stress makes me HUNGRY. I usually have a
whole pillowcase full of candy at this time of
year, but since I skipped trick-or-treating to
go to that party, I missed out on the best
part of Halloween.
185
I knew there had to be leftover candy somewhere
in the house, because on Halloween night, Dad
told Mom the geese chased all the trick-or-
treaters away.
So after school today I looked in all the places
I thought Mom might’ve stashed the candy, but
I came up empty. Now I was REALLY craving
something sweet, but the only thing in the
pantry was a bag of chocolate chips Mom told us
were off-limits.
HONK!
CHOCOLATE
CHIPS
186
I think she’s planning on making chocolate-chip
cookies for the church Bake Fair. But I figured
she’d never notice if just ONE chip went missing.
So I got some scissors and cut a tiny chocolate-
chip-size hole in the bottom of the bag. Well, one
chocolate chip turned into two, and two turned
into FOUR. Then I kind of just lost my mind.
When I was done, I must’ve eaten at least a
quarter of the bag. I thought there was still a
chance Mom wouldn’t notice, but the hole in the
bag had gotten a lot BIGGER, and I needed to
do something about that.
So I went through the junk drawer to look for
a stapler.
POUR
187
But before I could USE it, the bottom of the
bag totally gave out.
I stapled the bag shut and recovered as many
chips as I could off the floor. But I kind of
couldn’t help myself, and a lot of them never made
it back into the bag.
Now there was no WAY Mom wasn’t gonna notice.
I was already in enough trouble, and I really
didn’t need to add to my problems. So I called
Rowley for help.
CLACK
CLACK
CLACK
CLACKITY
CHOMP
GOBBLE
188
I told him my situation, and how I needed him to
bring me as many chocolate chips as he could.
Rowley showed up at my front door five minutes
later, and he was all out of breath. He said he
would’ve gotten to my house SOONER, but the
geese were out on our street and he had to cut
through my neighbor’s backyard to steer clear
of them.
I asked Rowley for the chocolate chips, and he
opened his hands. But they were useless because
they were completely MELTED.
PANT
PANT
189
I told Rowley he was gonna have to go back and
get MORE, but he said that was all they had.
He said maybe he could call up Scotty Douglas
down the street to see if HE had any chocolate
chips, and that sounded like a pretty good plan
to me.
But when Rowley picked up the phone, I noticed he
was leaving chocolaty fingerprints EVERYWHERE.
I knew if Dad found ONE of Rowley’s
fingerprints in the kitchen, I was dead. So we
got some paper towels and started wiping down
the whole kitchen.
WIPE
SCRUB
190
When we ran out of paper towels, I went into
the laundry room to get some more. But when I
I made a HUGE discovery.
I found Mom’s entire stash of leftover Halloween
candy tucked behind the rolls of paper towels.
There were five unopened bags in there, and it
was ALL stuff I like.
GUMMY
WORMS
191
I figured I’d give Rowley a few packets of
gummy worms for helping me out with the cleanup.
But I couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to
play a little prank on him first.
I thought Rowley would laugh, but he was
TERRIFIED. Even AFTER I showed him the
worm was just a piece of candy, he still couldn’t
get over it.
HEY, IS THERE
SOMETHING IN
MY NOSE?
SCREAM!
SLURRRPPP
SHUDDER
192
That’s when a lightbulb went on over my head.
People LOVE to be scared, and if you’re good
at it, you can make a FORTUNE. It can’t be
that hard, either. I.M. Spooky is filthy rich, and
I heard about these college kids who made a horror
movie, and they only spent a couple hundred bucks
filming it. Then they sold the movie to a big
studio, and now those guys are MILLIONAIRES.
If those guys could do it, so could I. And I
didn’t need hundreds of dollars, either. All I
needed was a couple of bags of gummy worms and
Mom and Dad’s old camcorder.
FLASH
FLASH
FLASH
FLASH
FLASH
FLASH
193
I could already see the movie poster in my mind.
And when my movie wins Best Picture, I’ll be
sure to thank all the little people who helped me
along the way.
