It's funny. I have never spent a single day at a summer camp, but when it comes to Goosebumps and the camp setting, they constantly work for me. The atmosphere, the activities, the endless possibilities to making a horror story around said atmosphere. And, for the most part, they've all served to be books I like, or at least tolerate. I've talked a lot about Camp Nightmare. I've also talked a lot about Camp Jellyjam. But there's that other original 62 camp book that I love and haven't had a chance to really talk about in detail as to why I think it's one of the best in the series. No, it's not Camp Cold Lake, though I definitely would love to deep dive into the icy abyss of that book someday. No, we're talking about Camp Spirit Moon and Ghost Camp. What makes this book so good? Is it a hidden gem? And what works and doesn't about this story? Give a "YOHHHHHHHHHH SPIRITS" as we open up a case for Ghost Camp.
#1. THE PLOT
Harry and Alex Altman head to Camp Spirit Moon for the summer. The camp seems particularly strange. It's run by a camp director named Uncle Marv who tells the campers the story about a group of campers who encountered a monster and later found themselves lost in a fog that trapped them forever. If that wasn't enough, it seems the campers really love to scare Harry and Alex. Sticking their hand in campfires, sticking a pole in their foot, possible levitation, strange blue slime everywhere. All things that seem like weird pranks at first, but ramp up over time. Meanwhile, Alex befriends a kid named Elvis McGraw who, ironically, can't sing worth a damn while Harry befriends a camper named Lucy. It's Lucy who eventually tells Harry the truth. The campers are all ghosts and they have been trying to scare Harry and Alex so that they can possess them as possession is the only way for a camper to leave. Lucy tries to possess Harry, but is unable to as the other campers all start fighting over the boys, eventually turning into a giant ghost tornado and vanishing. Harry and Alex begin to leave the camp when Harry notices that Alex is singing horribly. It's Elvis in his body.
I have always noted that when it comes to Goosebumps, Stine is good at two things in particular: the ghost story and the camp story. So when mixing the two for this story, he ends up giving us a particularly strong concept on paper. Put two kids in a secluded area with ghosts who are trying to scare them with freakish pranks in order to possess them. Add in a camp setting and it's pretty genius. Granted, it does leave a lot of the book feeling like Harry isn't too quick to realize what he's seeing isn't just strange jokes from the other campers, so if the book has a notable flaw, it's that. Maybe another thing I'll get to later, but definitely the same padding issues that plague many a Goosebumps book. It feels like a book that Stine had a little passion for, and more of a broader idea as to what he wanted out of it. Which given a lot of books in that particular time period, this was a much needed breath of fresh (albeit quite foggy) air.
#2. HAIL TO THEE, KAMP KRUSTY, BELOW MOUNT AVALANCHE
Camp Spirit Moon works as a horror setting. It's so unassuming yet gives off this eerie vibe that something's off. Especially from the campers who love to play pranks on Harry and Alex. But not like simple pranks that could produce a simple larf, but instead dark pranks that border on almost revealing that they're ghosts. A camper sticks his hand in the fire, one gets a pole stuck in his foot, one pretends to drown, and another seems to lose their head in a soccer game. All while it messes with Harry's head. Never fully able to grasp that the camp is haunted until it seems to be too late. And you could say that maybe the campers go too far in revealing that they're ghosts. That maybe playing it up too much might backfire on them. But I don't fully think so either.
The intent of the ghosts is to scare, then possess. To escape from the camp. Interesting fact, early concept art by Tim Jacobus has the camp listed as Camp Wanna-Run. Which I kind of wish stuck because it's such a sillier name, and Camp Spirit Moon sounds too close to Camp Night Moon. And, I love you boo, but you ain't ever going to be Camp Nightmare in my heart. So you can see that the campers are growing frustrated. This should have been an easy thing to do. Yet it seems like it's impossible to fully get these kids. Or, to be more precise, harder to get Alex. Lucy almost does, but she fails. So it makes sense that they start to fight with one another. Perhaps their other marks were easier. Perhaps they've never been stymied this long as to how to possess and escape. And given god knows how long they've been stuck there, you can see how the campers are starting to lose any remaining shred of their humanity. They need to return to a living body, no matter the cost.
