a lesson once and for all.
It's green. It's slimy. And it comes in a can marked...
Monster Blood!
STORY
We open with Evan having a bad dream about Monster Blood while eating green Jell-O. Clearly, after two encounters with the stuff, he's still suffering from trauma over it. But that's the least of his problems nowadays. He still has to deal with neighborhood bully Conan Barber, who begins his role in the book by screwing with Evan's head over whether he should or should not look at Conan's yard. But that's nowhere as bad as dealing with Kermit, his eight year old cousin. Kermit's a scientific genius who constantly concocts experiments and, because Evan has to babysit him for his aunt Dee, Evan is usually his guinea pig. Back to that whole yard quarrel, Kermit arrives, looking like a stock nerd design with his red plastic glasses, baggy shorts and white-blond hair. He takes a liquid and splashes it on Conan, causing Conan's shirt to shrink. This just leads to an Evan beating. Get ready for a lot of that.
A few days later, Evan tells Andy about the incident, and how Kermit later got Evan in trouble by insinuating that Evan started the fight. Andy says that Kermit needs to be taught a lesson. Maybe involving Monster Blood. Yep, despite two times where the Monster Blood has caused disaster, Andy is still a moron who pushes for it to be used. And also, knowing full well that Evan has trauma, jokes that she slipped some in his sandwich. Her role of turning into an awful character continues in this one. Also, congratulations on this deadly substance now just being as dangerous as a punchline. Also, yes, there is more Monster Blood because Andy's parents sent her some from their trip in Europe. So, Stine's just full on ignoring the cat witch origin. Because, Monster Blood pre-Sarabeth was just a toy, not a real cursed growing slime. I'll get more into this in the conclusion, there's a lot to unpack.
While Andy thinks that scaring Kermit would be a hoot, Evan's against it. Mainly because he knows this could all go wrong and he's already getting in enough trouble with Aunt Dee every time he babysits Kermit, why make things worse? Well, Kermit continues to make things worse. He feeds his dog, the wonderfully named Dogface, some formula to cure hiccups, only to make the dog run around in a panic, causing a mess, which gets Evan in trouble again. Yes, Kermit will gladly poison his own dog if it means Evan suffers. Andy tries to get Kermit to do her math homework, but he does it wrong intentionally, getting her in trouble too. She once again suggests Monster Blood, because of course she does, but Evan initially turns the idea down. But after the two get beat up by Conan after Kermit makes them drink laughing serum, they're now both in agreement. Kermit's gotta pay.
The next day, while Kermit is making some sort of dough, Evan distracts him with the strangely named Choc-O-Lik bar, while Andy pours some Monster Blood into the dough mixture. Soon the mixture begins to grow, eventually exploding all over the room. In the process, some accidentally lands in Evan's mouth, meaning he just ate Monster Blood. As the kids clean up, he begins to feel weird. Suddenly, Evan starts to grow. They panic, trying to get him out of the house, but they succeed in time, despite causing some damage. As they try to figure out what to do to stop the growing, Evan overhears Conan bullying some kids. The gigantic Evan grabs Conan and sticks him in a tree.
The now giant Evan decides to have some fun while he's stuck this way. He saves some kites stuck in trees, and plays some baseball. But his fun is stopped when firemen arrive with Conan. Cops also arrive and think he's some sort of alien. Evan makes a run for it with cops and firemen following. He manages to hide behind a large pile of lumber. Kermit and Andy arrive as Evan is still frustrated and wants to be back to normal. Kermit remembers the shrinking potion from earlier. Maybe that will work. And this is where R.L. Stine, clearly ready to end this book, pads it out to make page quota. First, Evan accidentally drops the serum. When he rubs the spilled liquid on him, it turns him blue. Kermit tries a second formula, it makes Evan grow feathers. Third time turns out to be the charm, shrinking Evan back to normal size before the cops arrive.
TWIST ENDING
Evan wakes up in the middle of the night and notices something's wrong. His bed is gigantic. He soon discovers that he's now shrinking even smaller. The book ends with Evan in his dog Trigger's mouth, telling his parents that they got a little problem.
CONCLUSION
I don't think I'm as mad at this book as I was, but I still think this is one of the worst in the original series. The standard of what constitutes a bad sequel book. Most damning example being full on ignoring the canon of the original. The original Monster Blood was a toy. Just a normal slime toy. Sarabeth, the witch from the original book, cursed the Monster Blood. By logic, only that can was cursed. We don't know what became of the substance from Monster Blood II, which maybe would have made more sense here. Like, unless it disappeared entirely, there was still some in the can at the end of that book. So, the 'new can from Europe' reasoning makes no sense whatsoever. That new can would just be normal Monster Blood. But I guess if the original can has expired, would it work either? Then you also have to wonder if Monster Blood was still the dangerous substance it was, why would Andy's parents just get her a fresh can? I get she has no fear over it, but that still doesn't change the fact. I still want to use that "she's Sarabeth all along somehow" reasoning, even if the books never do.
Evan is Evan. No real change there. Kermit makes for an interesting villain of sorts. The traits of Tara Webster, but even he comes around and tries to be helpful by the end. And Conan is here just to be the stock bully. The twist is also okay, probably the only logical twist you could do. And it at least flows well, a bit better than the previous at least. Though my god you can tell Stine hit a wall by the end. Those last few chapters are his worst case of padding so far. A clear need to reach that 120+ page quota. Not to mention we just had a book about a bratty younger relative, we didn't need to see this again already. Scares are also pretty much nonexistent, though the house escape scene at least does work for some tension.
But Monster Blood III's most damning indictment is the treatment of Monster Blood from threat to "revenge tool that always backfires, but we still keep using it, never learning our lesson". This feels like the least important it's ever felt. In fact, this story could have just been about random kids with an annoying Wayne Szalinski-esque scientist relative who accidentally makes a growth formula that causes chaos. This could have been devoid of Monster Blood, Evan or Andy, and honestly, nothing would have been lost.
To further hammer in that point, the best use of Monster Blood after the first book came from the TV show, which did its own original sequel "More Monster Blood", which has Evan deal with the Monster Blood as it grows inside an airplane. You even have Conan and a Kermit stand-in named Curtis. Its defeat of the substance is pretty lame, given the way to defeat the Monster Blood is bad airline food, but it works better at selling the substance as a dangerous threat than Stine ever could in his own books. That says a lot. We have one more Monster Blood to go in the reread, but thankfully we're getting a much needed break. Overall, this book is bad, but not as disastrous as I remember. It's just Bloody mediocre.
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