S3E03 - Monster Blood for Breakfast! (Goosebumps HorrorLand #3)

Andy and Alyssa read Goosebumps HorrorLand #3: Monster Blood for Breakfast! Along the way, they discuss cool kids, science versus sci-fi, food issues, confusing size logistics, wild science fair projects, steroids, and the horrors of the Internet.

Follow @saypodanddie on Instagram, and get in touch at saypodanddie@gmail.com // Theme music by Haunted Corpose

[00:00:02] I studied the monitor. Two bloodshot eyes stared back at me, and under them, in big green letters, the words MONSTER BLOOD.

[00:00:11] What is Monster Blood? One of Bradley's weird online games? I looked for an X in the upper right corner to get rid of it. No X.

[00:00:20] I hit the ESCAPE key. The eyes still stared out at me. The words MONSTER BLOOD oozed down the screen like thick clots of green slime.

[00:00:28] I hit the DELETE key again and again. I tried several other keys. I couldn't exit. No matter what I tried, the ugly bloodshot eyes stared out.

[00:00:37] And then I heard a scratchy whispered voice, low at first, then louder. Enjoy your MONSTER BLOOD. Enjoy your MONSTER BLOOD. Enjoy your MONSTER BLOOD.

[00:00:53] And welcome to Say Podcast and Die. It's the podcast where two queers sit in their closet and tell you about Goosebumps.

[00:00:59] I'm Andi. I'm Alyssa. And today we're going to talk to you about MONSTER BLOOD for breakfast.

[00:01:06] It's got a picture on the cover that's relevant to the title, less so to the book.

[00:01:11] Yeah, it is a big green blob in a hand with a spoonful of cereal is poking out.

[00:01:17] Yeah, with Froot Loops. And the blob has a face. It looks like the bad guy from Fern Gully who sings Toxic Love and is played by Tim Curry. I don't remember his name.

[00:01:27] It looks like Slimer.

[00:01:29] Yeah, also like Slimer, but less well-formed than Slimer even. I don't know. I think it's good. I'm all for Brandon Dorman.

[00:01:37] Yeah, it's fine.

[00:01:38] It's fine. It's not my youth, you know. It doesn't have my heart, but it's fine. It's good.

[00:01:45] Yeah, I don't have the same emotional attachment to this.

[00:01:48] Yeah. So, Matt Daniels. We finally meet the cool Matt Daniels. I don't need a cool character.

[00:01:54] You feel offended that a cool person has entered the Goosebumps books?

[00:01:58] He's like, I'm five foot two. It's like, yeah, okay. So am I. What's the big deal? Don't make, yeah. I don't know. Just like 13 year olds don't need to be five foot two.

[00:02:08] Okay. So it's less that you don't want a cool kid so much as you're feeling personally attacked?

[00:02:13] Yes. And also, I don't know. I think he's a little bit, I'm having a hard time sympathizing with him throughout the story.

[00:02:22] Well, okay. Before we get into that, what's the bird's eye view here?

[00:02:25] Well, it's a good question. We read this about a month ago. But I believe the bird's eye view is he's got a dorky friend who he doesn't like, but I guess their moms are friends and they hang out together.

[00:02:35] Through the web, they somehow acquire monster blood. It's like got an internet aspect to it this time. But then there's some misleads. He ends up eating the monster blood. It makes him really big. He like wins the swim meet and makes a school record and then shrinks back down to normal size. The end?

[00:02:57] Basically.

[00:02:58] Yeah, I think so. And then eventually goes to Horrorland and he's like, I'm the cool guy at Horrorland.

[00:03:03] Yeah, it's a little bit of a cuckoo clock of doom story in that there's this pesky other kid who he really wants to get rid of but can't.

[00:03:12] Yeah, I think the highlight of this book for me was that there is a girl named Sean Deere, which is just funny.

[00:03:19] Yeah.

[00:03:20] But yeah, he's a good scientist also. It's just like, do we need...

[00:03:24] You just hate that he's like good at everything? He's a jock who's also good at math and science?

[00:03:28] Yeah. Whatever R.L Stein.

[00:03:32] Clearly a Romana Clay, you know.

[00:03:35] Yeah. So cool popular kid who's good at sports. He has a sister named Livy.

[00:03:40] Oh, just something I think I was going to look at but didn't was the historian Livy to see if I could draw a connection. But I didn't get that far.

[00:03:47] Great. I'll cut that then.

[00:03:49] I bet you're thrilled that I did not try to connect this to the historian.

[00:03:52] Well, okay. So we start with Matt Daniels, cool kid. He introduces us to Bradley Wormser, a.k.a. the worm, which is his mom's business partner's kid. Seems like they're also neighbors.

[00:04:04] Oh, they're business partners. I didn't realize.

[00:04:06] They're caterers.

[00:04:07] Oh, that's why they're making cookies together.

[00:04:09] Mm-hmm.

[00:04:09] Okay. Well, apparently Bradley Wormser looks like a worm, which since we have goose kids who are related to birds compared to birds, I feel like, you know, he's kind of just screwed if he's the worm.

[00:04:24] Well, he's also really skinny and his thing is that he's always coming over to eat their food.

[00:04:30] He's really hungry.

[00:04:30] I have so many questions about the different dynamics between the two households and food.

[00:04:35] Because when we first meet him, he drops a horsefly into Matt's cereal and Matt doesn't want to eat it.

[00:04:41] So then he eats the cereal and then he goes to his mom and says, can I have more cereal?

[00:04:45] And she says, no, you can't have seconds because you have to watch your weight for the swim meet.

[00:04:49] Oh, yeah. That was messed up.

[00:04:51] Big fucking yikes. Right up top.

[00:04:53] Yeah. And then he's like, this was the most important week of my life.

[00:04:57] And I'm like, what, Matt, are you – what is going on with the adults in your life that makes this the most important week of your life?

[00:05:03] You know, like why is this being treated like such a life or death scenario?

[00:05:09] Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:05:11] And then we go back to the breakfast table and Bradley is trying to eat Libby's Pop-Tart.

[00:05:17] Right.

[00:05:17] I mean, okay, it's not just that I'm like jealous of Matt for being cool.

[00:05:23] Okay.

[00:05:23] He also says like weird shit.

[00:05:25] Like he's like, I'm going to glue Pop-Tarts to the table.

[00:05:28] Like that's my invention to mess with Bradley.

[00:05:31] It's like, what are you talking about?

[00:05:33] It's not.

[00:05:34] It's like a weird thing.

[00:05:35] And then he says, Bradley worships me.

[00:05:38] Yeah.

[00:05:39] Yeah.

[00:05:39] And he's also describing how Bradley takes his clothes and there's a weird dynamic between them.

[00:05:46] Like The Best Friend.

[00:05:47] Mm-hmm.

[00:05:48] By R.L.

[00:05:49] Stein.

[00:05:49] Yes.

[00:05:50] For those of you who don't know.

[00:05:51] We have an episode on it.

[00:05:53] Go listen to it.

[00:05:54] It's a non-goosebumps.

[00:05:56] Yeah.

[00:05:56] Bradley is talking nonstop about this movie he saw on HBO called The Claw.

[00:06:01] Or just Claw.

[00:06:03] It's like one of the things.

[00:06:05] So, okay.

[00:06:05] Here's also why I feel personally attacked.

[00:06:07] Because Bradley likes horror movies and going on his computer to play like sci-fi type games.

[00:06:12] And he's the loser.

[00:06:13] Yeah.

[00:06:14] Instead of that's fine.

[00:06:16] It is a weird choice to be serving up this demographic to kids reading Goosebumps.

[00:06:21] But, you know, maybe some of them aspire to be Matt Daniels.

[00:06:23] Yeah, that's true.

[00:06:24] And maybe it's trying to be ecumenical and bringing those kids too.

[00:06:29] But I think there's just – there's this element of it that's like, oh, if your kid spends too much time on their computer, like, that's a sign.

[00:06:37] That's a bad sign.

[00:06:37] Yes.

[00:06:38] And one of the first bad signs of the internet we get is Bradley daring the other two kids to open an orange and black can that says gas attack.

[00:06:46] Which he bought on the internet.

[00:06:47] He bought it on the internet.

[00:06:48] And it smells terrible.

[00:06:49] Yep.

[00:06:50] And they're on their way to Shandy Hills Middle School.

[00:06:54] Yeah, Olivia's not in middle school.

[00:06:56] No.

[00:06:56] But Bradley and Matt walk together.

[00:07:00] And Bradley claims that he bought this rock from Venus off the internet.

[00:07:03] And he wants to impress Mr. Scotto, a former astronaut who is now a high school teacher or middle school teacher.

