And so we enter: Endgame. Goosebumps HorrorLand has been an interesting revival for the brand after almost a decade of inactivity. Both in terms of doing revivals to classic books or Stine trying to find his groove with new ideas. And while the first 12-book arc gave us some interesting ideas, I did feel the concept ultimately fell flat. But leave it to Jovial Bob Stine to try once again with a second arc, focused more around the mysterious Jonathan Chiller, who lures kids into his gift shop to bring them back for whatever his twisted plan entails. We've had six previous books to build this, can Stine end HorrorLand with grace? Or will we be in for another wet fart finale? It's time to discover The Horror at Chiller House.
COVER STORY
I really like this cover. It's very busy, but not in a way that it feels too distracting. We get Jonathan Chiller front and center, looking just like he's described in the book as a very Ben Franklin-like being. Behind him however is some great creepy imagery as the kids who have been brought back to Chiller House are now facing some grave dangers, almost to the point where they've all met their deaths. We also get Slappy on the cover, but thankfully we don't have him in this story. For the final HorrorLand cover, it's one of the best.
PART ONE: 1960
We get our prologue focusing on a young Jonathan Chiller. He seems like a somewhat normal kid who hates schoolwork and just wants to play, mainly outside. But his mother and father forbid him from much social interaction. Made no better in how his mother forces him to study because he's special. Chiller tries to study with one of his puppets named Droopy, though no relation to the cartoon dog. when he hears his parents arguing in the hall, his father calling him a freak. Chiller snaps back that he's not a freak, then tears apart his Droopy puppet. The next day, as he's once again playing with his toys, his father is still arguing with his mother, saying that it's turning him into a freak and he needs to have a normal life. And the way to be normal is to, of course, hunt turkeys. I mean, this is the sixties, I was worried for a sec he was gonna teach Jonathan to smoke and be really racist.
Mr. Chiller takes Jonathan into the woods to hunt, and of course Jonathan panics a bit, but wants to prove to his father that he can be a man. He raises the crossbow to shoot, only to shoot himself in the foot. The pair return home where Mr. Chiller gives up on the idea of raising his son his way and just lets Mrs. Chiller baby him with toys and force him to study hard. This pisses off young Jonathan who promises that one day he will make everyone obey him.
PART TWO: PRESENT
Ray Gordon is our protagonist again as we continue where we left off. He has once again been transported back to HorrorLand, back to Chiller House. But he's not alone as there's five other kids with him. Andy Meadows, Sam Waters, Jessica Bowen, Meg Oliver and Marco Gonzalez. Although with Meg, this is her second time being warped here given the events of her book. The kids all bring up that they were suddenly whooshed back to Chiller House after dealing with some sort of supernatural event that tied into the item they got from Jonathan Chiller. They try to use their phones to contact the outside world, but no such luck. They look around and find photos of each of them, taken from the security camera in the shop. Each with an arrow in their heads. And not in a fun Steve Martin sort of way.
Chiller shows up and tells them that they were all told that one day they would pay him back, and now it's that day. They'll be able to go home if they play his game. Oh gee, I wonder what Horror movie series Stine was watching in the hiatus? He shows them a Horror doll in a red chest. The game for the kids is to each find a Horror doll in the park. When they do, they can go home. He also hands them each helper cards, with the names of the park patrons that we met through the books. In Ray's case, it's Chef Belcher. Find that helper and show them the card and they will aide them. But oh yeah, there's one more caveat to this game, Chiller and his friends will be hunting them. As in actually hunting them with a crossbow. But at least the arrows have suction cups on them, so the kids are a little relieved. The reason, as expected, is he really wants his dad to know that he was a great hunter. So, part Saw, part The Most Dangerous Game. Should be a shoot... I mean hoot.
PART THREE
The kids head out to the plaza, far from Chiller House. They see the other park patrons leaving HorrorLand as it's closing time, so they believe that maybe they can just leave as well. As they exit however, they get zapped with a jolt of electricity. They're confused at first, but then assume it must be the cards they were handed that have some sort of sensor. They leave the cards on a chocolate chip sushi ice cream cart and try again, only for the metal gate of the park to come down in front of them. They go back to get their cards when, of course, the cart is nowhere in sight. No, wait, it's just a few feet away from them as the horror was just leaving. So they get their cards back.
