The Ten Most Piss-Your-Pants Horrific Goosebumps Books Ever
By: Michael Lee
My fascination with Goosebumps by R.L. Stine started at a very young age. I think I read my first one at age 7, Slowly becoming obsessed with each one I read. It eventually got up to the point that EVERYTIME I went to the mall I had to stop by the book store and buy two or three at one time. I must say though that overtime I became less and less interested in them (like everything else as a kid) but like Pokemon, they have suddenly sprung back into my life with awkward nostalgia. Awkward because I never really knew just how dumb some of them really were. Was there really a need for a fourth "Monster Blood"? A "Deep Trouble II"? No. There wasn't. But I must admit that there are certain books that, looking back, scared the living bejebus outta me and I still remember them very vividly to this day. Now that I'm older and have looked back on my collection, I have organized a list of my favorite Goosebumps books, based solely on how I remember I acted toward them. "Reader beware-- you're in for a scare..."
10) "Curse of Camp Cold Lake"
Back-Of-The-Book Description: "Camp is supposed to be fun, but Sarah hates Camp Cold Lake.
The lake is gross and slimy. And she's having a little trouble with her bunkmates. They hate her.
So Sarah comes up with a plan. She'll pretend to drown--then everyone will feel sorry for her.
But things don't go exactly the way Sarah planned. Because down by the cold, dark lake someone is
watching her. Stalking her.
Someone with pale blue eyes. And a see-through body..."
I don't remember much about this book, mainly because I can't remember if I read it or not. That doesn't mean It doesn't belong on the list however, for as a 3rd grader that cover scared the sh*t out of me. Look at that and tell me it doesn't look like a movie poster for a bad 80's movie. This book makes the list for having a cover so scary I didn't even have to read it for it to traumatize me.
9) "Monster Blood II"
Back-Of-The-Book Description: "Evan Ross can't stop thinking about Monster Blood and what happened last summer. It was so horrible. So terrifying. Too bad Evan's science teacher doesn't believe him. Now he's stuck cleaning out the hamster's cage as punishment for making up stories.
Then Evan's friend Andy comes to town, and things go from bad to worse. Because Andy's got a present for Evan. It's green and slimy and it's starting to grow..."
The main thing I remember about this book is a) I read this entire book in a 3-hour stay at a trailer park while my parents visited an old friend of theirs, and b) in this book there is A GIANT F*CKING HAMSTER! Also, there is like, five or six dream sequences in this book and things about cliffs and stuff. I can't really remember, but nothing catches my attention quite like giant hamsters foaming monster blood from their mouth!
8) "Egg Monsters From Mars"
Back-Of-The-Book Description: "An egg hunt. That's what Dana Johnson's bratty little sister, Brandy, wants to have at her birthday party. And whatever Brandy wants, Brandy gets.
Dana's not big on egg hunts. But that was before he found The Egg. It's not like a normal egg. It's about the size of a softball. It's covered with ugly blue and purple veins.
And it's starting to hatch..."
Like everyone of the editorials I write, I have to include my biases somewhere. This article about "Egg Monsters From Mars" would be that somewhere as it was the very fist Goosebumps book I bought/read. And for a 7 year old, it was an introduction to a new world of suspense, fantasy, a little egg creatures that turn out to be friendly. Yeah I know that sound kind of lame, but the antagonist turns out to be a scientist that in some way is related to the egg monsters (most notably, they smother him. Dead. That's a relationship right?). Anyways, I like this book alot and while I have heard quite a bit of criticism on how stupid the plot is, I've come to determine everybody else is just wrong.
7) "Say Cheese And Die!"
Back-Of-The-Book Description: "Greg thinks there is something wrong with the old camera he and his friends found. The photographs keep turning out wrong. Very wrong. Like the snapshot Greg took of his father's new car that shows it totaled. And then Greg's father is in a nasty wreck.
But Greg's friends don't believe him. Shari even makes Greg bring the camera to her birthday party and take her picture.
Only Shari's not in the photograph when it develops.
Is Shari about to be taken out of the picture permanently?
Who is going to take the next fall for...
the evil camera?"
I'm pretty damn sure that the whole moral to this book is "DO NOT STEAL!", but that's not what I took from it. I received chills instead, especially during the chapter where a boy steps on a rusty nail and it stabs him right through the foot. Not in it, no it went through it! That stuff never happened on "Rugrats" or " The Angry Beavers" (great name for a kids show, by the way) So that was a totally eye-opening experience to image such gruesomeness, even though it's tame by today's standards with GTA and all.
6) "Attack Of The Mutant"
Back-Of-The-Book Description: "Skipper Matthews has an awesome comic book collection. His favorite one is called The Masked Mutant. It's about an evil supervillain who's out to rule the universe!
Skipper can't get enough of The Mutant. Until one day he gets lost in a strange part of town. And finds a building that looks exactly like The Mutant's secret headquarters. A building that appears and disappears.
Has Skipper read one too many comic books? Or does The Masked Mutant really live in Riverview Falls?"
Molecular-melters, overweight comic-book collectors, and disappearing pink-and-green secret headquarters. They are all in this book, and I must say, I think if there was one thing that got me interested in comic books this might be it. I know, that's pretty lame. But you know what isn't lame? Adam West! He was actually featured in the TV episode adapted from this book! Also, this was the set-up for one of two Goosebumps video games. Oh yeah, and spoiler, the kid bleeds comic book ink at the very end. F*cking molecular-melters.
5) "A Shocker On Shock Street"
Back-Of-The-Book Description: "Erin Wright and her best friend, Marty, love horror movies. Especially Shocker on Shock Street Movies. All kinds of scary creatures live on Shock Street. The Toadinator. Ape Face. The Mad Mangler.