[00:07:10] And the context is there's going to be this big science competition.

[00:07:14] And the winner gets to go to Space Camp.

[00:07:16] And gets $500.

[00:07:17] I mean, that's pretty cool.

[00:07:18] Yeah, it is cool.

[00:07:19] It's just weird that this teacher is just going to give them $500.

[00:07:22] Matt describes himself as a science freak, which, again, is different from Bradley who plays sci-fi games.

[00:07:28] Yeah.

[00:07:28] And Matt is widely expected to win.

[00:07:31] Everyone just kind of sees him as Mr. Perfect.

[00:07:33] Mm-hmm.

[00:07:34] And anyway, when Bradley learns that his Venus rock is fake, it says, like, made in China on the bottom or something, he gets mad and throws it.

[00:07:44] And it hits Mr. Scotto's car as he's also on his way to school.

[00:07:47] And Bradley blames Matt.

[00:07:49] And Matt basically says, I'm not a snitch.

[00:07:52] So he takes the blame.

[00:07:53] And I was having this moment as I was reading this part where I was thinking about how this comes up so much in especially kids fiction where it's like, I'm not a snitch.

[00:08:02] And I was just thinking, like, I don't know, do kids?

[00:08:04] I'll just have this code.

[00:08:05] And then it dawned on me.

[00:08:06] Oh, it's a plot device.

[00:08:08] Kids don't actually care about, like, oh, I'm going to not snitch on this kid I hate.

[00:08:13] Right?

[00:08:13] I don't know.

[00:08:14] I feel like you wouldn't snitch on a person you hated.

[00:08:17] In this scenario, I might.

[00:08:19] Yeah.

[00:08:20] Whereas, like, somebody, like, broke a teacher's windshield.

[00:08:23] I think I'd want to be clear it was not me.

[00:08:27] Okay.

[00:08:27] I can see that.

[00:08:27] Am I just a bad person that I would tell on somebody in that situation?

[00:08:31] I might be.

[00:08:32] I just – I think it really depends on the scenario.

[00:08:35] It seems like Bradley's not really going to do anything to you if you do tell on him.

[00:08:39] Actually, no.

[00:08:40] I take that back.

[00:08:40] He's pretty twisted.

[00:08:41] That's also true.

[00:08:41] He finds ways to, like, get you in trouble.

[00:08:44] So it's – yeah.

[00:08:45] Okay.

[00:08:45] So it's not about Matt not being a snitch so much as he doesn't want to deal with more Bradley?

[00:08:49] It's retaliation.

[00:08:50] Yeah.

[00:08:50] I think that's what he's afraid of.

[00:08:51] I think this happens a lot where someone who is creating a bad dynamic, say, in the workplace or whatever, everyone kind of lets it happen and doesn't call it out because they don't want that person who's already very unpleasant to retaliate.

[00:09:07] And they'll say, well, it's just because I don't want to, like, cause trouble.

[00:09:09] But it's actually fear.

[00:09:12] Man, monster blood is always just about, like, what you can't say that's happening and it kind of building up and exploding.

[00:09:19] Yeah.

[00:09:20] And also finding, you know, proper size clothing and containers.

[00:09:23] Yeah.

[00:09:24] Well –

[00:09:25] The two main themes of monster blood.

[00:09:26] Yeah.

[00:09:27] Finding the right size container, including for your growing body.

[00:09:30] So they're all into Mr. Scotto because he's really muscly also.

[00:09:34] Yeah.

[00:09:35] Everyone's really into Mr. Scotto.

[00:09:36] Yeah.

[00:09:37] And Bradley – or not Bradley at all.

[00:09:40] Matt is on the verge of being muscly himself.

[00:09:42] And we also get these weird asides about how some other kids on the swim team ask Matt if he's coming to these extra practices and he doesn't know about them for some reason.

[00:09:51] Yeah.

[00:09:52] I mean, it also just seems counterintuitive.

[00:09:54] Like, oh, we have this big meet coming up.

[00:09:55] Let's just be exhausted all the time.

[00:09:57] Right.

[00:09:57] But at the same time, there's just something there that I think isn't picked up again where there's something going on that Matt doesn't know about.

[00:10:03] Yeah.

[00:10:04] It seems like he is kind of overwhelmed and a lot of pressure is being put on him and he kind of can't keep track of everything that's going on between the science fair, weird home stuff, and this pressure to succeed and be Mr. Perfect.

[00:10:18] Mm-hmm.

[00:10:19] Yeah.

[00:10:20] And then we get a scene where they're taking a math test.

[00:10:23] Bradley is copying off of him, gets caught, but then spins it as Matt's trying to help him.

[00:10:30] Yeah.

[00:10:31] And they both have to go stand in the hall and get zeros automatically.

[00:10:36] Like, it's one of those things, too, where it seems like there's not really a justice system in this school.

[00:10:41] And that's part of what might make you not want to talk about what's really going on.

[00:10:46] Mm-hmm.

[00:10:46] Because if you do, the teacher might just be like, you're both annoying me.

[00:10:49] You all get Fs.

[00:10:50] Yeah.

[00:10:51] And Matt – so Matt's gotten in trouble.

[00:10:54] And somehow when he goes to see his sister Livvy at elementary school, a totally different school, she's already heard about him being in trouble.

[00:10:59] Uh-huh.

[00:11:01] Yeah.

[00:11:01] So they go home, and Worm is there wearing a shirt from his dad.

[00:11:06] Wearing a shirt from Matt's dad.

[00:11:08] Yeah.

[00:11:09] And it said –

[00:11:09] It's Matt's favorite shirt.

[00:11:10] Right.

[00:11:11] Is his dad dead?

[00:11:12] Because he says it belonged to his dad.

[00:11:14] Oh, you're right.

[00:11:15] It's tie-dye, and it says, peace, love, and rock and roll forever.

[00:11:18] I don't think it's ever stated that his dad is dead.

[00:11:20] I think his dad's just not around.

[00:11:22] Okay.

[00:11:23] But yeah, the dad is absent throughout this, although I didn't get the impression he was dead.

[00:11:27] Yeah.

[00:11:27] I mean, it's another unsaid thing, but they do kind of fixate instead as these two boys whose dads don't seem to play a big role in their life.

[00:11:35] They're like, you're Mr. Scotto's pet and like fighting over him.

[00:11:38] Yeah, they're fighting over the new daddy.

[00:11:41] And for some reason, Matt decided to tell Bradley about his – what he sure is his winning science fair project, which is a bougie smart birdhouse.

[00:11:48] I think it seems cool.

[00:11:49] Well, so basically it's – you can turn the lights on and on automatically.

[00:11:54] It has like a dimmer feature or something.

[00:11:55] Yeah.

[00:11:56] Isn't that what birds want?

[00:11:57] It's all birds want.

[00:11:59] So I texted our executive science advisor, Sam Levinson, shout out, and asked, is this science?

[00:12:05] And they wrote back, if there's no hypothesis and they're not testing anything, it sounds like interior decorating.

[00:12:12] Yeah.

[00:12:13] I mean, I understand why you'd want the temperature controls potentially, but I think birds – you're just going to fuck them up.

[00:12:21] Like they need to know what the seasons are like so they know when to migrate, not have their climate and light controlled off cycle.

[00:12:29] Yeah, they don't need extra light to like stay up working.

[00:12:32] Right.

[00:12:34] Well, Bradley is on Matt's computer and uses it to purchase monster blood, which promptly crashes the computer but also makes a scary voice whispering, enjoy your monster blood.

[00:12:44] Yeah, it's very – ah, ah, ah, you didn't say the magic word.

[00:12:48] So we finally get to monster blood.

[00:12:50] Yeah.

[00:12:50] Oh, and his sister comes in and does the classic fix of unplug it, plug it back in.

[00:12:55] Mm-hmm.

[00:12:55] And then Mrs. Wormser and mom are baking.

[00:13:01] Their house smells like cinnamon, although they are baking chocolate and vanilla cupcakes.

[00:13:06] Mm-hmm.

[00:13:06] How confusing.

[00:13:08] Strange.

[00:13:09] Yeah.

[00:13:09] Suspicious.

[00:13:11] Yeah, there's some weird catering subplot going on that I feel like we don't have enough insight into.

[00:13:16] No, I would like to know more about it.

[00:13:18] Yeah.

[00:13:19] Well, Matt demands his shirt back from Bradley and Bradley gives it to him and so Matt takes the opportunity to note that Bradley is really skinny and he makes a comment about that and Bradley says, ah, I found something that'll change that.

[00:13:31] What is it?

[00:13:33] Dun, dun, dun.