#3. YOU BLOATED SACK OF PROTOPLASM!
One addition to the ghost concept that I like from Stine is the protoplasm system. See, the ghosts of Camp Spirit Moon are in human disguises when they're near Alex and Harry. To give off the unsuspecting ruse as they enact their plan. The problem however is that they can't stay in those bodies for long without things falling apart. And the explanation is protoplasm. The source of the ghost's powers, but prolonged use of it can result in blue puddles all over the place and the ghosts getting weaker. I assume Stine wanted to use Ectoplasm but didn't want the Ghostbusters people against him. Though, in fairness, he did write one Ghostbusters II book.
So what the protoplasm does for the story is add more stakes to the ghosts' need to possess their victims, as it acts like a time limit to their powers. And given certain scares, and even the conjuring of a monster later on, doing so likely adds more drainage to their powers, thus making the possession more crucial to their survival. That, or fall to the fog. It also feels wildly different from any other way that Stine has used ghosts in the past or afterwards. They seem to have untapped ghostly powers and can interact with the world around them. Sometimes they can even be seen by living people. But none have ever had the albatross of a power bar around their neck like the Spirit Moon campers do. It at least shows that Stine (or an outliner) don't just want to write ghosts in one standard format and is willing to try to come up with new ideas, or at least ones new to Goosebumps.
#4. TRAPPED GHOSTS CAN SEND BROCHURES SOMEHOW
So if there's one massive plot hole to Ghost Camp, it's probably that there isn't much of an answer as to how Harry and Alex even found themselves at Camp Spirit Moon. Remember, the campers can't leave the camp area without a body to possess. If they do, they vanish into the fog forever. So, how then could Camp Spirit Moon sent out a brochure that the Altman family would end up getting, hence sending Harry and Alex in their direction? And I think the obvious answer is through the bus driver. I mean, at least with Welcome to Dead House, Dark Falls could still send letters to their potential victims. And I guess mail could be carried from Dark Falls, likely through a mail driver that knows how to keep his mail truck really dark and delivers mail at night.
It then stands to reason that the bus driver is one of the possessed Camp Spirit Moon campers who managed to possess someone and escape, but instead of just splitting entirely, opted to work as both a bus driver and someone who could send written material to lure more victims to the camp. The book gives enough of a slightly eerie vibe to the bus driver, despite his tan and blonde hair and good looks, and given he knows the direction to Camp Spirit Moon, it's easy to assume that this might be the correct answer. Honestly, comparing it to Dead House, it's definitely a better attempt at being unsuspecting than, say, inheriting a house from a dead relative you never heard of. So Ghost Camp wins in terms of having smart ghosts. Granted, smart ghosts who eventually fight over the bodies, but still.
#5. ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING
So yeah. Elvis manages to escape in Alex's body. That brings up a few obvious questions. When did Elvis manage to possess Alex? Is Alex's spirit even technically still in there? Is Alex now trapped with the other campers, or lost in the foggy void? It presents us with a twist that's both silly in nature but also frightening when thought about. But what makes it work so well is that before the twist, you likely would have forgotten about Elvis. About his friendship with Alex, to which now feels like a ruse the entire time. Which makes sense given his need to escape like the other campers. But in that turn, it also feels like a Brian Colson/Phantom thing. That the book gives you an antagonist that you don't really consider until the twist.
It also leaves us with a rather dark question of what will Harry do about this? What can he even do about this? Clearly nobody, not even their parents, are going to believe that Alex was possessed by a ghost, even if Alex's trademark amazing singing ability has now disappeared. Harry can't go back either. Both because the ghosts have disappeared, along with Alex, and that if he did come back, there could still be a chance the ghosts do return and he ends up being possessed in the end. So now he's stuck with a total stranger in the body of his brother and that's kind of how life is going to be from here on in. I've always said Goosebumps books that make you consider the long-term ramifications are the ones that always end up being some of my favorites, and the end of this book does put these open ended thoughts into the readers' minds. Or at least mine I guess.