But when Erin and Marty visit the new Shocker Studio Theme Park, they get the scare of their lives.
First their tram gets stuck in The Cave of the Living Creeps. Then they're attacked by a group of enormous praying mantises!
Real life is a whole lot scarier than the movies. But Shock Street isn't really real. Is it?"
Did you actually read the back-of-the-book description? "The Toadinator. Ape Face. The Mad Mangler."... I'm pretty sure R.L. Stien should make B-movies. F*ck Goosebumps, they haven't been cool since the late '90s and the constant reboots are unnecessary. I want to see "The Toadinator" and dammit I want to see it now! But seriously, back to the book. This is another book with a pretty twisted ending as the characters you've just spent horrors reading about are suddenly revealed to be robots that the Shocker Studio Theme Park engineers built to test out all the rides. F*cking fantastic. The engineers for a theme park built two robots that had feelings and everything and the best use they had for them was to test out some rides. The scientists in "A.I." took years and years to build just one robot with emotions and held it as their greatest invention ever! Well, I suppose fighting giant mechanical insects is a better use for robots than letting the robots spend a whole movie searching for the Blue Fairy, because he wanted his mommy back. Like I said, R.L. Stein should make movies.
4) "How To Kill A Monster"
Back-Of-The-Book Description: "Gretchen and her stepbrother, Clark, hate staying at their grandparents' house. Grandpa Eddie is totally deaf. And Grandma Rose is obsessed with baking. Plus, they live in the middle of a dark, muddy swamp.
Things couldn't get any worse, right? WRONG.
Because there's something really weird about Grandma and Grandpa's house. Something odd about that room upstairs. The one that's locked. The one with the strange noises coming from it. Strange growling noises."
This book has one of my favorite endings ever. After being abandoned by their grandparents in a house with a monster on the loose, our two protagonist spend the whole book trying to kill said swamp beast. once they finally succeed, R.L. Stein does the absolutely cold heartest thing possible and writes our characters right into a forest with hundreds of monsters ready to avenge their fallen brother. R.L. Stein, you're a dick.
3) "The Haunted Mask"
Back-Of-The-Book Description: "How ugly is Carly Beth's Halloween mask? It's so ugly that it almost scared her little brother to death. So terrifying that even her friends are totally freaked out by it.
It's the best Halloween mask ever. It's everything Carly Beth hoped it would be. And more.
Maybe too much more. Because Halloween is almost over.
And Carly Beth is still wearing that special mask..."
"The Haunted Mask" is probably the most well known Goosebumps book, seeing how it does have one of the most shocking twist endings ever and has been adapted into one of the few good episodes of the television series. Also, it has one of the best chapter transitions ever:
"Carly Beth pulled open the door-- and uttered a startled cry.
...
'QUAAAAAAACCCK!'"
So duck costumes, worm eating, and gorilla masks aside, this is one solid Goosebumps book and is absolutely terrifying.
2) "One Day At Horrorland"
Back-Of-The-Book Description:"The Morris family got lost trying to find Zoo Gardens Theme Park. But that's okay. They found another amusement park instead. It's called HorrorLand.
In HorrorLand there are no crowds. No lines. And the admission is free. It seems like a pretty cool place.
But that was before that heart-stopping ride on the deadly Doom Slide. And that terrifying experience in the House of Mirrors.
Because there's something weird about the rides in HorrorLand.
Something a little too creepy.
A little too real..."
The purpose of this book: Three kids go to a horror themed amusement park that has the sole goal of trying to murder them in strangely entertaining ways. Doom Slides, a Guillotine Museum, the narrator getting their chest caved in by an ape-monster on live television, sorta reminds me of another horror series that murders people in creatively named/constructed death traps. A little horror series I like to refer to as "SAW"... only this book is for kids and is set in an amusement park run by monsters. Hm... SAW VII anybody?
1) "Calling All Creeps!"
Back-Of-The-Book Description:"Ricky Beamer is furious when he gets kicked off the school paper. So he decides to play a joke on Tasha, the bossy editor in chief. Just a little joke. Harmless, really.
After school one day he sticks a message in the paper. If you're a creep, call Tasha after midnight, it reads.
But somehow Ricky's message gets messed up. And now he's getting calls. Strange calls from kids who say they are creeps. Creeps with scaly purple skin. And long sharp fangs..."
Without a doubt, hands-down, My favorite book in the entire series. Wanna know why? Well besides the fact that the cover of "Calling All Creeps!" looks as if the raptors from Jurassic Park are dressed up as urban 1990's street kids, this book has my favorite Goosebumps twist ending ever. At a bake sale, our main character Ricky tries to think of a way to stop people from eating cookies which have been tainted by the alien creeps to turn anybody who eats them into lizard monsters. His solution: grab a megaphone and tell everyone not to eat the cookies or they'll turn into monsters. This plan doesn't work since everybody knows that middle-schoolers are total douchebags, and the student body throws food at him, taunting and mocking him. The Creeps ask Ricky why he isn't handing out the cookies. They tell him that once they all turn into Creeps, they'll become his slaves. Ricky considers this, and then personally hands cookies out to everybody at the entire school. F*ck the middle-schoolers, Ricky is a douche. A Douche who is about to have an entire army of purple alien velociraptors to do his bidding. High-five Ricky! You sir have lived out the dreams of losers everywhere!
Oh, one last thing: F*ck this episode of TV series. F*ck it long, and f*ck it hard. Turning The Creeps into yellow muppets. How do TV execs sleep at night?
Michael Lee is a writer for Nerdism Comics, and believes TV execs probably sleep on large piles of money, but that's besides the point.. You can write to him at Nerdismcomics@yahoo.com