[00:13:34] Is it monster blood?

[00:13:35] Yeah.

[00:13:36] Cool.

[00:13:36] But we're on page 35 and there's still no actual monster blood.

[00:13:39] Yeah, but we do get once Bradley leaves, Matt's mom tells him that Bradley just doesn't measure up to you and so he's just trying to get attention.

[00:13:48] Yeah, he knows he can't compete with you in sports or science or popularity.

[00:13:52] It's like, mom, that is not what adults are supposed to say.

[00:13:55] No.

[00:13:56] You're supposed to have more perspective than that and I feel like she's really feeding into her son's perfectionism.

[00:14:02] Mm-hmm.

[00:14:02] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:14:03] Which is not serving him.

[00:14:05] So at school, obviously, Bradley stole his science fair idea and obviously he cannot pull it off.

[00:14:11] But Mr. Scotto pulls Matt aside and says, you're being a great tutor to Bradley.

[00:14:17] And Matt is so angry that he goes, finds Bradley in the hallway and starts beating up on him.

[00:14:22] And the principal shows up and is going to suspend him, but then Bradley sticks up for him.

[00:14:26] Yeah, it's another one of our stern lady principals from the Gooseverse.

[00:14:29] And everybody is really eager to believe what Bradley says because they don't want to jeopardize the swim meet.

[00:14:34] Yes.

[00:14:36] And speaking of people who put pressure on Bradley, we meet Coach Widows, a.k.a. Wolf.

[00:14:41] Wolf Widows.

[00:14:42] That's like a – I don't know, like a –

[00:14:45] Country music singer?

[00:14:47] I don't know.

[00:14:47] I was going to say like a goth band name.

[00:14:50] Yeah.

[00:14:51] So they call him Wolf and he says, you need to concentrate, Matt, because you're not – he wasn't like winning every time when they were doing practice laps, just sometimes.

[00:15:01] Probably because he's not eating enough.

[00:15:03] Yeah.

[00:15:04] It's fair.

[00:15:05] Well, on the way home, Matt gets stopped by two guys in black hoodies and trousers.

[00:15:10] And one has a spider palm tattoo and the other has rings on his fingers.

[00:15:13] And I just love this picture of like what R.L.

[00:15:15] Stein thinks is scary.

[00:15:16] Yeah.

[00:15:17] One is like some person – like, okay, they're just two different genres, right?

[00:15:21] The guy with rings on his fingers sounds to me like he's in the mob.

[00:15:25] Yeah.

[00:15:25] And this other guy sounds like just – I don't know.

[00:15:28] He works at a video store.

[00:15:29] Yeah.

[00:15:30] It's like, okay, you found two guys who like work in tech.

[00:15:33] They're just wearing hoodies.

[00:15:33] Yeah.

[00:15:35] And they're like handed over.

[00:15:37] Give it back.

[00:15:37] But they don't say what it is.

[00:15:39] Yeah.

[00:15:39] It would have been too easy.

[00:15:40] Yeah.

[00:15:41] To explain what they were asking for.

[00:15:43] And then Miss Griscotto shows up but doesn't see these guys.

[00:15:46] They're just hanging around harassing a kid and –

[00:15:49] Yeah.

[00:15:49] It's fine.

[00:15:50] No one's there to help him.

[00:15:51] Good business practice.

[00:15:52] Mm-hmm.

[00:15:53] Well, then we cut to that night where Matt is misting his ivy plants.

[00:15:57] Yeah.

[00:15:58] I think he's a real – I think this is Dr. Brewer's origin.

[00:16:01] Ah!

[00:16:02] A perfectionist child who needs to make everything seem perfect on the outside and he just channels

[00:16:08] it all into his plants.

[00:16:10] That's a – yeah.

[00:16:12] I love that.

[00:16:13] This is the origin story of Dr. Brewer.

[00:16:14] He's like, my ivy always relaxes me.

[00:16:17] Yeah.

[00:16:17] I love science.

[00:16:20] Yeah.

[00:16:21] Well, Bradley shows up with spaghetti on his breath and a plastic egg, like a Play-Doh

[00:16:25] egg it sounds like.

[00:16:26] Like a silly putty one.

[00:16:26] Yeah.

[00:16:27] That has monster blood in it.

[00:16:30] Worm Bradley, whatever we want to call him, says if you eat it, you grow bigger and stronger.

[00:16:35] So now we're finally at monster blood.

[00:16:37] Mm-hmm.

[00:16:37] That's not my memory of how monster blood works.

[00:16:39] I mean, the bigger, yes.

[00:16:42] Stronger hasn't been seen.

[00:16:43] This is the reboot, you know?

[00:16:45] Well, Matt stops him from eating it.

[00:16:48] Yeah, because he's like, oh, I'll eat it and then I won't have to copy you anymore

[00:16:51] because I'll be strong and athletic.

[00:16:52] Yeah.

[00:16:53] Oh, buddy.

[00:16:54] At least he knows what his issues are.

[00:16:55] Mm-hmm.

[00:16:57] Matt stops him from eating it.

[00:16:58] So maybe Matt doesn't totally know what his issues are.

[00:17:01] Or like doesn't want him to get bigger than him.

[00:17:03] That's what I meant.

[00:17:04] Oh, yes.

[00:17:06] Well, he tells Bradley about the men and, you know, the two hoodie guys and Bradley just

[00:17:11] doesn't believe him.

[00:17:13] Yeah.

[00:17:13] He's like, I'm experimenting on myself for the science fair.

[00:17:17] And Matt's like, you know, I'm taking this away from you, which is not, I think, a cool

[00:17:23] move.

[00:17:24] No.

[00:17:24] Like don't be a snitch, but also don't be like, you're not my dad.

[00:17:27] Yeah.

[00:17:28] Yeah.

[00:17:28] Bradley.

[00:17:29] I mean, Matt.

[00:17:31] Not my dad, Matt.

[00:17:32] Neither of you are my dad.

[00:17:33] No one here is a dad.

[00:17:35] Well, some of the monster blood gets on Matt's plants and the monster blood also starts getting

[00:17:41] bigger and bigger.

[00:17:42] So he puts it in his piggy bank.

[00:17:44] Yeah.

[00:17:44] And sticks it in his closet.

[00:17:47] Just like Dr. Brewer.

[00:17:48] Yeah.

[00:17:49] When something's in your closet, sometimes it just grows bigger and bigger and you can't

[00:17:52] keep it in there.

[00:17:53] Until your boss comes along.

[00:17:55] It blows.

[00:17:55] It's all sticky and gooey.

[00:17:57] Yeah.

[00:17:58] Until your boss comes along.

[00:18:00] Yeah.

[00:18:01] I also think that this is a fear of Bradley's suffocating friendship.

[00:18:04] Yeah, totally.

[00:18:05] Yeah.

[00:18:06] That night when Matt wakes up, the ivy plants have grown eight feet tall.

[00:18:10] Yeah.

[00:18:11] First he's upset because he's not getting enough sleep before the big competition, but then

[00:18:14] he goes to check on the monster blood and it like nearly suffocates him.

[00:18:17] That's right.

[00:18:18] That's what I thought.

[00:18:18] So he throws it into a duffel bag.

[00:18:20] Yeah.

[00:18:20] It gets stuck to him and is spreading all over him.

[00:18:24] Meanwhile, downstairs, and speaking of yuck, Livvy is flattening her scrambled eggs.

[00:18:30] She likes to flatten them.

[00:18:32] I don't really know what that means.

[00:18:33] I think just like smashing them down with your fork so you have like a thin layer of scrambled

[00:18:37] eggs like it's bistec or something.

[00:18:40] I don't know.

[00:18:41] I don't like it.

[00:18:43] And Matt doesn't clock it as suspicious that Bradley doesn't take his food.

[00:18:48] He tries to talk to him about the monster blood, but Bradley is busy, annoying Livvy.

[00:18:53] And also switching bowls around.

[00:18:55] So Livvy's like, oh, I tried to prank Bradley by slipping him monster blood.

[00:19:00] And Bradley's like, yeah, I'm actually really good at looking out for people coming for

[00:19:04] me.

[00:19:04] And I swapped bowls around.

[00:19:07] So now Matt ate the monster blood pretty quickly thereafter.

[00:19:09] Matt starts noticing his clothes getting tight.

[00:19:12] Yeah.

[00:19:13] He's feeling sweaty and itchy and just lots of puberty grossness.

[00:19:17] Yeah.

[00:19:18] And he eventually hops in the pool for the swim meet and is hoping no one notices that

[00:19:23] he's massive in the pool.

[00:19:25] And it doesn't make any sense.

