Thoughts before reading:
What can I even say about this that isn't said by the title? I am just not excited. This sounds like a beyond ridiculous one, but hopefully it will surprise me and be fun. I couldn't even find a good picture because the word "vampire" just pulled up a bunch of pictures from Buffy and Twilight, LOL.
The basics:
Kristy's worried that the summer is going to be boring (this REALLY doesn't sound like her to me...) but then she sees in the paper that a movie is going to be filmed in Stoneybrook, starting soon. It's a tv movie called Little Vampires. Derek Masters is in it, and his family actually recommended Stoneybrook as the perfect small town setting they needed. To top all this off, Mrs. Masters ends up calling the BSC, needing someone to keep an eye on Derek on the set everyday! Kristy's the only one free, and she's thrilled to take the job. Claudia will also be coming along sometimes to watch his younger brother Todd, who has a small role too.
The job begins quickly after that, and Kristy loves being on the set. Derek shows her around and teaches her the ropes. She meets some of the actors, including the lead, Carson, who is really stuck up and not into his role. The only real problem is that Derek has just had a growth spurt, and become accident prone as a result. He breaks an expensive prop lamp, then slips and ruins a shot. There was something slippery on the floor that shouldn't have been there, though.
Todd ends up accidently breaking a pane of glass that was intended to be for a stunt Derek had to do, which leads to the discovery that it's real glass instead of the breakaway kind. Zeke, the man in charge of props, is bewildered, swearing he had checked it earlier that day, and it was definitely a fake. Derek would have been seriously hurt if he had done the stunt. Zeke is fired, and the set shuts down for the day. Kristy pokes around trying to figure out what happened with the glass, and while doing so, she overhears Carson and his manager, Frank, complaining that Derek's getting more publicity than him.
The next day, a stunt double has taken over Derek's stunts, and she ends up falling during a flying stunt when one of the cables breaks. Kristy even finds a note in Derek's trailer warning him to get off the set. She tells Mrs. Masters, who isn't too worried. Undiscouraged, Kristy calls an emergency BSC meeting to get started figuring out the mystery herself. The girls discuss some possible suspects (Zeke, Frank, Carson, the publicist Sheila) and decide to all try to hang out near the set and keep an eye on things.
Cokie throws a cast party, hoping that Carson will come. He doesn't, and everyone who did attend the party ends up sick with stomachaches.
Kristy overhears a Carson fangirl, Lindsay, who's been on set everyday, talking to Sheila. Lindsay mentions that her last name is Rockaway, the same as the company that supplied the glass for the stunt. Realizing she might be a suspect, Kristy follows her. A car manual falls out of her backpack without her noticing, and so Kristy snags it. There's a page inside marked that details brake malfunctions. Horrified, she rushes off to stop Derek's car, catching him just in time. Turns out, the brake lines had been cut. Kristy points out Lindsay, who breaks down and confesses. She did it all because she was "in love" with Carson, and Derek is "stealing all his scenes".
Lindsay is sent to a center for the emotionally disturbed. Kristy makes a movie scrapbook, and the book ends with a bunch of magazine articles.
Side plot: Claire is scared of vampires. Kristy solves her problem by having her dress up as a witch so she can scare the vampires back.
Timeline:
It's still July, very hot weather.
Misc. thoughts:
*Karen and Andrew live with Kristy's family every other month now (I remember this change from a Little Sister plot). It seems weird to me now, though, from an adult POV. Their parents live in the same town, and a month is an eternity to a little kid. That's a long time to go (mostly) without one parent. Why wouldn't they just do every other week?
*Charlie also gets a job on set as a gofer.
*Kristy says she "guesses" Carson is a hunk, but he's not her type.
*The Little Vampires movie is about a kid who's secretly a vampire, and comes to the US as a foreign exchange student from Transylvania to recruit more vampires.
*Kristy was scared of mummies when she was little.
*Shannon is spelled wrong in chapter 11, "Shanon".
*Mallory gets picked for a quick walk-on role, and she's thrilled.
*Wow, in Lindsay we get our first big psychopath of the series! Then again, this could be Betsy Sobak in ten years...
*Filming will wrap in LA, and there Dawn will be on set with Derek.
*Ghostwritten by Ellen Miles.
Books mentioned:
None
My rating:
3 stars. Not as bad as I expected... they at least tried to make the set up somewhat plausible.
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