Sara: Let me preface this review by saying that scary movies, books, and tv shows no longer have the power to be as terrifying as they used to be, thanks to modern technology. With the invention of cell phones, GPS, and keychain mase, things just aren’t the same. This book is no exception.
The random ghostwriter R. L. Stine includes negligent parental units, obvious foreshadowing techniques, and a really awful conclusion to yet another Goosebumps book. Ahh, it feels like home already. Onward we go….
Lorraine: Welcome to Horrorland, where nightmares come to life! Also: a ferris wheel.
Sara: The story begins in a car on a family vacation to a not-so-local theme park. Most of you probably don’t remember this, but way back in the olden times, before GPS or Google Maps, people had to take a real life map and…. figure out directions on their own! Gasp! I know, right? Ew. How awful for them.
Lor: No GPS? This book IS scary! I wouldn’t have made it back in olden times. I’m pretty sure I get lost looking at the mall directory, which is to say that I can’t read a map to save my life. Something tells me that neither can these people.
Sara: Unfortunately for the Morris family, Daddy Morris forgot the map at home.
Lor: Oh.
Sara: This would usually be the point where Mom and Pop Morris ask their elementary school aged children to figure out how to work that damn iPhone contraption and get that GPS thing all the kids are using these days to tell them how to get to the theme park. But alas, the days of yonder year did not allow for this, and the children are forced to actually converse with their parents rather than watch Yogi Bear for the 935th time on the back of the headrest.
Lizzy (daughter), Luke (son), and Clay (creepy tagalong kid) (Lor: What the heck is up with RL Ghostwriter and tagalongs? Talk about childhood trauma. He has it.) are in the backseat, annoying the shit out of each other, as children on a road trip tend to do. The classic “stop touching me!” and “I’m not touching youuuuuu….” and “Moooooommmmm” routine is happening, and I’m suddenly reminded of how thankful I am that I never had an annoying little brother.
Mom and Pop Morris have apparently been driving forfuckingever through the desert, trying to find this theme park, which leads me to several questions.
1. How long exactly did it take for them to realize they forgot the map, and how did they even make it to the middle of nowhere without it?
2. How did they get to the middle of nowhere without passing a gas station in which they could purchase a new map?
3. If they didn’t have enough money to purchase a new map, why didn’t they turn around and go retrieve the original map from their home?
Ha ha, silly me, thinking that Goosebumps parents would do the most rational thing in a stupid situation.
Lor: Maybe someone gave them some of those really annoying directions like, “Just drive. You can’t miss it! If you come across a nightmare theme park, with a scary looking eye-raping monster, you’ve gone just a bit too far.”
Sara: While Mom and Pop argue about who actually left the map at home and who won’t be receiving a blow jay at the end of this vacation, (Lor: The eye-raping Monster?) the kids in the back are being obnoxious kids. Luke keeps pinching Lizzy to be a dick, and then he pinches Clay, and he also pinches Lizzy, too, and HEY, GUYS, DID WE MENTION THAT LUKE IS PINCHING PEOPLE AND THIS MAY BE IMPORTANT LATER?
What was that, Goosebumps? I couldn’t quite hear you over the dull roar happening in my brain right now.
Mama Morris is all, “WTF, where are we, I just now decided to get concerned and we must! find! that! map! because we haven’t seen a road sign or billboard or person in years” and Daddy Morris is all, “I’m pulling over the car right now to look for that map, because you’re an incompetent woman and women can’t read maps or find anything or drive and also, their brains are smaller, too,” and Lizzy is all, “ZOMG, scary billboard alert! There’s a monster staring at me with rapeyoueyes!” and I’m all, “Uh, didn’t you guys just fucking say two sentences ago that there wasn’t a billboard anywhere around?”
Lor: That was two sentences ago, Sara. GOSH. Way to be the continuity police.
Sara: The billboard is advertising a theme park called Horrorland, and what do you know! It’s only one mile down the road! In the middle of nowhere! That’s not suspicious at all!