Night
of the
NIGHT
CRAWLERS
194
The person who’ll deserve the BIGGEST thanks
is MOM. She’s the one who’s always saying I
should use my imagination and do something
creative, so when I’m a famous director I’ll bet
she’ll be proud.
Before all THAT could happen, though, we needed
to get started making this movie. I told Rowley
my idea to make a film where man-eating worms
terrorize a town, but that seemed to make him
nervous. He said maybe we could switch out the
worms for something less SCARY, like butterflies.
But I told him nobody was gonna pay good money
to see a movie like THAT. I said we could have
some funny parts so it wasn’t JUST scary, and
he seemed to warm up to the idea.
THAT
TICKLES!
195
Rowley wanted to get started filming right then
and there, but I told him we weren’t doing
anything without a SCRIPT. So we went upstairs,
turned on my computer, and got to work.
Written by
Greg Heffley
Based on a concept by
Greg Heffley
Rowley said HE wanted to write, too, but I
really didn’t want to share credit on this thing
since it was MY idea. So I told him he could do
the storyboards, which are little drawings that
show how each camera shot is supposed to look.
I figured a good way to start the movie would be
to show a married couple having an ordinary day
BEFORE the worms started attacking.
NIGHT OF THE
NIGHT CRAWLERS
196
EVENING. A man comes home from work
in a good mood, whistling a cheery
tune. He opens the side door and
steps inside the kitchen.
But
I ran into a problem right away. I was
planning on directing, and Rowley was our only
actor. That meant we couldn’t really show two
characters on the screen at the same time.
The other problem was that I didn’t want it to
be too obvious that Rowley was playing all the
parts, or people might think our film was low-
budget. So I had to get a little creative.
1.
2.
3.
4.
197
HUSBAND
Hi, dear. I am home
from work.
WIFE
Hello, honey. I hope you don’t
mind if I don’t turn around but
I am really concentrating on
doing these dishes.
HUSBAND
That’s OK. I am gonna
go upstairs and take
a shower.
WIFE
Good, I can smell
you from here! (laughs)
5.
6.
198
I felt like there was already a little too much
talking, so it was time to get to the action.
UPSTAIRS BATHROOM. The man steps
inside the shower and turns the
water on.
HUSBAND
Oh, man! This shower
is gonna feel GREAT! And
my wife is right about
me stinking.
But then WORMS shoot out of the
showerhead!
7.
9.
10.
199
HUSBAND
What the heck? This isn’t
water! It’s WORMS!
But these are no ordinary worms.
They are man-eating NIGHT CRAWLERS!
HUSBAND
Oh, great! These things
are actually EATING me!
Worms come out of the man’s eyes and
nose.
11.
12.
200
When Rowley finished that last drawing, he was
white as a ghost. But I reminded him the worms
were just candy, and that calmed him down.
BACK TO THE KITCHEN. The man runs
into the room with a towel around
his waist.
HUSBAND
Honey! Don’t use the
water! It’s --
But it’s TOO LATE. The woman is a
skeleton.
TREMBLE
13.
201
Now I REALLY started to lose Rowley. I had
to remind him this was all make-believe, and we
had a plastic skeleton that we were gonna use for
this scene. But he was practically hyperventilating.
I realized maybe this was a good place to add
some comedy, so I put in a line of dialogue, and
that brought Rowley right back.
HUSBAND
Well, I guess this
means I’m single! (winks)
FAN
FAN
WHEEZE
WHEEZE
14.
WINK
202
After that was taken care of, it was back to the
action. And the next scene was a BIG one.
The man looks outside. The house is
totally surrounded by night crawlers.
HUSBAND
Oh no! I’m surrounded!
I’d better call the COPS!
The man puts the phone to his ear
and dials 911.
15.
16.
17.
18.
203
HUSBAND
Hello, is this the police?
I am calling to report...
Wait, WHAT THE -- ?
A worm crawls from the phone into
the man’s ear and out the other one.
HUSBAND
AIIEEEEEEE!(dies)
After I finished writing that scene, I realized
this was taking too much time. Plus, there were
some scenes I hadn’t figured out how to shoot
yet, like the battle between the mayor and the
500-foot King Night Crawler at the end of
the movie.
19.