[00:19:26] Like no one does seem to notice, but it seems like the rate he's growing, he's like as big

[00:19:30] as the lane, you know?

[00:19:31] Yes.

[00:19:32] Yeah.

[00:19:32] He's huge, but people are like, oh, it's the perspective of the water that this one

[00:19:37] kid is really huge.

[00:19:38] Right.

[00:19:39] And can just reach from end to end.

[00:19:41] He also makes the connection about monster blood and water, how he had misted the ivy

[00:19:45] plants.

[00:19:46] They got bigger and now he's in the water and he got bigger.

[00:19:48] Because he's a scientist.

[00:19:49] He made a hypothesis.

[00:19:50] Sam, learning from you.

[00:19:53] So he busts out of his swim trunks and can't get his boxers on.

[00:19:58] Like, yeah.

[00:20:00] Is that after he wins?

[00:20:01] It's after, yeah.

[00:20:02] Yeah.

[00:20:02] Yeah, he wins.

[00:20:03] Yeah, he breaks a record.

[00:20:05] And yeah.

[00:20:05] It's like a world record, right?

[00:20:07] I think it's a school record.

[00:20:08] Well, it's a big one.

[00:20:09] But yeah, nobody can tell how big he is.

[00:20:11] And so he's got this problem of how to get out of the pool.

[00:20:13] It really just spatially like doesn't make sense.

[00:20:16] It doesn't make any sense.

[00:20:16] Where he's like, I'm just going to walk over to the deep end while other people are

[00:20:19] swimming and no one's going to notice me getting out giant and naked from the pool.

[00:20:22] Yeah.

[00:20:25] Well, he goes into the locker room and he's almost seen by girls.

[00:20:29] Uh-huh.

[00:20:29] Yuck.

[00:20:30] Can you believe that?

[00:20:31] That'd be so embarrassing.

[00:20:33] Man.

[00:20:34] Although it would.

[00:20:35] Yeah.

[00:20:36] We just watched a really good movie with a scene like that.

[00:20:39] 1987's Trick or Treat.

[00:20:41] That's right.

[00:20:41] Deeply shaming.

[00:20:43] Mm-hmm.

[00:20:43] You don't live that down.

[00:20:45] You know, Arlstein devotes multiple pages in this book to him trying to dry himself off.

[00:20:50] And it makes me feel like Arlstein's heart was not any more in this than mine has been.

[00:20:56] Yeah.

[00:20:57] Maybe we're not the only ones who are, well, speaking for myself, a little tired of monster

[00:21:00] blood.

[00:21:01] Yeah.

[00:21:01] And like there's no Andy.

[00:21:02] Who cares?

[00:21:03] There's no Evan.

[00:21:04] I want to know how he's falling into adulthood.

[00:21:10] So somehow he sneaks home and the two men.

[00:21:14] Yeah.

[00:21:14] My note says he manages to get home because the plot needs to move forward.

[00:21:18] Right.

[00:21:18] And Spider Hand and Rings are at his door and they're like, what?

[00:21:22] We haven't heard of monster blood.

[00:21:25] Oh, yeah.

[00:21:25] Matt found an old trench coat of his dad's, by the way.

[00:21:27] So he's wearing that like a creep.

[00:21:29] Yeah.

[00:21:29] Just naked under a trench coat.

[00:21:31] Classic.

[00:21:32] And they're like, we're looking for the gas attack stuff because it's too stinky.

[00:21:36] Too stinky.

[00:21:37] It's been recalled.

[00:21:38] And so we're going personally door to door to everybody who ordered it.

[00:21:42] So do you think that they work for like consumer welfare watchdog group or something?

[00:21:49] I don't know.

[00:21:50] It doesn't make any sense.

[00:21:52] I think that they are government regulators.

[00:21:54] And they just happen to like look like that.

[00:21:57] Like if we're out in the field, we don't have to play with the dress code.

[00:22:00] Right.

[00:22:03] So he goes over to Worm's place, Bradley's place.

[00:22:07] And Bradley's like, go away.

[00:22:10] Well, and getting in, he trips the burglar alarm.

[00:22:13] And then he's worried that the cops will shoot him, which is fair.

[00:22:16] Yeah.

[00:22:17] But then he starts drinking.

[00:22:18] Yeah.

[00:22:19] Yeah.

[00:22:19] Very conveniently.

[00:22:20] And then we get the womp womp where we find out Bradley ordered the 12-hour sample of monster blood.

[00:22:27] Yeah.

[00:22:27] So everything's fine.

[00:22:29] Except the ivy plant is still huge.

[00:22:30] Yeah.

[00:22:31] Which I guess is – and there's still monster blood that presumably if we're consistent, shouldn't it be somewhere growing still?

[00:22:38] Yeah.

[00:22:38] Maybe because it's 12-hour sample, it stops a certain point.

[00:22:40] But I feel like it should have spread outside of the duffel bag.

[00:22:43] And then to add insult to injury if you're a nerd reading this, everybody thinks Matt risked his life to save Bradley from robbers and thinks he's this big hero.

[00:22:53] Unearned.

[00:22:55] Okay.

[00:22:56] Okay.

[00:22:57] So also, just as a side note, I feel like monster blood making you suddenly really big is like in some ways a commentary on having unearned abilities.

[00:23:07] Like it's not like Matt's a good person for being smart or attractive or athletic.

[00:23:12] But that's kind of how he gets treated.

[00:23:16] Like it's a personal win.

[00:23:18] Yeah.

[00:23:18] And Bradley just sucks.

[00:23:20] Why isn't he more like that?

[00:23:21] Yeah.

[00:23:21] And what you were just saying about everyone thinking he's a hero when he wasn't, I think it's kind of all plays into this.

[00:23:29] But he looks the part.

[00:23:30] Yeah.

[00:23:31] Structural disparities.

[00:23:32] What can you do?

[00:23:33] Is R.L. Stein's message.

[00:23:35] Classic R.L. Stein.

[00:23:36] What can you do?

[00:23:37] What can you do?

[00:23:38] It's not fair.

[00:23:39] Well, Matt still builds a birdhouse.

[00:23:42] Like even knowing that Bradley is copying this idea or says he's copying this idea, he does that and he brings it to the science competition.

[00:23:49] This is our last scene.

[00:23:49] So some of the experiments.

[00:23:52] One kid is trying to disprove gravity and another kid is making a self-destruction machine.

[00:23:58] There's like a real range of efforts here.

[00:23:59] So the girl named Sean Deere is the one trying to disprove gravity by making a waterfall that flows up.

[00:24:05] And then the self-destroying machine, it's a self-destroying insect.

[00:24:08] So it's very Shocker on a Shock Street, like a baby version of the scientists that we meet down the road.

[00:24:13] That's true.

[00:24:13] I wonder if this is all a prequel.

[00:24:15] If they all went to the same school.

[00:24:16] Then they all go out into the Gooseverse and wreak havoc.

[00:24:20] Yeah.

[00:24:21] Well, Mr. Scotto is super impressed with Matt's birdhouse, even if he thinks it was Bradley's idea.

[00:24:27] But then Bradley shows up with Matt's ivy plant, which he says he grew using UV lasers.

[00:24:32] UV laser lights.

[00:24:33] Yeah.

[00:24:35] And Bradley goes up to him and he wants to warn him about the plant.

[00:24:38] But then he sees the tendril moving to grab Bradley and just decides not to warn him.

[00:24:43] Yeah.

[00:24:44] He's like, yep, well, everything's working out in my favor yet again.

[00:24:47] Yeah.

[00:24:48] Now I'm going to go on a trip to monster blood land or no, to horror land.

[00:24:52] Yeah.

[00:24:53] So that was the book.

[00:24:55] Yeah.

[00:24:55] We got through that quick, which I think speaks to maybe the slimness of the plot.

[00:25:01] Yeah.

[00:25:01] But, you know, there's a lot of taxonomies at play.

[00:25:03] Yes.

[00:25:04] For example, The Dark Web.

[00:25:06] Yes.

[00:25:06] I had that one too.

[00:25:07] As in the film, The Dark Web.

[00:25:09] Yeah.

[00:25:10] And Unfriended 2, Dark Web.

[00:25:12] Right?

[00:25:13] Those are two different movies or are those the same movie?

[00:25:15] They're two different movies.

[00:25:16] Yeah.

[00:25:16] That's what I thought.

[00:25:17] And then there was that one we watched the other day that we can't remember the name of,

[00:25:19] but it was like Dark Web Mystery Box.

[00:25:21] It's about these guys ordering a Dark Web Mystery Box.

[00:25:23] They kept saying Dark Web Mystery Box like it was a thing.