The kids beg to go to Horrorland, because they’re bored and ready to get out of the car. Ma and Pa Morris spend about two milliseconds thinking that this might not be the safest idea ever, but then they decide that safety is silly, so fuck it! Let’s go!
The Morris family arrives at the theme park, but no other cars are in the parking lot. “Hm, I guess we’re the first ones here!” says Papa Morris cheerfully, and I immediately start picturing a National Lampoon moment.
The family piles out of the vehicle and makes their way to the ticket booth. As they walk away, they hear a giant ROAR and turn around to see this:
Lor: Hopefully she was in the car already. JAYKAY. I love that girl.
Sara: The entire family goes all WTF for a few minutes, but not as WTF as I would have gone, as I probably would have thrown myself in the flames in over-dramatic agony. Instead of registering that it is crazy suspect for a car to explode into flames out of nowhere, they’re all, “Oh, I guess the car was just broken. Good thing we’re alive. Let’s get a rental car!”
Lor: I wonder if all the broken crap in the Morris home spontaneously combusts. BOOM. “Oh! Toaster’s on the fritz again…”
Sara: The family walks up to the ticket booth, and Daddy Morris tells the monster in the really great costume that he needs a phone because his car just fucking exploded. The monster in the really great costume is all, “We don’t have phones here. But come on into Horrorland, free of charge. We’ll take care of you. *creepy smile*”
These parents are Goosebumps parents, so of course they’re like, “Well, okay, whatevs, we weren’t doing anything else and this isn’t suspicious at all, so let’s do this shit!”
They enter the park, and Daddy Morris is all, “Oh shit! I forgot! We need a phone on account of our car being blown up. And even though the monster in the really great costume told me there are no phones here, I’m going to let y’all wander off alone while I look for a phone, and oh yeah, we don’t have cell phones because we live in the dark ages, so we also have no way to get in touch with each other when we’re lost in this big ass park and this is starting to be the most awesome vacation ever, amiright?” Mother Morris decides to go with her husband and leave the kids wandering around the park by themselves because…. well, there is no because. She’s just an awful mother, and WHERE THE HELL IS CPS, YO?
The kids wander off and see some signs that say, “No Pinching”. THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR. MAYBE THEY WILL BRING IT UP LATER, HM?
They wander around the park observing creepy things until they come upon the Doom Slide. The sign reads, ‘You may be the one to slide to your doom!’ Ten tubes are lined up in a row, and each kid is supposed to pick one to slide down. One of them is the Doom Slide and will lead you to your death, and this is the part where I start getting stoked because that little brother is annoying, and I’m ready for him to step.
Lor: A normal person’s thought process: Hmmm, a 1/10 chance of dying, all for the opportunity to ride slippery plastic for approximately 5 seconds? NO THANKS.
Then again, normal people would’ve probably never left the house without a map and keychain mase.
Sara: And don’t forget the GPS!
Lizzy, Luke, and Clay each choose a slide and set off. The boring non-doomy slide is lame as shit, and I’m pretty sure I’d rather just be in the doom slide so a little something exciting might happen. Unfortunately, Lizzy and Luke fall out of the tubes safely, but oh noes! Clay is nowhere to be found! (And if I was Clay’s mother, I would be highly irritated with Mr. and Mrs. MorrASS for taking my kid to a creepy theme park in the middle of nowhere without phones or maps or OH YEAH, A CAR. Then again, she is a Goosebumps mother…) (Lor: Clay’s parents are probably fat or divorced (ew.) which means they don’t really care about him.)
Sara: Lizzy and Luke set off to find Clay. Their idea is to go on the doom slide again but choose the slide Clay went in. This idea is actually pretty good for a couple of dumb kids. The kids head down the slide, and they encounter deathly, terrifying, awful, disgusting things!
LOL JAYKAY y’all, this is a Goosebumps book. They really just run into some cobwebs and a fake, computer generated fire. Watch out, Saw XIII, Horrorland takes the cake on scary shit!
Lor: And watch out Teen Mom 11ty, Goosebumps also takes the cake on good parenting!
And also, watch out Fat!Robin, Goosebumps is taking all of your cake.
