33: The Horror at Camp Jellyjam
“As I ran through the darkness, I could picture King Jellyjam smacking his gross purple lips… And the ugly black snails squeezing out through his skin.”
Before we get to the meat of Goosebumps #33 — or the jam, if you will — let’s take a minute to celebrate its cover. I’ve always loved Tim Jacobus’ work on this one: the fiendish camp counsellor from Hell, his ear-to-ear grin and cracked-out, bloodshot eyes. It’s total terror material, and no surprise that I was devilishly excited to dive into this one.
Stine’s second journey to summer camp (see: “Welcome to Camp Nightmare”), “The Horror at Camp Jellyjam” kicks things off with siblings Wendy and Elliot travelling with their family to Wyoming for a camping trip. The kids get bored and convince their parents to let them ride in the trailer hitched to the car. Epic parent fail: the trailer unhitches, rolls down a hill, and crashes into the forest. It’s a wild start to a wild ride.
Wendy and Elliot are greeted at the trailer door by a guy named Buddy, a hyper-cheery counsellor from a nearby summer camp, King Jellyjam’s Sports Camp. With no sign of their parents, the kids have no choice but to follow him. But it works out: it’s just the summer vacation they were looking for.
Emerging from the woods, the kids discover an incredibly state-of-the-art sporting facility. Olympic-sized swimming pools, tennis and basketball courts, a soccer field, Ping-Pong tables, bowling lanes — King Jellyjam’s has it all. Even the dorms are modern: all white with contemporary furniture, definitely not rustic like traditional summer camps.
Elliot, being the athletic, competitive type, is in heaven. But Wendy can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong. The counsellors, always smiling, always dressed in white, seem too jolly, too encouraging, always pushing the kids to compete. There’s no downtime, no leisure, and the camp’s slogan, “Only the Best,” feels like propaganda, proudly displayed around the camp and constantly reinforced by the counsellors.
The atmosphere is gripping. This isn’t just a sports camp; it’s a conditioning camp, and soon kids start vanishing after the nightly Winners Walk, a ceremony in which the top athletes parade along a torch-lit track field. It’s a page from “Welcome to Camp Nightmare,” but at least the disappearances serve a purpose: the kids are being groomed to serve.
In short, the camp’s mascot, King Jellyjam, a Jabba the Hutt-looking purple blob donning a gold crown, is real. He lives in an underground chamber beneath the camp, and he’s so enormous and gelatinous that he can’t clean himself, hence why he needs the strongest kids to do it for him. It’s gross, it’s funny, but better yet, it aligns to the plot, making for a well-rounded story and my top-ranking Goosebumps monster to date.
Of course, the story has its holes. Where did this creature come from? How long has he been here? If he hypnotized the counsellors, why can’t he just hypnotize the kids? Stine leaves a lot to the imagination, but in this case, the intrigue is strong enough that he gets away with it. And let’s be honest: kids can fill in the blanks.
“The Horror at Camp Jellyjam” excels in many areas, but most successful is its mood. The counsellors, the only authority figures in sight, are the ones driving the fear—so Wendy has no one to turn to. And they’re so programmed, so inhuman, that you can’t help but want to read more. Stine also pays attention to the senses: everything is immaculately white, punctuated only by the women counsellors’ lipstick and nail polish — the same purple as King Jellyjam’s abhorrently fat body; and let’s not forget the monster’s smell, descriptively detailed and sure to make any kid gag.
There’s an otherworldly, cult-like vibe to this one. It’s got the same backbone as stories like Midsommar, an invite to a community with an agenda you don’t want to know about—and with no way to escape. That’s where horror thrives, my friends. That’s my jam.
5/5 drops of Monster Blood.
