When we last left off, Greg had discovered that the house where the evil camera was supposed to be has been knocked down! Luckily, the son of the new owner shows up and helps Greg find the camera in the trash can. Realizing that Greg is a fucking weirdo and maybe shouldn’t be leaving with the camera, Jon tries to stop Greg from leaving, only to have his picture accidentally taken by the evil camera! Oh my stars!
Chapter 9
Jon is fucking outraged about this. If he knew the camera was evil, this would make sense to me.
“Hey—why did you do that?” Jon demanded.
“It—it was an accident,” I stammered. I pulled the picture from the slot at the bottom of the camera. “I didn’t mean to.”
I could understand this reaction if, say, Greg had kicked him in the dick, but this seems like a pretty harmless result for a scuffle. I don’t know, guess Jon’s camera shy or something.
I bet you’re all just dying to know what kind of picture the evil camera took of Jon!
The photo came out very clear and bright. It showed Jon howling in pain. His eyes shut. His mouth open in a scream. His leg was raised. He was holding on to his sneaker with both hands. He was holding on to his sneaker because a huge nail was sticking up from the top. An enormous carpenter’s nail—nearly as big as a pencil—shoved up through the center of Jon’s foot!
Jon laughed.
His reaction to this is…laughter? YOU THINK THIS IS SOME KINDA JOKE, MOTHERFUCKER? Greg’s grade, no, his life depends on this evil camera. He’s trying to get a good grade while keeping people safe, and you’re laughing? You’re a monster, Jon.
“This is cool!” Jon exclaimed, studying the photo. “It really looks like me. I wonder how it works.”
“It—it isn’t cool,” I stammered. “It’s really kind of scary, Jon. The camera is evil. It has a curse on it. The photos always come true.”
He laughed. “For sure!”
I knew he wouldn’t believe me. “Well, just be careful—okay?” I insisted. “The photo isn’t a joke.”
He laughed again.
Jon isn’t laughing at the end of the chapter, though, when he steps on a big old nail.
Matthew says: Which is weirdly brutal for Goosebumps? The worst that happened in the last book was someone got hit in the head with a baseball, but the first thing that happens in the sequel is an old nail goes through someone’s foot. Demon camera isn’t fucking around this time!
Chapter 10
Jon’s father is apparently also his grandmother because his reaction is, “Oh, good heavens!” and not something along the lines of, “Oh, shit!”
Matthew says: They also debate whether pulling out the nail is a good idea, because apparently they’re all idiots.
As Jon is taken to the hospital, Greg pointlessly reminds us that “the camera is as evil as ever.” Thank you for that, Greg. The nail in Jon’s foot wasn’t enough to confirm that for me. I’m now starting to understand how Greg could be failing this English class of his. It’s not just this one report screwing with his grade, it’s the fact that he’s a fucking moron. Did he think that the camera might have had a change of heart while it was sitting alone in the basement thinking about what it had done? I officially endorse the evil camera. Destroy this entire town, camera!!! Unleash hell!!
Greg still has the camera and the snap shot of Jon (I almost just wrote snap chat of Jon…wow now that would have been a crazy twist in the story…oh my God I’m going to write my Say Cheese and Die – Again Again about evil snap chats.) Greg decides to bring this photo of Jon to show Sourballs he has proof. Because there’s no way he could have just taken a photo of this actually occurring in front of him.
Matthew says: Which weirdly isn’t even why his teacher dismisses the photo as evidence later. He skips over the logical fallacy and insists the picture is fake. I have no idea why anybody in this book does any of the things they do.
Chapter 11
Shari, who has been spying on Greg to see if he’s going to bring the camera to school, tries to prevent him from being a thoughtless dick. He tells her she’s “being a real jerk.” This coming from the guy who is willing to risk other people’s lives with this fucking camera just so he can get a good grade in English. Oh. I’m sorry. And go to California for the summer. So yes, Shari is the jerk here.
“Don’t you remember, Greg?” Shari pleaded. “I disappeared because of that camera. Disappeared into thin air! You don’t want that to happen to someone else— do you? Think how terrible you’d feel.”
She makes a good point, but Greg is like, “No, no it’s all cool. I’m just gonna show him the camera, and he’ll believe me, because why wouldn’t he?”
Shari points out that this is completely ridiculous and that showing Sourballs the camera is not actually proof. So Greg pulls out the picture of Jon (WHICH IS ALSO NOT REAL PROOF), and Shari is like, “Well, now you’re just being a real dick and proving my point.”
I hope Shari and the camera fall in love and life a happy life together far away from Greg.
So of course there’s another scuffle, and, shock of shocks, Shari’s picture is taken.
Chapter 12
Shit gets really fucking weird all up in here. The picture of Shari comes out negative, and then she gets this “evil smile” on her face and takes a picture of Greg. It’s unclear if this negative picture has turned Shari evil or if she’s just fed up with Greg’s shit.
Matthew says: Ironically, it actually is a matter of life or death now.
They seem to think the camera might be broken, which means they’re safe. When they see that Greg’s picture isn’t a negative, they’re both like, “Oh no!” So maybe she isn’t evil? Man, I’m confused.
Chapter 13
I recognized my face. But I didn’t recognize my body. At first, I thought my head was resting on top of a giant balloon. Then I realized that the giant balloon was me.
In the photo, I weighed about four hundred pounds!
No joke. Four hundred pounds
So let me get this straight. Everyone else has really bad shit happen to them when they get their picture taken, but Greg just gets extremely fat? I mean, I guess no one would exactly wish that on themselves, but it seems like this camera has an awesome sense of humor. I think he’s trying to impress Shari, and I gotta say baller move on his part. I’m in a serious relationship, and even I kind of want to have sex with this camera right now. I hope there’s a second picture taken and Fat!Greg is being rolled down a hill by members of the town’s Local Bully Association.
Matthew says: Just so we’re absolutely, completely, 100% all on the same page here, the plot of this horror novel is actually “camera with evil powers makes a kid really fat”. I have absolutely no idea why these books scared me so much when I was a kid.
I looked like a really gross mountain of pudding!
No. Idea.
Shari finds this all hilarious, and asks Greg if maybe now he’ll change his mind. The little shit is still going to bring the camera to school, which I guess at this point in the game, he might as well. But he’s not even going to show his own picture to the teacher which is actually maybe the most legit proof he has. WHAT A DOUCHE!
Finally Greg makes it to Sourball’s class…but he sees something that stops him dead in his tracks. What could it be?!??! Find out tomorrow!
You have to love that literally the ONLY object he owns that can even theoretically be considered proof, at least in the days before photoshop, is the ONE thing he ISN’T showing his teacher.
Don’t ever change, Greg.
The beginning of this did actually horrify me. I have had an irrational fear of stepping on a nail ever since I first watched Home Alone.