SPLORK
204
Since we weren’t gonna get this whole thing
done in one day, I decided we might as well get
started and shoot the scenes we just wrote.
I found my parents’ camcorder in Mom’s closet,
and luckily there was a film cartridge in the
camera bag. We also borrowed some clothes from
Dad’s closet for Rowley’s first costume, and even
though the pants were a little long, they more or
less fit.
We shot the opening scene, which took about
three times longer than it should’ve because Rowley
had trouble remembering his lines.
After that, it was time to film Rowley as the
guy’s wife.
HI, DEAR. I AM HOME FOR
BREAKFAST. I MEAN TO
TAKE A SHOWER. HAVE
YOU SEE ANY WORMS?
DANG
IT!
205
Rowley wasn’t comfortable wearing one of Mom’s
dresses, so we settled on some yoga pants. We
didn’t have a wig, so Rowley wore a hoodie to
cover his head.
It wasn’t exactly like I had imagined it, but
sometimes you have to just keep things moving.
After we wrapped things up in the kitchen,
we went upstairs to film the bathroom scenes.
Rowley didn’t want to get his hair wet, so he
wore a shower cap we found underneath Mom’s
sink. I found Dad’s bathing suit in one of his
dresser drawers, and Rowley put that on and
got in the shower.
SCRUB
SCRUB
206
It turns out the shower scene was A LOT
harder to film than I expected. I had to shoot
Rowley from the waist up so you couldn’t see that
he was wearing a bathing suit. Plus, I hadn’t
really thought through how to make it look like
worms were coming out of the shower head, and
nothing I did looked right.
Eventually I settled on just throwing worms at
Rowley’s face. Hopefully it’ll look realistic when it’s
all edited together.
SPLAT
TOSS
207
I couldn’t find where Mom kept her food coloring,
so we had to settle for some ketchup for the
blood. It was a little too thick, but it wasn’t the
worst thing in the world, either.
After we wrapped things up in the bathroom, it
was time to go back down to the kitchen. We shot
the skeleton scene pretty quickly, and the hoodie
added something extra to it.
SQUIRT
208
At this point it was getting a little late, and I
was worried we weren’t gonna finish shooting our
scenes before my parents got home. So we hurried
outside and got to work spreading the gummy
worms around the yard.
But I wasn’t satisfied with how this scene was
coming out. There just weren’t enough worms to
make it look scary.
TOSS
SPRINKLE
209
I decided we were gonna have to dip into the
other bag of gummy worms to make the scene
work. But when I opened the door to the
laundry
room, I got a nasty surprise.
I was trying to figure out what to do with
the pig when I heard Rowley screaming in the
kitchen. So I ran out to see what was wrong.
CHEW
SLORK
SLURP
PANT
PANT
210
A bunch of geese were going to TOWN on our
gummy worms, so I opened the door to try to
scare them off. But they wouldn’t budge.
Once the geese finished off the gummy worms,
they wanted MORE. I closed the door, and me
and Rowley hid under the kitchen table to try to
figure out our next move.
HONK!
RAP
RAP
211
I told Rowley the only thing geese are scared
of are other ANIMALS. But before I could say
another word, Rowley was at the window with
Manny’s See-and-Talk.
Now the geese were pecking at the windows, and
I was scared that if we didn’t do something,
they might actually break IN. That’s when I
remembered that the last time Rodrick went trick-
or-treating, he wore this awful wolf mask, which
was still down in the basement.
PULL
PULL
PULL
PULL
DOG
DOG
DOG
DOG
212
I figured if ANYTHING was gonna scare these
geese off, it was THAT.
Me and Rowley ran down to the furnace room to
find the mask. The old Halloween costumes were
in a box on the fourth shelf, so it was a two-man
job to get it down.
I got up on Rowley’s shoulders and reached for
the box, but when I DID I knocked a snow
globe off the shelf. And when THAT happened,
the WITCH went off.
CACKLE
CACKLE
CACKLE
CACKLE
CACKLE
HALLOWEEN
ORNAMENTS
SMASH
XMAS
XMAS
213
I grabbed on to the shelf, and the whole storage
unit came crashing down.
When the dust settled, we were both lucky to
be ALIVE. Once Rowley got free, he shot out