Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland

by: Michael J. Gonsiorek Jr.

Today’s youth has no idea what terror is. Not only do they get terrible horror movies and remakes such as Prom Night as opposed to classics that I grew up with such as… Prom Night. Okay not fair, that was before my time. I grew up during the Nightmare on Elm Street era. Cinema options aside, their literary brand of horror comes catered to them these days a la sparkly vampires in Twilight. I know these books are more young adult romance novels than horror, but I’m trying to be current and get in a jab at the pop culture phenomenon. That is why I am proud to have grown up during the Goosebumps era. Sure they are as about as scary as the Twilight saga (and as poorly written too…there goes my zing), but like Meyer’s novels something about them caught the attention of a nation. Goosebumps was also not gender specific, so it is safe to say that they were quite the craze.

It is only natural that a video game was cranked out to steal more money from our parents continue the epic tale of Horrorland. Based off the Goosebumps novel #16 “One Day at Horrorland”, Escape from Horrorland reunites the player with the Morris family. Apparently the denizens of Horrorland felt that the Morris’s got away too easily. That’s pretty much your whole story. The main objective is to find your parents who got sucked into a portal to Horrorland just before you. Most of the game has you follow Lizzy, who is looking for her brother Luke and his friend Clay. Horrorland is broken up into about five major areas. Most areas from the book are covered and a few more are introduced.


Werewolf Villiage...human population: 0

The game is a point-and-click adventure game. Your inventory is accessed by moving your cursor to the bottom of the screen to access a fanny pack (Oh, I love the 90’s). Most of what you come across will be coins, which serve only to access machines that give you clues. They kind of act like a health bar when you encounter something that can hit you, which is pointless because, as far as I can tell, you can’t die if it reaches zero. There are a few times in which you are being chased by a werewolf or another generic Halloween creature, but you can also explore Horrorland through tunnels. It is within these tunnels that the game scares the poop out of me. It’s much in the vein of the original Doom with the first person perspective and blurry graphics. The only thing is that you don’t have a BFG, but there is a horrible, gigantic monster chasing you. If you are caught, you are kicked out of the tunnels back to wherever you started. These tunnels provide needless shortcuts in between the different sections of Horrorland. The areas are not spaced out that much and it’s not like you have to go through many areas to access another. You can also skip the transitioning FMV which takes up unnecessary time.


Mmmm...crunchy creepy crawlies.

It may be that I played the game a lot in my younger days, but a game that took me hours to beat lasted about an hour on my play through for this review. It is supposed to be Horrorland not Horror-hop-skip-and-a-jump-town. When we got our first Acer computer back in the day, it came with a copy of Are You Afraid of the Dark? : The Tale of Orpheo’s Curse. That game is set within a theater and as far as I can remember, it seems a lot bigger than this Horrorland.

That gripping aside, this game is entertaining. It appears that they tried to put as many Goosebumps references as they could into the game, and they even have a few bigger name actors in here. Jeff Goldblum plays Dracula, and he is no different than any other character he plays; which is Jeff Goldblum trying to act, but ending up as Jeff Goldblum. Isabella Rossellini is in here, and then there is that little red-headed kid who isn’t Danny Bonaduce, but Adam Wylie. The puzzles aren’t too difficult, but if you were a hardcore Goosebumps fan like I used to be then this game is right up your alley. Just don’t expect a work of art.

Image Credit: giantbomb.com, alienpixel.com, vinceallan.net