“As we entered the gates to Horrorland, we had no idea that, in less than an hour, we would all be lying in our coffins…”
The Morris family is on a vacation to visit Zoo Gardens Theme Park, but Mr. Morris accidentally left the map at home and so they wander for a while, while their car is lost along various unknown backroads. In the backseat, Lizzy (the “calm” elder sister) is annoyed with her energetic younger brother Luke and his friend Clay, who are constantly pinching one another. Suddenly, they spot a billboard with a scary monster head that reads: “Welcome to Horrorland Where Nightmares Come to Life!”
At Luke’s insistence, they head a mile up the road to Horrorland, an old tree-lined theme park with tall purple fences, eerie organ music, and a nearly empty parking lot. Despite feeling a bit trepidatious at this horror-inspired theme park, they decide to get out of the car and stretch their legs for a while. However, moments later, their car suddenly explodes in the parking lot! Trapped, they rush into Horrorland, where Mom and Dad urgently try to find a telephone while the three kids (Lizzy, Luke, and Clay) are left to wander around the park alone.
Here they encounter the theme park employees, people wearing large green monster costumes called “Horrors” with bulging yellow eyes, dark curled horns, and purple tails. But unsurprisingly, Horrorland seems to be far more terrifying than they initially thought. It seems like a horror movie all over with brown cobble-stoned streets, dark cottages, the sounds of howling and screams everywhere, and tall trees blocking out the sunlight. The whole park seems oddly clean. Various Horrors can be seen roaming about selling black ice cream, black balloons, and one Horror is apparently carrying a human head. One Horror warns the children: “Get away while you can!”
Along the way, the kids encounter a variety of attractions: “Werewolf Village,” “Doom Slide,” “House of Mirrors,” “Vampire Village,” “Monster Zoo,” “Guillotine Museum,” “Free Fall” (a bungee jump without a cord), and “Coffin Cruise.” They separated down the seemingly endless “Doom Slide” before getting trapped and nearly crushed inside the “House of Mirrors.” They face bats inside the “Bat Barn,” as well as alligators in a pond and spiders in the “Coffin Cruise,” and snakes hanging from trees above an old rickety wooden roller coaster with a sign reading: “Out of Order. Do you dare to ride it anyway?” Ultimately, the kids decide the signs all over the park are simply goofy, not intended to be too scary, especially all the many signs reading “No pinching!” posted everywhere.
“I mean, maybe this place really is evil… And maybe the Horrors or somebody did something bad to Mom and Dad” (78).
Eventually, the kids reunite with their parents and they all try to escape the park together, only to find a huge padlocked fence at the entrance –they have been locked inside! Then dozens of Horrors emerge and surround them. The lead female MC Horror steps forward and reveals to the Morris family that the Horrors have actually been secretly filming them on a hidden camera reality show called: “Horrorland Hidden Camera.” In shock, Lizzy discovers the Horrors are, in fact, real monsters. the family is offered a new car and tricked into a final survival challenge wherein they are attacked by all manner of terrifying creatures (amazingly, all five survive the challenge) before they are nearly forced into a gurgling purple pond that threatens to swallow them up.
But Lizzy saves the day when she suddenly manages to figure out the Horror’s weakness –pinching! Hence, all the “No Pinching!” signs throughout the park. When she pinches a Horror, it deflates. The Morris family then pinches the Horrors and flees from Horrorland. Stealing a bus, they drive all the way back home… only to find a Horror still clinging to the back of the bus in their driveway. He darkly remarks: “We forgot to give you your free passes for next year!”
I had high expectations for One Day at Horrorland –I remembered it being very scary as a child– but it wound up being a lot sillier than I remembered. The first half of the book is well-suited for a children’s horror novel, with plenty of creepiness and terror lurking around every corner in this utterly huge amusement park (from the forever Doom Slide to the claustrophobic Coffin Cruise), but the book’s conclusion wound up being a bit too goofy for me with the hidden camera reality show twist and ‘pinching’ as they way to waylay the Horrors. It’s all a bit disappointing as I was hoping for a better reveal. Uniquely, however, in One Day at Horrorland the adults are all in on the mystery (they do not doubt or gaslight the children unlike in other Goosebumps books). Once again, Tim Jacobus’s cover artwork steals the show!
Stine, R.L. One Day at Horrorland. Scholastic, Inc., New York, NY, 1994.