One Day at HorrorLand

One Day at Horrorland was the sixteenth book in the Goosebumps book series. It was preceded by You Can't Scare Me! and followed by Why I'm Afraid of Bees.

The cover illustration featured a Horror that is attached to an billboard that says: Welcome to Horrorland Where Nightmares Come To Life! An amusement park is visible in the background.

Plot
The Morris family is driving through the desert, searching for the Zoo Gardens theme park. The family consists of Lizzy Morris, Luke Morris, Luke's friend Clay, and the parents. The father left the map at home, so they get lost.

Soon they come across a forest and they are sure that there is no hope, until a frightening billboard reveals the existence of a theme park called HorrorLand (Theme Park) one mile away. They drive there, but as soon as they are parked, the car explodes, and the family narrowly escapes the blast.

The person in the toll booth is in a lifelike "costume" and he apologizes for the inconvenience, allowing them to enter the park for free. When they ask to use the telephone, they are informed that there are no telephones at HorrorLand.

They decide to go on some rides. The Deadly Doom Slide is their first choice, and it consists of ten slides, and you must not pick the one that does not have an end. After narrowly escaping certain death, they go into the hall of mirrors, where they get lost and almost do not come out!

They discover that the rides in HorrorLand are a little too scary, maybe even a little too dangerous. But the rides aren't real, are they? They soon decide to go find their parents, who have gone missing, only to be attacked by a vicious swarm of bats.

After escaping from this, they find their parents and decide to ride the safest ride in the park, the Coffin Cruise. It is a relaxing ride down a river in makeshift rafts made of coffin wood. Soon, they are locked into the coffins and are shocked to discover that there are spiders inside. After they are let out, they try to escape, only to find a sign that says: NO EXIT. NOBODY LEAVES HORRORLAND ALIVE.

They are soon captured by the workers, the "HorrorLand Horrors". These monsters put them on a monster game show, where they exhibit the humans being killed or tortured on national television. As they are about to be lowered into a pit of death, Lizzy remembers the No Pinching signs around the park. She pinches a Horror, causing it to deflate and die. This allows them to escape.

They steal a bus and drive home, where they discover a Horror had clung to the back of the bus. Once the monster gets off the back, he offers them free passes to the park.

Trivia

 * It is one of the most popular books, spanning one official sequel, a CD Rom, a video game, Escape From HorrorLand, and a spin off series.
 * This story was adapted as a comic book in the Goosebumps Graphix book, Terror Trips drawn by Jill Thompson.
 * In France, this was the 25th book in the series.

Television Adaptation

 * The TV version has a different ending: The Morris Family win a new car in the game show. After escaping Horror Land, the Morris Family nearly going off the cliff as the TV host does his cliffhanger closing to his show. The whole episode is revealed to be a show that two elderly Horrorland Horrors are watching, complaining that human shows are scary.
 * Clay was never mentioned in this episode, despite being one of the main characters in the book.
 * The Doom Slide from the book was never shown or mentioned.

Television Episode Trivia

 * Goof: In one scene, you can see the actors' real teeth under the horror mouth.
 * This television episode has been released on VHS. The television episode was also released on DVD along with Welcome to Camp Nightmare.
 * The game show Raw Deal has several references to the popular television game show Wheel of Fortune.
 * Ripper the Killer Beast is recycled from Sabre from the television episode adaption of Welcome to Camp Nightmare.