#6. a mONSTROUS ADDITION
The monster scene is certainly an interesting addition. That we suddenly stop the story for Alex and Harry to have to deal with a giant beast. One that is clearly real enough to eat them, but can be defeated by the power of non-belief. That to not believe is how to defeat it. And it works. There's always been this strange sense to me that the monster feels like a padding addition, which the book already had a few of with the extra scares and all, but this feels more blatant, more intentional. Like a case that's not so much the standard wall hit of Stine, but rather a detour from the overall story. But, given that it's a ruse from the ghosts, another gambit in their attempt to scare Harry and Alex, it at least makes sense as to why it's here. Because I guess decapitation and impalement aren't scary enough, so send in the monster. It also does have a decent misdirect for Harry and Alex when they think that non-belief can defeat the ghosts as well, but that doesn't wind up the case. Though it does bring to question how the ghosts can conjure up a monster. If they're already wasting protoplasm by just being in their bodies, imagine how much that would drain.
#7. THE "SEQUEL"
I've said it many a time, but I do feel that sequels are some of the worst books in the entirety of Goosebumps. Not all of them mind. Some do manage to either be a decent follow up, or even sometimes outshine the original. And by the time I got to Return to Ghost Camp, I already had a bad feeling about this book. And, sure enough, I was right. Because it's not about Camp Spirit Moon, or what happened after Harry and Alex/Elvis escaped, or anything that really ties Return to the original. It's about a kid named Dustin Minium who goes to Camp FULL Moon instead. Where it's not entirely about ghosts wanting to scare a kid to possess them, but ghosts who have to scare one chosen kid so that they can try to cross the river which should defeat the Snatcher who is the reason for all the kids being ghosts in the first place. Add in a particularly contrived plot device of Dustin trading names with a kid named Ari, the actual chosen kid, and you get a story that feels more frustrating to get through until the big encounter, and get rewarded with one of the weakest end twists in Goosebumps history.
I think I like one thing out of Return and that is how the concept of the ghosts and the pranks are implemented. Straight down to one kid being shot in the head with a crossbow which, even for ghosts that's pretty damn hardcore for a Goosebumps book, even in the ramped up world of Series 2000. But the original works so much better for the reasoning and build to why the scares are happening. I think that just comes down to the whole chosen kid thing and even the whole Ari thing with switching with Dustin. Which, the more I think of it, that may have also been the plan all along. To sus out the kid to choose, they have Ari, likely a ghost, find the dumbest kid willing to switch names for the hell of it, then the game begins. I feel if Stine made that more clear and had that be the reason for the name swap, I'd have probably been less annoyed with this. But in terms of a sequel, it's more in name only, even with some similar thoughts and ideas. And no, I don't think Ghost Camp ever needed a sequel. But considering the book before the original Ghost Camp was an example of why most books DEFINITELY didn't need a sequel, this is definitely shades of Stine's worst stuff starting to bubble to the forefront.
#8. FINAL THOUGHTS
I will always rep Ghost Camp as one of the better Goosebumps books of the original series as I think it does the haunted camp concept extremely well while never feeling like it just rips off other camp books in its horror and atmosphere. It's not a sports camp cult, or a camp where it feels like it's the staff that are acting more evil and secretive only for it to be a ruse. It feels like a camp where everyone involved has nefarious plans in mind for Harry and Alex because for the spirits of the camp this is their only way out. Either freedom, being stuck in the camp, or the purgatory of the fog. So it gives the book more of a creepy vibe than most Goosebumps books have because of how the camp messes with the Altman's (especially Harry's) minds. It's not the deepest, or most creative idea, but does a few unique things like the protoplasm to make it not feel like a rehash of other attempts at a ghost camp style story.
When I ranked all the single narrative books, it landed on number 16. Which I could see some finding that way too generous, but to me, it feels like what I want from Goosebumps. It is a book I constantly think of, and one I think feels like a book that had effort put into it, which feels rare at times, especially throughout most of the 40s. I still recommend it. It's no Camp Nightmare, but really, very few things are.
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