[00:25:26] Yeah.

[00:25:26] They couldn't finish it.

[00:25:27] It was so stupid.

[00:25:27] And then Fresh also, which is a really cool movie about ordering creepy Etsy boxes on the

[00:25:35] internet.

[00:25:35] That's the mystery box that really is dark.

[00:25:39] There's also The Den and Rose Red.

[00:25:42] Also, I call this-

[00:25:43] Rose Red.

[00:25:44] That was cool.

[00:25:44] I call this category Beware, comma, the internet.

[00:25:47] Like, beware the snowman.

[00:25:48] Yeah.

[00:25:49] But I think specifically it's like, oh, you might get into this corner of the internet

[00:25:53] where you're going to get viruses.

[00:25:55] There's going to be some evil.

[00:25:58] You're going to get sent a product that shouldn't exist.

[00:26:01] There's this market that's full of really sick stuff.

[00:26:05] Yeah, exactly.

[00:26:06] And like, you surely can't let children have access to it because who knows what they'll

[00:26:10] buy.

[00:26:11] Yeah.

[00:26:11] And it's like interestingly spatialized.

[00:26:13] Like in one of the Dark Web movies, you have to go on like this really poorly rendered

[00:26:17] boat down a river in your computer.

[00:26:21] This is unfriended Dark Web.

[00:26:23] Yeah.

[00:26:23] To get to the Dark Web.

[00:26:25] Yeah.

[00:26:26] I truly could not tell you how you get to the Dark Web.

[00:26:28] I don't really know what it is.

[00:26:30] We also recently saw probably one of the dumbest movies I've seen in a long time, which Afray

[00:26:34] AI'd.

[00:26:35] Oh, that movie was, yeah.

[00:26:37] But it's got-

[00:26:37] No, it wasn't even enjoyed.

[00:26:38] It has the similar mentality of like, well, I know vaguely via the New York Times that there

[00:26:44] are things to be afraid of about AI.

[00:26:46] So let's just feed that through ChatGBT and make it spit out a movie for an audience we

[00:26:50] think is really stupid.

[00:26:51] And I think I get those vibes a little bit about how the internet is being treated here.

[00:26:55] I mean, I will say something that's been consistent in the Monster Blood books is you could buy

[00:26:59] a product that's toxic.

[00:27:01] And this is a thing true for kids.

[00:27:03] I feel like a lot of kid products can especially be very cheaply made and sourced.

[00:27:08] Like weird shit you get out of vending machines is maybe made out of like lead or toxic plastic

[00:27:14] that's leaching into your mouth or whatever.

[00:27:17] If anything, I feel like it's worse than when we were kids.

[00:27:19] Like I was listening to a podcast talking about how kids' clothes from Shein all have like

[00:27:23] dangerous levels of chemicals we're not supposed to, but like they don't get checked because

[00:27:27] it's all direct shipping.

[00:27:28] Right.

[00:27:29] And so I think there's like a valid fear they're taking it in a different direction because

[00:27:34] you can't even go to the mask shop in town and say, why did you do this to me?

[00:27:38] You know, it's just you'll never know where this came from.

[00:27:42] No, the internet will send two representatives to come get your gas attack back from you.

[00:27:46] Right.

[00:27:46] And also it might be in your computer now in some way, have infected your computer,

[00:27:51] be in your home.

[00:27:53] Do you have other categories?

[00:27:55] Yes.

[00:27:56] Wrong size horror.

[00:27:58] I thought about the Southern Reach trilogy of novels where the biologist turns into this

[00:28:03] like weird, I can't even describe it, but really weird big thing.

[00:28:07] You know, of our childhoods, there's Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid.

[00:28:12] There's Fantastic Planet, the animated movie about-

[00:28:16] Giant blue guys.

[00:28:18] Who keep humans as pets.

[00:28:19] Yeah, there's this real fear of like, oh, when I'm this wrong size, I'm a monster to my own kind.

[00:28:25] Yeah.

[00:28:26] Yeah.

[00:28:27] I think, and also just disgust with oversized bodies.

[00:28:31] I think that's true in Fantastic Planet.

[00:28:33] It's definitely true in Gulliver's Travels.

[00:28:35] It's true in all of R.L.

[00:28:35] Yeah.

[00:28:37] Yeah.

[00:28:37] Little Guys Unite.

[00:28:40] Relatedly, I had the category of steroids horror.

[00:28:47] Mm-hmm.

[00:28:47] Because, you know, he's trying to win the swim meet.

[00:28:50] This helps him win the swim meet kind of illegitimately.

[00:28:52] Oh, but it wasn't his choice.

[00:28:53] It's just, you know, it just happened to happen.

[00:28:56] Yeah.

[00:28:56] But sometimes you accidentally, you get, someone tells you just take this thing and you just

[00:29:00] take it.

[00:29:01] Oh, shit.

[00:29:02] He's the like, he's just like part of a doping scheme.

[00:29:06] Yeah.

[00:29:06] Like the Rodchenkov.

[00:29:07] Someone just gave this to me.

[00:29:08] Yeah.

[00:29:09] So I thought of the Rodchenkov documentary about doping and cycling called Icarus, which

[00:29:18] is really good.

[00:29:18] Really good.

[00:29:19] Love Lies Bleeding, of course.

[00:29:21] Of course.

[00:29:22] Rocky 3 is, I believe, the one with the Russian dude.

[00:29:29] Rocky 4.

[00:29:30] Rocky 4.

[00:29:32] Usually the thing with steroid horror is that you're going to fly into a rage of some kind.

[00:29:38] But in this case, I think it's more from the perspective of someone who is having, feeling

[00:29:44] like they have to do this because there's so much pressure on them to be superhuman.

[00:29:49] Yeah.

[00:29:49] And to keep up that image.

[00:29:51] And a big theme in anxiety around steroid or performance enhancing drug use is fairness,

[00:29:58] right?

[00:29:58] And that's something Matt is really feeling this entire book.

[00:30:02] It's not fair that Bradley gets away with this.

[00:30:03] It's not fair that I get blamed for this when he's like being this huge dick until it's

[00:30:08] a little bit not fair in his favor.

[00:30:09] Yeah.

[00:30:10] Right?

[00:30:10] And it's Bradley's fault.

[00:30:12] But it's like, oh, I broke this record.

[00:30:13] Oh, let me just sneak out of the pool then.

[00:30:15] Yeah.

[00:30:16] Oh, a girl might see me.

[00:30:16] You know, so it's got a little bit of that feel of there's that angst there, but it's

[00:30:22] only a one-way street.

[00:30:24] Right.

[00:30:24] So in the way that steroids are covering up for your shortcomings, he is facing real

[00:30:30] pressure to hide any part of him that's like freakish or wrong.

[00:30:33] So the closet symbol plays into that.

[00:30:39] All the stuff he's seemingly not saying about what's going on with his fixation on his teacher,

[00:30:44] his suffocating friendship with Bradley, his missing dad.

[00:30:48] Or all the like weird rules about food.

[00:30:50] Yeah.

[00:30:51] Yeah.

[00:30:51] So I also thought as part of steroids horror, I kind of overlapped it with this category

[00:30:55] of hide your freak.

[00:30:57] I thought of the movie Teen Wolf where he's in the bathroom like not wanting his dad to

[00:31:04] see that he's turning into a wolf.

[00:31:06] There's the well of loneliness where the character is trying, being pressured to not be the boy that

[00:31:13] she is.

[00:31:14] I feel like this is maybe the first time those two films have been placed in the same genre

[00:31:19] category.

[00:31:19] You know, classic pairing, Teen Wolf and the Well of Loneliness and Chicken Chicken, Shrek,

[00:31:26] you know?

[00:31:26] Yeah.

[00:31:27] You could teach a whole course on those four.

[00:31:29] There's a classic, you know, what is it?

[00:31:32] Quartet.

[00:31:33] Yeah.

[00:31:35] Your turn.

[00:31:36] My next one was Intruder in the Family.

[00:31:38] It's not just that Bradley is the annoying friend, but he's also not Tara from Cuckoo

[00:31:44] Clock of Doom where she's the sister, you know?

[00:31:46] And some of it is about like they both have this equal place in the family.

[00:31:50] Part of I think what the insult is with Bradley is that he's not even a member of the family

[00:31:54] and his mom just accepts this.

[00:31:55] So he can come over.

[00:31:57] He can eat their food, right?

[00:31:58] He's like the cuckoo of the family.

[00:32:01] He can do all that with impunity and it sort of messes up the family dynamic and almost

[00:32:07] in some ways is like a little bit of like his presence there is a mockery of Matt's place

[00:32:11] as the son, right?