Okay. Done now.
Sara: Clay is waiting at the bottom of the slide, and the kids are all OMG SO HAPPY because Clay isn’t dead. Even though Luke was so scared he almost wet himself, he pretends he thought the slide was awesome because he’s a boy and boys are stupid.
Rather than realize that this park is obviously fucked up, the kids decide that they must go into the House of Mirrors instead of finding their freaking parents who are probably halfway across the park by this point. While in the House of Mirrors, they all get stuck in a room with glass walls and no door.
Lor: …but… no door… how did they…if there’s not a…
Sara: No, I don’t understand, either. Just roll with it.
The glass suddenly starts moving in on all sides, and oh noes! The kids are going to be squished to death! But wait…. the floor drops out and suddenly the kids are safe again! Wow, this park really sucks at killing people. I’m pretty sure Six Flags has had more deaths than Horrorland at this point.
After going through a few more creepy things, the kids finally meet up with Ma and Pa Morris. Lizzy is flipping her shit and telling her parents she wants to go home, but they obviously don’t care (Goosebumps parents, remember?) and tell her that it’s totally not weird that she almost died several times and they all need to go on a ride as a family.
Lor: You know what they say: The family that dies together, um… is dead.
Sara: The family decides on a Lazy River type ride, in which each person lays in a freaking coffin and floats down a river. Um, wow. That sounds…. super fun? WTF? Who are these people, the Addams Family?
Everyone is calmly floating down the river, enjoying themselves, when ALL OF A SUDDEN. The coffin slams closed! And no one can get them open! And they feel spiders crawling all over them, but there’s nothing they can do! Oh, Horrorland, you finally made something scary!
Except that the coffins open up, and there are no spiders, and everyone climbs out, safe as can be.
SERIOUSLY, HORRORLAND? 0 for 3 billionty. FAIL.
Lor: I was going to say something about this being the first time we’re actually rooting for death in a book but then I remembered Kristy from BSC. And the Wakefields from Sweet Valley. And Nancy mothereffin’ Drew and well, kids books should really look into featuring more deaths.
Sara: I don’t remember rooting for death this much when I was reading these books as a kid. You have to admit, they would be a bit more edgy if they killed a minority character off here and there.
The family is finally creeped out enough to decide they need to get the fuck out of Horrorland. HM, YEAH, I COULD HAVE TOLD YOU THAT, LIKE, 100 PAGES AGO. They get to the front gate, but oh noes again! The doors are all locked! They can’t get out! Maybe if they had only listened to me…
Everyone finally starts to panic, like they should have been doing 100 pages ago. Suddenly, they notice that the monsters in the really great costumes are surrounding them. Ruh roh!
The family is flipping their shiz when all of a sudden, the monsters in the really great costumes are all, “Hey, I don’t know if you noticed all this super subtle foreshadowing in the past 100 pages, but WE’RE NOT ACTUALLY IN REALLY GREAT COSTUMES LOLZ.” Whoa! Foreshadowing? In a Goosebumps book? Huh. That’s odd. Except OH YEAH, IT ISN’T.
The monsters inform the family that they are real, actual, totally not fake monsters. And all those traumatizing, death-filled rides they went on? All of that was filmed for a reality show on the Monster Channel!
What’s really great about this book is that the ghostwriter R. L. Stine was sitting around, trying to figure out the most ridiculous, silly, over-the-top, would-never-happen plot for finishing up this book, and he came up with a reality television show that scares the living shit out of its contestants to the point of serious emotional trauma. Spot on, Stine! What jackass would ever seriously do that?
The idea that people scoffed at the thought of scaring the bejeezus out of innocent bystanders ten years ago and now it’s actually happening gives me hope for the future of Sadistic Hidden Video. (If you get that reference, marry me?)
The monsters tell the Morris family that it was all in good fun, and they went all Oprah style and bought the family a brand! new! car! The family is all “OMG LOL I didn’t even put any makeup on this morning and HAHA we never even saw this coming, what a fun vacation!” because the Morris family is a bunch of fucking lunatics.