Believing they can find their designated helpers better, the kids split into groups of two. Marco and Jessica, Andy and Meg, and Sam and Ray. Since Sam remembers his experience with Chef Belcher, he remembers where his restaurant was. They find the Spear-It Cafe and talk to Chef Belcher. He leads them to Wolfsbane Forest, where Sam went during his previous trip to HorrorLand. Belcher leads the kids deep into the woods, then disappears. But luckily for the two, they find one of the chests. Unluckily for the kids, it's being guarded by a swarm of wasps. Ray battles the wasps long enough to grab the box. But when he opens the box, out pops a clown with a sign that says "You Lose". So, this whole endeavor was for naught.
Sam's helper is Mondo the Magical. As the two kids head back from the forest, they get surrounded by werewolves. Before they're torn to shreds however, an arrow flies into a tree. The hunters are close. Ray and Sam deduce that maybe all the boxes are fake, and decide to try and reunite with the others. Marco's helper is Murder the Clown, so they head to the Haunted Theater. The find a sad clown who instructs them to go down to the basement to find Murder. They do so and continue to feel an icy touch that scares them. They soon find Murder who says that the show is about to start.
Ray and Sam do manage to find Marco and Jessica who are having the same issues getting any answers from Murder the Clown. Eventually he agrees to help and leads them to a beach. This beach is, of course, Quicksand Beach and the kids begin to sink. But eventually they stop sinking, as it's all just a game to mess with them. They get out of the sand and find the chest, which has a horror doll inside. Surprisingly, the kids don't fight over who gets to go home, they let Marco take it since it was linked to his card. However, the horror doll breaks in Marco's hands. It's just a hollow chocolate treat. Another lie from a helper. Another trick from Jonathan Chiller.
Suddenly another arrow flies at the kids, only this time the arrow has no suction cup. This is a real one. The kids are panicked, and even Murder the Clown seems bothered by this. The foursome head off to find Andy and Meg. Andy's card has Madame Doom on it, so Murder tells them where she can be found. The kids are also panicked now since maybe they're doomed. Chiller may never send them home. Chiller may be intending to actually kill them. The four find Andy and Meg at the Madame Doom machine. They bring up how this whole game appears to be rigged. Meg brings up how the game she played with Chiller before seemed fair, but is confused as to why that's not the case this time. Suddenly the Madame Doom machine grabs at Meg. Ray gets her free as the fortune card lands on the ground. It says to meet the real Madame Doom.
They find her shop, but are afraid to go inside. Andy just Leroy Jenkins the thing and runs in. After a few minutes, the kids hear a scream and run inside, to which they find Andy, limp and lifeless, with an arrow in his back! The kids panic, but Andy wakes up saying he can't go through with this. Madame Doom told him that if he pretended to be dead to the other kids, she'd give him the horror doll so that he can return home. It finally dawns on Ray and the others. The helpers are the hunters. They were leading them to the traps, trying to put them in vulnerable positions so that they'd be easier to hunt. Madame Doom then starts to chase after the kids with a crossbow. They manage to escape her in time.
The kids are now more frightened than ever, realizing they have no chance to survive until HorrorLand reopens. Suddenly, a pair of horror guards show up, wondering why they're in the park while it's closed. They ask to be let go from the park, but the Horrors decline, since there's no sign of their parents. They lead them to the security office. As they walk by, the kids pass Chiller House. Ray peeks inside and sees Madame Doom removing her makeup. But under the makeup, it's Jonathan Chiller. Ray finally realizes it. Jonathan Chiller is all six of the helpers. Chiller was Murder the Clown, Chef Belcher, Mondo the Magical, Madame Doom, Winner Taikall and Seymour Winn-Doe. He was the one who led the kids to Chiller House. He singled them out, tricked them into purchasing the cursed prizes, and set them all up to be contestants in his game. There were no group of hunters, it was just him the whole time. Not only that, but Ray spots the six chests in his shop. He had them there the whole time. The game was rigged from the start.