[00:32:12] Yeah.

[00:32:13] Kind of like the last book we read where they're like, here's our replacement boy child.

[00:32:16] Yeah.

[00:32:17] Because I wasn't, no, it was two ago.

[00:32:18] But yeah.

[00:32:18] Revenge of the Living Dummy.

[00:32:20] Yeah.

[00:32:21] And so some examples I thought of, I found, it's interesting because they come from sort

[00:32:26] of all over the family spectrum.

[00:32:27] So there's the stepfather, which is like, what if John List went on and had another family

[00:32:31] and killed again?

[00:32:32] There's orphan, there's, or the orphan rather.

[00:32:35] There, there's the hand that rocks the cradle and like infinity lifetime movies where there's

[00:32:41] somebody trying to usurp usually the mom or the teenage daughter's place in the family.

[00:32:46] And yeah, somebody is being squeezed out by someone who is trying to do what they do,

[00:32:52] but better.

[00:32:53] Yeah, exactly.

[00:32:55] So I also had the category of school horror because I think school is a uniquely challenging

[00:33:01] environment in terms of how power dynamics work.

[00:33:05] You have kids being kind of set on each other, kids who are going through the same age and

[00:33:09] aren't really developed and not able to help each other.

[00:33:13] They most, they can make things worse, especially in middle school.

[00:33:16] And then you have adults who are maybe not fully mature and are given extra control over

[00:33:21] them.

[00:33:21] It can be even worse than a bad workplace or a bad relationship because.

[00:33:26] Yeah, you can't just up and go.

[00:33:27] Well, and the adult versus child thing too.

[00:33:30] Yeah.

[00:33:30] So you can't just up and go.

[00:33:31] And as a child, you have your rights even more stripped.

[00:33:36] There's this idea like you should do what an adult says.

[00:33:39] Yeah.

[00:33:39] And they can give you whatever punishment and you don't get to say anything.

[00:33:42] Yeah.

[00:33:42] And with the just up and go thing, I mean, like in theory, you can just up and go from

[00:33:47] a relationship over a place.

[00:33:48] I understand that there are external constraints that mean that you actually can't.

[00:33:51] Right.

[00:33:51] But like you really will be taken back to school and put there and told not to complain.

[00:33:55] Yeah.

[00:33:55] And so I thought of how these two different bad dynamics come together and to create compulsive

[00:34:02] behaviors and self-destructiveness in school narratives.

[00:34:07] So for example, Rules of Attraction.

[00:34:09] We have a character dealing with depression who kind of is all around the edges of that

[00:34:15] story.

[00:34:16] One Night in Soho is a good example of this too.

[00:34:20] And then one of my favorites, the Lifetime movie, I believe it's Lifetime, The Party

[00:34:26] Never Stops, Diary of a Binge Drinker, starring Sarah Paxton, which is a movie I really enjoyed

[00:34:32] partly because they made a big point of being like, she's not an alcoholic.

[00:34:35] This is binge drinking syndrome.

[00:34:37] It's like someone had looked that up in the DSM or wherever the fuck and we're like, it's

[00:34:41] its own thing.

[00:34:42] And we're going to do a movie about this mom trying to save her daughter from binge

[00:34:45] drinking.

[00:34:46] So that's my answer.

[00:34:48] Yeah.

[00:34:48] It reminds me of this German novel called The Contusions of Young Terlis by Robert Muziel.

[00:34:54] I think you've brought it up before.

[00:34:55] Yeah.

[00:34:56] It's about these two – it's about this group of boys who starts – they catch another

[00:34:59] boy stealing and so they hold that over his head and use it to abuse him.

[00:35:03] And it's basically this sort of like very controlling environment that they're in.

[00:35:07] They're then sort of turning it on this other kid.

[00:35:09] Right.

[00:35:11] And it's funny because a lot of times the narratives in that are like, oh, can you

[00:35:14] believe like what kids will do to each other?

[00:35:16] And it's like, well, they're – you're missing the part where they're mimicking the

[00:35:18] adults around them.

[00:35:19] Yeah.

[00:35:19] And reacting to that.

[00:35:21] My last one was The Big Event where there's some big event.

[00:35:27] Sorry.

[00:35:28] The Big Event.

[00:35:29] Like the school dance.

[00:35:30] The school dance.

[00:35:31] The big athletic competition.

[00:35:33] The big presentation to land the big account.

[00:35:36] So some examples from horror I thought of were Swimfan.

[00:35:38] There's Swimmeet just like in this.

[00:35:40] There's the Brian De Palma movie Passion where there's a, you know, advertising

[00:35:44] presentation.

[00:35:45] Again, all kinds of lifetime movies.

[00:35:47] The Prom and Carrie.

[00:35:48] Yeah, exactly.

[00:35:49] Where it's – everything's building up to this one thing and everything hinges on this

[00:35:52] one thing going well.

[00:35:54] Yeah.

[00:35:55] Or it's where the shit is all going to break loose because everyone's in the room.

[00:35:58] Yeah.

[00:35:59] And it's very much a, I have to control everything about this and like beat the situation

[00:36:03] and not let all hell break loose.

[00:36:05] Yeah, this thing that's supposed to be some kind of celebration of whatever it is we're

[00:36:09] doing is actually extremely high pressure and a moment for everything to fall apart or for

[00:36:14] it to reveal all the ways that things aren't actually working.

[00:36:18] Yeah.

[00:36:19] Yeah.

[00:36:20] So as a hinge, I would say a category running throughout the Horrorland series is what I

[00:36:27] would call Who's That Girl, which is where we get reference to other stories and we have

[00:36:34] this kind of ongoing story where different characters are linking up and different plot devices are

[00:36:39] linking up.

[00:36:41] Like in X-Men First Class where you have Wolverine show up or I guess all the Marvel movies do

[00:36:46] it now but I haven't been watching the Marvel movies.

[00:36:48] Rules of Attraction again.

[00:36:50] Another Brad Easton Ellis character shows up on the telephone with his cousin.

[00:36:53] Yeah.

[00:36:55] And a great example, I think, is a show which I hope you will check out if it comes to your

[00:37:01] town, The Empire Strips Back.

[00:37:04] I went and saw this.

[00:37:05] It's a...

[00:37:08] Burlesque?

[00:37:09] Thank you.

[00:37:09] I was like, boudoir.

[00:37:11] It's a burlesque show about Star Wars.

[00:37:15] It's extremely well done.

[00:37:16] And yeah, a lot of it is like, oh, it's that thing, you know?

[00:37:19] So that's kind of maybe the main appeal of the Horrorland parts of the plot aside from

[00:37:26] being like, okay, like over the next however many books, maybe you'll finally tell us what's

[00:37:29] going on but I feel like you're actually not going to fully tell us.

[00:37:32] I was thinking the other day that the Horrorland part feels a little bit like R.L.

[00:37:36] Stein decided to write his own fan fiction where it's like, oh, let's bring all these characters

[00:37:40] and have them do this one event together.

[00:37:43] Yeah, that's true.

[00:37:44] I realize that's giving fan fiction not enough credit because I'm sure, like I know a lot

[00:37:48] of it is better written than that but it's a little bit the vibe he's bringing to it.

[00:37:51] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:37:53] Well, before we get too far down the Horrorland path, what theories and or queries did you

[00:37:58] have?

[00:37:59] Is Mr. Scotto really sending kids to space camp?

[00:38:01] No.

[00:38:02] I agree.

[00:38:03] Do you think he's in some kind of plot where it's like getting sent to Horrorland but he's

[00:38:07] sending kids to quote unquote space camp which is actually some kind of jelly jam situation

[00:38:13] or something?

[00:38:14] Oh, I like that actually much better than what I was thinking which is just like he's

[00:38:17] telling kids like, oh, I'm doing this out, you know, I'm paying for it out of my own

[00:38:20] pocket but actually he's just like getting a kickback from space camp.

[00:38:23] Yeah.

[00:38:24] But actually I like that where it's like, oh, I didn't want to shell out for space camp.

[00:38:27] Go to Horrorland.

[00:38:28] Right.

[00:38:29] Well, I also wonder with NASA, whatever its equivalent is in this universe, how much do

[00:38:34] they know about things like egg monsters?

[00:38:36] What are they getting out of bringing kids to space camp?

[00:38:38] Because we know there's lots of different aliens.

[00:38:40] Like weren't the pumpkin head shapeshifters in outer space?

[00:38:44] Yes.

[00:38:44] But there are also lots of private scientists running around with their own agendas as well.

[00:38:49] That's true.

[00:38:50] So maybe corporate sponsored.

[00:38:51] Yeah.

