The Goosebumps book that introduces Monster Blood.
Evan is spending a week with his witchy great aunt Kathryn. He befriends a local girl, Andy, and they visit a toy shop where Evan buys some slime, called Monster Blood. Since this is a Goosebumps book, the Monster Blood turns out to be evil. It's growing. And it's hungry. So very, very hungry...
This was the first Goosebumps book to get a direct sequel in the form of Monster Blood II, and indeed it spawned the first subseries to feature recurring characters. Monster Blood also appears in the HorrorLand novel Monster Blood for Breakfast and the SlappyWorld novel Monster Blood Is Back, making it the only returning threat in that series other than Slappy himself. It was reissued in the Goosebumps Classics line in 2008 as a companion release to Monster Blood For Breakfast!.
It was adapted into episode 15 of the second season of the 1995 TV series, with a novelization based on the episode being released as book 15 of the Goosebumps Presents series. A direct sequel episode, More Monster Blood, would follow with an original plot rather than being directly based on any of the books (its tropes are listed on the same page as the parent episode).
The book provides examples of:
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: At the beginning of the book, Mrs. Ross is dropping her son off to his aunt Kathryn, much to his annoyance as he does not like being sent to live with a stranger (he had never met Kathryn before). He starts complaining, and she tried to comfort him, and in doing so she ran her hand through Evan's hair, causing him to snap that he hates it when she does that.
- Affectionate Gesture to the Nose: Trigger, who is pretty much just as upset as Evan is at simply being dumped at Kathryn's place for the rest of the summer, starts whining. This causes Evan to pick him up and kiss him on his nose.
- Asshole Victim: The Beymer twins spend the entire book picking on Evan and Andy, only to get eaten by Monster Blood. Luckily for them, they manage to escape by the end of the book.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Trigger grows to horse size as a result of eating Monster Blood.
- Attack the Tail: Narrowly averted. When Trigger first meets Sarabeth, he attacks her, starting by attempting to snap at her tail. Luckily for her, Evan pulls Trigger away from her.
- Bait-and-Switch: After Trigger attacks Sarabeth, Kathryn angrily tells Evan to bring the dog outside in an evil way, and Evan wonders if she will deal Trigger horribly. But she was actually just requesting that he bring the dog outside so that Trigger could hang out there for the rest of the trip. Evan is highly relieved by this, yet he did not want Trigger staying out here like this, as he was more of a house dog. Still, Evan didn't want to provoke Kathryn anymore, so he reluctantly obeyed her orders.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Evan and Andy seem to have a kid version of this.
- Blob Monster: The Monster Blood itself. No organs, not even pseudopods. Just hungry slime.
- Brick Joke: At the beginning of the book, Evan asks Kathryn to make him a pie, but because she was deaf, she misunderstood him. And later, he decided to write the question down about the pie, being wiser here. However, Kathryn had forgotten about the pie at this point, and wonders coldly what he's talking about. Evan is quite exasperated by this.
- Cat/Dog Dichotomy: Seems to go on between Trigger and Sarabeth, which actually reveals major spoilers in retrospect. Trigger is an natural dog who is just looking out for Evan, while Sarabeth is just a witch disguised as cat who is actually evil.
- Cat Scare: One of the first in the franchise. Evan is in a room at Kathryn's house trying to find something to entertain himself, and he pulled open a door in a closet, only for something to leap out at him and he thinks that he is being attacked by an unknown monster. It actually turned out to be Sarabeth, who came leaping onto him whilst screeching.
- Compliment Backfire: Evan is complaining to his mother about just simply dropping him off here without his say in the matter, and she tries to reassure him by reasoning with him, even giving him a hug in the process. Evan knew that she was trying to cheer him up with this hug, but it only made him feel worse.
- Description in the Mirror: This trope is briefly used, when Evan takes the time to check on himself in a bathroom mirror, which leads to a description of what he was wearing that day.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: The villain turns out to be Sarabeth the cat, who is actually a witch that cursed Evan's aunt to be her slave for years in addition to being the one that made the eponymous substance evil.
- Dogs Hate Squirrels: While Evan is walking Trigger on his first trip around Kathryn's neighborhood, the dog saw a squirrel and proceeded to bark at it, as well as tug off of the leash that was holding him. Evan tried to stop him, but Trigger was quite disobedient, and took after this squirrel. The squirrel then wisely climbed up a tree.
- Dream Within a Dream: Occurs one night. Evan is dreaming of chasing after Trigger, who keeps getting bigger and bigger, until he was big enough to step on him. Evan then wakes up relieved in his bed, only to find himself as big as a giant, and he screams. He then wakes up from that one.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Trigger is almost always against Sarabeth, right from the beginning of their first time interacting with each other, attacking her. That would be because he can probably sense that Sarabeth is not actually a cat, but a witch disguised as one.
- Exact Eavesdropping: Occurs as a flashback shown at the beginning of the book, when Evan happens to eavesdrop on his parents discussing how they were going to drop him off at his aunt Kathryn's place, which makes Evan realize that he is being dropped off there even though he has never met the woman. He is not happy about this. Luckily for him, he heard the conversation commencing, and so he decided to duck out of there at the moment, which made his parents never realize that he was listening nearby. And, apparently, Evan did this with all of the "big family news" that occurred in that household, as he always hid and listened from the hallway.
