by Zakiyyah Madyun, Staff Writer

For this year’s SpookyJawn, I’ll be covering a series of adaptations that haunted my impressionable young mind and frequently appeared in my nightmares: Goosebumps. My credentials? A scavenged childhood book collection, several with holographic covers, an inherited VHS set to match, and a lifelong fear of Slappy.

The Goosebumps series features all forms of lackadaisical parenting techniques, but no couple raises child-endangerment alarms like the Morrises. Mr. Morris in particular is a cartoonishly stupid husband, covering every trope from, “I don’t need directions” to “the kids are fine.” If the true horror of this episode is childhood trauma and a doomed marriage with no divorce on the horizon, One Day of HorrorLand collects five of five Goosebumps. After a brief introduction from our honorable Robert Lawrence Stein, we’re off to the races.

The story is as follows: on a road trip in search of “Zoo Gardens,” the Morris family takes a wrong turn and stumbles upon HorrorLand. They decide this is a reasonable replacement, and head inside. HorrorLand is run by all manner of monsters and features increasingly painful attractions. This episode zones in on claustrophobia. In one scene, a hall of mirrors closes in to crush the Morris kids, and in another they’re trapped in coffins and pushed to the bottom of a stream. The idea of being locked in a coffin and thrown into a river conjures fear even in my adulthood, so I have to give this scene four of five Goosebumps.

It isn’t long until the true nature of HorrorLand is revealed in a dramatic plot twist. The family is being secretly filmed throughout the park for a show called HorrorLand Hidden Camera. Hosted by the undoubtedly Nickelodeon approved “Retch Sniff,” the Morrises are shuttled into hair and makeup and lured into participating in the next program, “Raw Deal.”

My favorite thing about this episode is that the bait to participate in “Raw Deal” is the promise of a new car. The National Lampoon levels of excitement on the Morris parents' faces is respectable. My second favorite thing is that the punishment for losing is being eaten by Ripper the Killer Beast. All in all, One Day at HorrorLand is an unusually bumpy and exceedingly goofy ride, even for a series featuring a book called Egg Monsters from Mars. It’s only getting two out of five Goosebumps, and one of those is for Ripper.