[00:38:52] I don't know how much of it is NASA and how much of it is SpaceX.

[00:38:55] Yeah, exactly.

[00:38:57] Yeah.

[00:38:57] I guess we don't know who's running this space camp and what kind of astronaut he was, you

[00:39:03] know.

[00:39:03] But I think that someone has an interest in this.

[00:39:07] It's not just a prize out of the goodness of anyone's heart.

[00:39:09] I also feel like was he an astronaut or did he like work at NASA?

[00:39:13] You know, how much does he stress?

[00:39:14] I had a teacher who was just a pathological liar and told people he had this whole career

[00:39:20] teaching at UCLA and had a PhD and spun all of these fables.

[00:39:25] So now whenever there's a teacher like this in the Goose Fires, they're like, are you?

[00:39:29] Yeah.

[00:39:29] Well, now they can be Googled.

[00:39:32] He could at the time too.

[00:39:33] But when he started those lies, it wasn't quite as possible.

[00:39:36] Yeah.

[00:39:37] Yeah.

[00:39:37] Maybe someone who started those lies, yeah, back in the day, they kind of forget that

[00:39:42] people can check up on them now.

[00:39:44] Okay.

[00:39:45] Another query I had, are the eyes that are looking out from the screen a horror, those

[00:39:50] bloodshot eyes?

[00:39:52] Are they surveilling through the computer?

[00:39:55] Oh, interesting.

[00:39:55] And it's like your purchase of monster blood.

[00:39:57] They've sold your data to Horrorland and so now they can get you.

[00:40:01] That's interesting.

[00:40:02] I like the idea of somehow these things being linked that way.

[00:40:07] Or maybe he bought it from the Horrorland online store.

[00:40:10] And so they're like, oh, we'll track you now.

[00:40:12] Yeah.

[00:40:12] It could easily be the Horrorland online store.

[00:40:15] The other thing I was thinking about is maybe Evan, Andy, or Kermit are selling it in little

[00:40:21] plastic eggs.

[00:40:22] Maybe Kermit's like reworked the formula to make it a 12-hour version.

[00:40:27] Interesting.

[00:40:27] They're all having a small business now.

[00:40:29] Yeah.

[00:40:29] This is their Etsy shop.

[00:40:30] Yeah, exactly.

[00:40:32] I feel like Kermit would do that.

[00:40:34] Yeah.

[00:40:34] And Evan would probably go along with it.

[00:40:36] And Andy, yeah, Andy seemed to be on a journey where she could really go either way.

[00:40:41] So maybe she just decided like, fuck it.

[00:40:43] Death drive.

[00:40:43] Chaos.

[00:40:44] Let's do it.

[00:40:45] Need the money.

[00:40:46] Yeah.

[00:40:48] One of my queries, what's going on with food here?

[00:40:51] I feel like we have an eating disorder narrative.

[00:40:54] Matt keeps being denied food.

[00:40:56] Bradley's constantly consuming it.

[00:40:58] What do you think is going on here?

[00:40:59] Well, it's interesting that their moms are caterers.

[00:41:02] So they fill the house with this scent of cinnamon and cupcakes, which is like mom and leave it to

[00:41:08] beaver or something.

[00:41:09] But then they're not for those children.

[00:41:13] They're like, we are selling these to other people.

[00:41:16] You can't have any.

[00:41:17] So I think that the kids feel like they don't have a lot of nurturance, just a lot of being stuck.

[00:41:27] Yeah.

[00:41:27] And there's strictly food for two children and it doesn't matter which children eat it.

[00:41:31] Yeah.

[00:41:32] Yeah.

[00:41:32] They're interchangeable.

[00:41:34] Yeah.

[00:41:35] It kind of makes me wonder if some of Bradley's issues are actually like about his mother.

[00:41:39] I think it's possible that Bradley could be metabolizing his mother's desire to start a

[00:41:45] small business as a rejection of him.

[00:41:48] It's like, oh, you wanted to be a mom, but now you're no longer interested in that.

[00:41:52] And really what's happening maybe is that he actually just doesn't need her as much.

[00:41:56] And she's like, finally, I can have some time back to myself.

[00:41:59] I'm going to go start a business with my friend.

[00:42:01] But he's like, oh, you're cooking for other people now.

[00:42:04] Like, you don't need me anymore.

[00:42:05] What do I have to do to get your attention back?

[00:42:07] Yeah.

[00:42:07] Or how about I go find this other surrogate mom?

[00:42:09] Yeah.

[00:42:11] Yeah.

[00:42:11] I can see that.

[00:42:13] Livvy seems untroubled.

[00:42:14] Yeah.

[00:42:15] She seems totally untroubled.

[00:42:16] It's really Matt that seems to be bearing the brunt of it.

[00:42:20] Like, also because he's an athlete and his mom is like, no, you can't eat more because

[00:42:23] of your big swim competition.

[00:42:24] I, a caterer, clearly know about athletic nutrient needs.

[00:42:28] Right.

[00:42:29] Making all these cupcakes.

[00:42:31] I mean, what do you think is going on?

[00:42:33] Do you – we don't hear a lot from his mom.

[00:42:35] You know, she's not like the mom in Revenge of the Living Dummy where we get a really

[00:42:40] intense window into who she is as a person.

[00:42:43] Yeah.

[00:42:43] I mean, she's pretty absent.

[00:42:45] She has these, like, very rigid ideas about food.

[00:42:48] And she also seems fixated on Matt being a hero, Matt being a sports star.

[00:42:56] Yeah.

[00:42:56] Better than everyone else.

[00:42:57] Everyone looking up to him.

[00:42:59] But not much beyond that.

[00:43:01] Yeah.

[00:43:01] Like, she doesn't seem to want to get to know him.

[00:43:04] I guess what she's feeding him is very devoid of nutrients.

[00:43:09] You know, what she's feeding him emotionally is a lot of you're great, you know, but it

[00:43:16] doesn't actually help him feel sustained as a person.

[00:43:22] Similarly, she's like, here's Pop-Tart if you can get it fast enough.

[00:43:26] So I guess that ties into my second query, which is we have replacement horror again.

[00:43:31] So that's two out of three so far.

[00:43:35] We also have another annoying little sibling narrative, even though it's not a sibling.

[00:43:39] What do you think this has to do with Horrorland?

[00:43:42] Oh.

[00:43:43] Well, in Horrorland, they're selling masks that also look like your face.

[00:43:48] They seem to be making some kind of copies of people.

[00:43:53] Horrorland is full of replicas.

[00:43:56] Like many amusement parks, it enters a kind of uncanny valley where you have things that

[00:44:00] may or may not be fake.

[00:44:02] They're supposed to seem real, but it's also, you know, like, I guess I think of it like

[00:44:06] Disney.

[00:44:07] Disney has, like, animatronics, but I don't know how much that's true in Horrorland, that

[00:44:10] things are animatronics rather than just real.

[00:44:12] Yeah.

[00:44:13] What do you think?

[00:44:14] I don't know.

[00:44:15] Because we also have it paired with this idea that they invite two at a time, except for

[00:44:19] Matt.

[00:44:19] He's the first one to not go with a buddy.

[00:44:22] And they're also...

[00:44:23] Do you think he was supposed to go with Bradley and just didn't give him his invitation?

[00:44:27] Probably.

[00:44:28] But we have...

[00:44:29] So Brittany and Molly disappear.

[00:44:32] Sheena has gone invisible.

[00:44:33] So it's almost like there's, like, a reduction in numbers happening.

[00:44:36] Oh, a reduction in numbers.

[00:44:39] That's creepy.

[00:44:40] I mean, we might just not have all the answers until we read more.

[00:44:44] Yeah, answers might reveal themselves.

[00:44:46] I wonder if it's something that's on R.L.

[00:44:48] Stein's mind for some reason, too.

[00:44:50] I mean, there was a time when he was it.

[00:44:52] That's right.

[00:44:53] As the most read writer in America.

[00:44:57] And...

[00:44:57] But Harry Potter has since come and gone.

[00:44:59] Oh, you're right.

[00:45:00] Harry Potter's probably out at this time, right?

[00:45:02] This is like 2000?

[00:45:03] 2008.

[00:45:03] Oh, yeah.

[00:45:04] Harry Potter's way out.

[00:45:05] Yeah.

[00:45:05] Harry Potter's over?

[00:45:07] I wonder if he's like, I'm the one who made cool books for kids.

[00:45:12] And now everyone's doing it.

[00:45:15] Like...

[00:45:16] Well, also, like, this is a moment where horror at the...

[00:45:20] Seemed to a little bit be on the wane.