The guards continue to lead the kids to the security office, when a scream for help can be heard from the distance. This gives the kids a chance to escape. Jessica mentions that the scream was her throwing her voice. Nice to see Stine actually used continuity for once. The kids make it to the door of Chiller House and confront Chiller, now knowing his ruse. Unfortunately the horror guards return, now ready to drag them to the bottomless barbecue pit to be roasted alive. Of course, that part's a joke. The kids want to go home, but Chiller is far from ready to let them go. Meg improvises, grabbing some robot alien figures from a shelf and setting them up. She asks Chiller if he knows how to work them, hoping he'll be easily distracted. He's easily distracted. This gives the kids the chance to grab the chests, only to find nothing inside.
As Chiller tells the kids that he now plans to shrink their heads, Ray comes up with one last idea to defeat him. Chiller mentioned prior that the personas he created were his only friends. The kids grab the costumes and put them on, screaming "Goodbye" to Chiller. Panicked, Chiller runs to the back room and grabs the real horror dolls. He gives one to each kid and sure enough, the trick works they're all back home.
TWIST ENDING
Ray returns to his room as he sees Brandon standing there staring at him. He tells his brother that it's good to be home at last. But Brandon's confused, he didn't even notice Ray was gone.
EPILOGUE
Chiller fixes up his shop once more. The next day, another pair of kids arrive in his shop, and he offers them a gift, and to take a horror home with him. Meaning that, of course, no lesson was learned.
CONCLUSION
The Horror at Chiller House is a pretty good conclusion to this arc. The plot flows well, we get enough of an explanation as to what Chiller's motives are, we get a lot of really good moments as the kids play through this futile game. And while the twist of Chiller being all of the helpers was obvious pretty much from the first book, it didn't really hurt the plot all that much. Although, I will say making the villain someone with a clear case of multiple personality disorder seems a bit rough to deal with in 2020, again knowing as much as we do now about mental health, but it still works to make him a convincing villain. An actual convincing Goosebumps villain, now that's a breath of fresh air. Ray is the protagonist again and Andy also gets the lion's share of the plot, leaving the other kids with brief moments, but not much else. It's still better than the mass of kids in the prior arc. So, yeah. Stine stuck the landing for once. Not on the mark, but close enough for a high score. Break out the Crayolas and color me tickled pink. Also, and this is something that I didn't realize until it was pointed out to me, Jonathan Chiller's motivations for being evil was...
The Horror at Chiller House gets an A-.
As for the entire arc itself, I liked it a bit more than HorrorLand's first arc. The benefit of it being seven books as opposed to twelve really helped things out. Mainly because we had far less kids to deal with, meaning less kids got shafted for any major moments in the finale. It also gives us more time with the villain of the story, instead of just giving us The Menace in the last couple books and having to cram so much in the last book that it feels bloated. The only real problem with the arc is that it did fall into redundancy really quick. The formula was obvious with each one. Two kids get into some sort of scary situation at HorrorLand thanks in part to one of Chiller's personas. They get led to Chiller House, the protagonist of the book picks an item, and gets told they'll pay later, meaning we end five out of the six books before the finale in the exact same manner. At least Weirdo Halloween tried to make things feel more interesting as Meg had to endure a whole different game.
I applaud R.L. Stine for trying to do a serialized story. Trying to not just create a larger narrative through multiple books, but try to connect the Goosebumps books into a shared universe. It's a concept that I really appreciate and wish Stine had come up with sooner. But this format came with some major sacrifices. Twist endings, the bread and butter of Goosebumps suffered as there were literally zero stakes in any of them. Oh, more aliens came to Earth after Bim left? Not an issue because we gotta get Meg back to HorrorLand. Sam's friend Lexi is now a feral beast? We'll just leave that unfinished as we have to bring Sam back to HorrorLand. Losing that piece to the plot really just hurts the books. Another is the endings and how I wish Stine really tried to spice them up a bit. Again, only Weirdo Halloween bucked the trend as it was a larger book. Every other one ends the same way, so it just feels like Stine just copy and pasted. And I know that's something Stine's known to do a lot (trust me, I know that well by now), but here it feels more blatant and really takes away from the more original ideas he could have come up with.
So in summation, I'm glad HorrorLand exists. It brought Goosebumps back after its eight year sleep, and it's still around to this day for a new generation to enjoy. I think Stine had ambitious ideas and really wanted to make something special. And while it didn't reach the lofty goals he had hoped for, it is at least a memorable series of books. In fact, it was meant to continue on as a third arc, but the HorrorLand branding was dropped for the next series, Hall of Horrors. But that's a story for another time.
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