- Foreshadowing:
- Almost everything described about Kathryn throughout this book could qualify as this trope. She is constantly referred to as being quite active and lively for her age, which she is, as she was put under a spell by Sarabeth years ago that made her deaf yet is quite energetic for her age. She also "jokingly" calls Sarabeth pure evil early in the book, but she wasn't actually joking.
- And almost everything that is described about Sarabeth can be described as this trope as well. The cat is shown to be quite unusually intelligent for a normal cat, and seems to behave almost human-like constantly. That would be because this "cat" is not actually one, but a witch disguised as one.
- Gender-Blender Name: Andy, whose real name is Andrea.
- Green Is Gross: Monster Blood is described as a green ooze with a Sickly Green Glow.
- Heroic Canines, Villainous Felines: The book portrays Trigger and Sarabeth this way. Trigger is almost always happy, tends to help Evan plenty of times throughout the book, and is almost always loyal towards him. Sarabeth, on the other hand, is almost always depicted as horrid. That's actually because Trigger is actually a true dog who is just being his natural dog-like behavior, while Sarabeth is merely a human that has transformed herself into a cat for quite a while.
- The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: Wagner's Novelties & Sundries, the shop where Evan and Andy get the can of monster blood from, is shown as a decrepit yet active store, even though it is manned by an apathetic clerk. He reluctantly allows Evan to take the can of monster blood after much pleading from him. However, later in the story when Evan and Andy want to take the can back after strange occurrences keep happening, they are shocked to find that the shop[ is gone the next day.
- Luminescent Blush: Mrs. Ross's face turns bright red when she and her son arrive at Kathryn's house and she rings the doorbell, only for Evan to point out that she was deaf, and therefore could not hear her. She was so annoyed at arguing with her son so much, that she forgot the crucially important information that Kathryn was actually deaf (Kathryn was actually on Evan's father's side of the family, so she really did not pay much attention to her).
- Muggle in Mage Custody: Downplayed. While Kathryn does apparently possess some magical powers of her own, they are lesser than Sarabeth's, and she is de facto Sarabeth's slave.
- Not What It Looks Like: When Evan and his mother first arrive at Kathryn's house, the woman shows up at the front door with a knife that had blood dripping on the blade. This shocks the two visitors. Kathryn explained that she was just slicing beef, and Evan was wondering if she was telling the truth about that. She actually was, she was just a misunderstood person.
- Old, Dark House: Aunt Kathryn's house. It is often described and mentioned as creepy, especially by Evan, and the contents inside are not much better. The place is inhabited by Kathryn, a woman who (initially) has quite a mysterious background going on with her, (although she doesn't actually have much sinister nature going on with her once her secrets are revealed), along with a mysterious black cat.
- Paranormal Mundane Item: The Monster Blood is a jar of weird green substance that looks like children's slime toys, but has very creepy magical properties.
- Parental Neglect: Evan's parents, whom tend to treat him like he's more of an unwelcome neighbor than their son, and dump him with his great aunt who he has never met before. He tries to point this out to his mother when she is dropping him off there, which he is not exactly wrong about, but she just dismisses his complaints and tells him to stop fussing.
- Puppy Love: Evan and Andy have some blatant (adolescent-style) Belligerent Sexual Tension and for the most part behaving like a romantic pairing throughout the series, though they never actually become an Official Couple.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder: The first time that Evan meets Andy, she grabs him by the shoulder, which startles him. He asked her why she grabbed his shoulder, to which she replied with, "To scare you."
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Upon getting the can of Monster Blood at the toy store, Evan wants to buy it, but the shopkeeper tries to insist to him not to buy it. He kept explaining why he shouldn't, but Evan simply says that he doesn't care, and gives him a ten-dollar bill to shut him up. This finally causes the man to give up, and allows him to have the can of monster blood.
- Skewed Priorities: Evan and Andy are playing catch with balls of monster blood, and the last remaining one lands next to Trigger, who proveeds to start eating it. Evan is understandably freaked out because this would mean that Trigger could be infected by eating it, while Andy laments sadly how this means there wouldn't be any more monster blood to share. Both of them were actually ''right'' to worry about Trigger eating the monster blood, just in different ways that was not actually the reality of the situation.
- Sickly Green Glow: The monster blood does this, as when Andy suggests that she and Evan turn off the light to see if it glows in the dark, to which it does. The monster blood is also quite a fearsome substance.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: Evan and Andy's first interaction has plenty of this. You can tell that they have a bit of chemistry, even though it is quite full of snark.
- Teens Are Monsters: The Beymer twins are slightly older than Evan and Andy, display absolutely no redeeming qualities and are defined solely for their nasty, bullying ways.
- Tree Cover: Evan in the beginning of the book did this in his backyard, in a place where he would be hid from the house, so his parents would never realize that he had eavesdropped on their conversation that had occurred quite recently.
- Villain Ball: Sarabeth was afraid Evan would find out that his aunt Kathryn is really Sarabeth's slave, so she had Kathryn enchant the Monster Blood. If Sarabeth had just left Evan alone, she could've avoided getting killed by the Monster Blood.
- You Need a Breath Mint: When first being introduced to Kathryn, she lowers her head closer to Evan while she was talking to him, causing him to exclaim that her breath smelled like Trigger's. His mother, already annoyed by his bratty attitude, snaps at him to behave.