[00:45:22] Like, you remember how horror disappeared from bookstores as a section?

[00:45:25] Yeah.

[00:45:26] You know, between the early 90s and then was really different.

[00:45:30] And now we're seeing this, like, uptick again the last several years.

[00:45:33] But this seemed to be very much a down moment.

[00:45:36] It's all about wizards and sexy vampires, not like spooky vampires.

[00:45:40] I'm glad Robert was able to survive that era.

[00:45:43] Did he ever write...

[00:45:44] Goose Punks...

[00:45:45] I want to know if he ever wrote a sexy vampire book.

[00:45:48] Did he ever get on that bandwagon?

[00:45:49] Or Al Stein?

[00:45:51] I'm a little bit nervous about the answers we're going to get.

[00:45:53] Based on the sexy, superstitious book.

[00:45:56] Oh my god.

[00:45:57] That's...

[00:45:57] We need to read that book.

[00:45:58] We do.

[00:45:58] We need to order it because I think that would be a really fun...

[00:46:01] Like, I'm ready for it.

[00:46:02] Yeah.

[00:46:03] I'm ready to revisit it.

[00:46:06] Okay.

[00:46:07] So, yeah.

[00:46:08] I think that the replacement thing maybe...

[00:46:11] Yeah.

[00:46:11] I think it's maybe a combination of...

[00:46:13] R.L. Stein is now feeling a little bit sidelined in the cultural landscape.

[00:46:19] And also context of Horrorland being seemingly a slappy dominated place.

[00:46:26] Mm-hmm.

[00:46:27] Means that it's going to have as a persistent theme the idea of doubles and replacement.

[00:46:34] Yeah.

[00:46:35] Little did he know that like a dozen years later, millennials would be the prime sort of nostalgia demographic.

[00:46:40] And it would all be on the upswing again.

[00:46:42] Yeah.

[00:46:42] I mean, I'm sure he like saw it coming.

[00:46:44] He's like, oh, I'll never die.

[00:46:47] My moment will return.

[00:46:50] Well, speaking of never dying and moments returning, should we go to Horrorland?

[00:46:55] Yeah.

[00:46:56] I will say the last time we recorded...

[00:46:58] So when we initially decided to do the season, we said, we'll just do sort of quick hits of Horrorland and it won't be a big deal.

[00:47:04] We won't do the Blow by Blow.

[00:47:05] And then last episode, I realized we're only two books in and I already like I'm having a really hard time remembering everything that's happening.

[00:47:10] So I have the Blow by Blow again.

[00:47:12] Yeah.

[00:47:13] In case we need it.

[00:47:14] Okay.

[00:47:14] Yeah.

[00:47:15] I'm having a hard time too.

[00:47:17] So we got a little review about how Matt has this key card from the horrors.

[00:47:22] He met up with Billy and Sheena and Brittany and Molly.

[00:47:25] We're going to get more and more names, aren't we?

[00:47:26] Yeah.

[00:47:27] Well, Brittany and Molly are missing.

[00:47:29] Sheena's now invisible, which is where we pick up.

[00:47:31] Oh, right.

[00:47:32] And they get some horrors to help them.

[00:47:33] Now, one of the horrors is named Clem.

[00:47:36] Did we meet a Clem before?

[00:47:38] I feel like that name rings a bell for some reason.

[00:47:40] Yeah, we might have.

[00:47:41] There's a Clem and a Benson.

[00:47:43] Benson.

[00:47:43] Benson, I was wondering if that's an SVU reference.

[00:47:46] Oh, really?

[00:47:46] Yeah, because they're the monster police.

[00:47:48] Oh, hey.

[00:47:49] Well, Benson's monster police.

[00:47:50] Is that what Clem is?

[00:47:52] They are – yeah, they're like monster police.

[00:47:55] They take them through the detection room to help find Sheena.

[00:47:59] But in theory, that's what they say.

[00:48:01] But they're actually trying to find the key card.

[00:48:02] Yeah.

[00:48:03] And they x-ray them, which I thought was a real TSA post-9-11 moment.

[00:48:08] Like, man, the state is really allowed to invade your body.

[00:48:11] I was so freaked the fuck out when they first started doing x-rays.

[00:48:15] Now it's like, what can you do?

[00:48:16] But I was like, I don't think any of the people here know how to handle an x-ray machine without giving me radiation poisoning.

[00:48:22] And I still don't think that – I remember I was staying in line and one of – I was like, I'm an opt-out.

[00:48:27] This was back in – like, when they first put those in.

[00:48:30] It was like 2011.

[00:48:31] And this person who's running the machines, this TSA agent, was like, they wouldn't let us stand here if they were bad for you.

[00:48:37] And I'm like, have you read, like, the history of workplace health and safety?

[00:48:42] Yeah.

[00:48:43] Yeah, you definitely – like, talk to someone with asbestos poisoning, man.

[00:48:47] Yeah.

[00:48:48] Yeah.

[00:48:50] Well, they're trying to find it, but Matt successfully palms it off to Sheena, who's still invisible.

[00:48:54] Mm-hmm.

[00:48:55] And then they run into a different lab, and then they find monster blood, and it starts swallowing them up.

[00:49:02] Yeah.

[00:49:03] Dr. Twisted Science Lab.

[00:49:07] And then Byron, another horror – the horrors have interesting names.

[00:49:12] Clems Benson Byron.

[00:49:13] And it turns out this is the one who gave Matt the key card.

[00:49:16] Right.

[00:49:17] He aims a mirror at the monster blood, and that makes the monster blood come off.

[00:49:23] Yeah, it gets sucked into the mirror, but then so does Sheena.

[00:49:25] Right.

[00:49:26] I think that we are getting on the verge of having some of our questions answered from years ago at this point when we were like, how does the invisible mirror work?

[00:49:35] Yeah.

[00:49:35] How does it relate to the monster blood?

[00:49:37] We don't really have them answered yet.

[00:49:39] And then the MPs – I'm sorry.

[00:49:42] I abbreviated it as MPs, and also in my head I'm like, military police, minister of parliament.

[00:49:46] You didn't abbreviate it as MBs?

[00:49:49] Oh, monster police.

[00:49:50] I see.

[00:49:50] Monster police.

[00:49:51] Oh, I was putting MB for monster police.

[00:49:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:49:54] The MPs.

[00:49:58] Well, as Byron is being arrested by the monster police, he drops the mirror.

[00:50:03] And then so Matt and Billy pick it up, and they see Brittany and Molly riding in a carousel of flames.

[00:50:09] Yeah.

[00:50:10] Cool image.

[00:50:11] None of a lot happened, and that was the end.

[00:50:13] Yeah.

[00:50:14] Just a lot of running around.

[00:50:15] I just – I guess we're missing out.

[00:50:17] So one of our listeners, Spongy, classic listener, wrote and said that you can find the game on, like, archive –

[00:50:28] Oh, internet archive?

[00:50:29] Yeah, internet archive.

[00:50:30] Not the – I don't think the actual game, but you can find stuff from it.

[00:50:34] Mm-hmm.

[00:50:34] And so probably that would give me a lot of information, but I really don't want to, like, go through and piece it all together.

[00:50:40] I just want someone to tell me what exactly is happening.

[00:50:43] It's similar to how I used to feel about comics when I was a kid.

[00:50:46] I mean, I like full-on comics, but when you have the little floppy ones and you're like, if I want to know Storm's backstory, I'm going to have to read thousands of these.

[00:50:55] Or I can just go on Wikipedia and read a summary so then I know everything I want to know about Storm.

[00:51:01] Much more satisfying.

[00:51:01] Yeah.

[00:51:02] Also, like, if I'm not playing a shitty Flash game, then, like, nah, I don't want to.

[00:51:06] Yeah, I would totally play the game, actually.

[00:51:08] I'm just – I am actually deeply interested in what's going on between the horrors and their internal conflicts and stuff.

[00:51:15] I just – I want to know.

[00:51:16] I don't want to wait.

[00:51:18] Yeah.

[00:51:18] I don't want to wait.

[00:51:20] It's also – there's clearly this internal – there are these internal politics happening where there's, you know, a horror who wants to help them with his key card, and then there's, like, the military police, and then there are the horrors who are just like, I'm on break.

[00:51:32] Yeah.

[00:51:33] Yeah.

[00:51:34] Very real.

[00:51:36] Well, what would you rate this book?

[00:51:39] Like a three.

[00:51:40] I was going to give it a 2.5.

[00:51:42] Yeah.

[00:51:42] It was okay.

[00:51:43] It was okay.

[00:51:44] It –

[00:51:45] It was certainly a monster blood book.

[00:51:47] It was.