I mean, I know we’ve dealt with parents who turn their dogs into children, steal babies from their ex’s homes, and don’t see anything wrong with their kid macking on a sponge, but seriously, Mr. and Mrs. Morris? SERIOUSLY?? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think these Goosebumps parents wanted something awful to happen to their kids.
Everyone is all excited because they survived! and new car! and yay vacation! Wait, did we almost die back there? Meh, fuck it. NBD, really.
The monsters bid them adieu and send them on their way to the exit.
EXCEPT! The monsters are tricking them! The family is sent down a hallway with monster after monster attacking them. An announcer’s voice can be heard over the roar of the monsters and the screaming of the family. “Will the Morris family be intelligent enough to figure out how to survive? We’re guessing not! Stay tuned to find out!”
After surviving past a few lame-sounding monsters, Lizzy is on the ground, unaware of what is going on around her. She hears the announcer’s voice once again. “Three out of our five contestants have survived and finished the game!”
OH SNAP! Did someone die? Did two someones die? Did Horrorland finally accomplish their original goal?!
“Oh, uh, mybad, looks like all of them made it through.”
DAMN IT.
The family gathers together as monsters surround them once again. Lizzy is scared and thinking, “I could have sworn Sara mentioned something earlier that I would need to know later….” and then she stops being a dumb bitch and remembers that this entire book has been yelling PINCHING at her for like, forever. She reaches out and pinches one of the monsters, and it….. deflates. What the….?
The family pinches the rest of the monsters as well, and they all deflate and float away like popped balloons. Yay Lizzy! She figured out the secret way to kill them! Except, really, how secret was it? They advertised the exact way to kill them all over the goddamn park. If anyone hangs out with Superman, will you check and see if he has any “No Kryptonite” posters hanging around his room?
The Morris family runs out to the parking lot as fast as they can to drive off to safety in their shiny new car. YES, THEY REALLY STILL THINK THE NEW CAR IS REAL. Everybody, say a little thank you prayer for your parents right now, please.
Since the monsters didn’t actually get the Morris family a new car (THEY DIDN’T??), the whole family jumps on one of the Horrorland buses and hauls ass back home. Even though they don’t have a map. And they were totally lost. And there’s no GPS or iPhone. Huh.
The family finally pulls into the driveway at home, ready to put this awful nightmare behind them. “No more vacations for a while!” they giggle, completely forgetting that they’ve committed at least three felonies in the past eight hours and have almost been murdered numerous times. Aha, silly vacations!
And then Throat Punch Todd jumps out from the back of the bus and socks Mr. Morris right in his stupid face. And then a youth mauling bear jumps out from the back of the bus and eats the rest of the family, except for Clay, because it’s totally not his fault the Morris family is fucking crazy.
Okay, okay, that’s not really what happened.
A monster from Horrorland jumps out from the back of the bus and hands the Morris family free passes to get back into the theme park the following weekend. And scene.
Uh, wow. The youth mauling bears are sounding a whole lot better right about now.
Random ghostwriter person R. L. Stine, call me.
Lor: Maybe you noticed that I pretty much went silent for the last half of this recap. I’m having a huge Josie Grosie, “I DON’T HAVE ANY WORDS,” moment right now. Mostly, it consists of me, not having any words.
I just… I don’t even know.
Like, maybe most of this stuff wouldn’t be so entirely ridiculous if maybe the books were marketed differently. Like R.L Stine’s Books of Awesomely Random Absurdity. See? Cool.
But where the heck is the scary? WHERE THE HELL IS THE SENSE?
I guess all you have to do to scare a kid is include the word “monster” in some text that also has really bad parenting, and stand back to watch the trauma unfold.
Sara: Or R. L. Stine’s Books of You Wish The Characters Would All Get Mauled By Youth Eating Bears and Then Throat Punched by Todd Afterwards? I smell a new series in the works!
I'm a 30-something with three kids who spends an embarrassing amount of time watching teen television dramas. There's a whole lot of Internet out there, and I plan on reading all of it before I die.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
