Return to HorrorLand

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Return to HorrorLand
Tagline	Long time no scream!
Author(s)	R.L. Stine
Cover artist	Tim Jacobus
Publisher	Scholastic
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Release date	January 1999
Pages	120
Series	Goosebumps Series 2000
Series number	13
Saga	HorrorLand
Previous book	Brain Juice
Next book	Jekyll and Heidi

Return to HorrorLand is the thirteenth book in the Goosebumps Series 2000 book series. It was published in 1999.

The cover illustration features a purple Horror standing on top of a cart handing out green "Ice Scream".

Plot

It has been six months since Lizzy Morris and her family paid a visit to HorrorLand, a horrific amusement park filled with many vile creatures and hideous attractions. Lizzy, her brother Luke, and his friend, Clay, are big fans of the "The Strange Report", a show hosted by paranormal investigators Derek and Margo Strange. While watching an episode featuring a boy named Evan Ross talking about his experiences with Monster Blood, Derek and Margo arrive at their doorstep.

The Stranges promise their mother they will be safe whilst doing this, and $10,000 if she will agree to let the children come with them to Florida. This is where HorrorLand is currently located. The horror-themed theme park keeps moving locations every few months and the Stranges have tracked it to Florida. They intend to photograph all the nefarious goings-on at the park by posing as Lizzy and Luke's tourist parents. The Stranges believe that the amusement park is no longer a backdrop for a television show, but something else entirely and they wish to find out once and for all what the truth is!

Despite the many horrors she witnessed last time, Lizzy and Luke's mother agree on this as the Stranges promise to take good care of the kids. Luke also asked the Stranges if Clay can come along too and Margo and Derek take the children down to Florida where they successfully infiltrate the newest incarnation of HorrorLand. Unfortunately, a Horror smashes Derek's camera since cameras are not allowed in HorrorLand. But luckily, Margo and Derek have secret cameras that will not be visible to the monsters, so there is no way that they will get stolen or smashed. And so, they continue to film as the children explore the park.

They visit an Egyptian pyramid where Luke becomes trapped in a sarcophagus until he falls to safety from a trap door. The next attraction the children decide to visit is a Monster Dentist Office. Once inside, they see row after row of monster dentists operating on bawling children with drills. One child screams out "You broke all my teeth!" and another complains that the dentist drilled his tongue. A third child throws up blood. Lizzy finds herself strapped in and the monster is about to drill away all her teeth when she realizes that the dentist is actually a robot.

Afterwards, the children realize they have lost track of the Stranges, who have insisted that the children are never in any danger. But they are disappointed and begin to heckle the trio to show them real danger in the park. Eventually, the children get captured in a giant butterfly net by a Horror and are taken down to a torture chamber. It is there that they meet the Dungeon Master, who then proceeds to unleash hundreds of ferrets to eat the children. The children escape the ferrets and take in a magic show. Amaz-O pops up to do some illusions. After pulling animals out of his hat, he then pulls Lizzy from the audience and throws her into a cage with a live tiger who then vanishes.

Once she goes back into the auditorium seats, she discovers her brother and his friend did not even bother to stay to watch the whole show. Lizzy runs around the park in search of the two boys and eventually finds them chained to poles in a desert while vultures circle above. The Stranges provide no use to them and get thrown out of the amusement park. The Horrors want to capture the children but then Lizzy gets an idea to run into the gift shop, try on the Horror Halloween Costumes sold within, and then walk around among the Horrors as one of them.

The three children dressed like Horrors manage to walk right out of the park and hop into the Stranges' waiting van. The Stranges apologize for having to leave, then drive the children right back to the front gates of HorrorLand. A Horror slips Derek a wad of bills and thanks the Stranges. It turns out the Stranges were hired by the park to see if the children would reveal the secrets of HorrorLand. Since they were, they will have to die.

The Horrors lead the three children to the top of a mountain for an attraction called The Final Leap, which is just a steep ledge. Before they ride off to their doom, three more Horrors show up and walk the children back down to the ground. The children ask what is going on, but the Horrors tell them there has been a change of plans. Once they're safely past the park's gates, the Horrors take off their masks and reveal themselves to be reporters from a television show called Weird Copy. The reporters reveal that thanks to the children, they have footage which can have the Stranges arrested and HorrorLand shut down for good.

The reporters feel that they have not gotten enough information to be able to make a good enough report. So they proceed to drive Lizzy, Luke, and Clay to another amusement park named Terrorville.

International releases

No: 13
Title: Return to HorrorLand
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Release date: July 16, 1999
Publisher: Scholastic

No: 62
Title: Retour Au Parc De L'Horreur
Translated title: Back to Horror Park
Country: France
Language: French
Release date: June 15, 2000
Publisher: Bayard Poche

Country: France
Language: French
Reprint ver.: 2
Release date: May 01, 2001

Country: France
Language: French
Reprint ver.: 3
Release date: July 5, 2010

No: 75
Title: Ritorno A HorrorLand
Translated title: Back to HorrorLand
Country: Italy
Language: Italian
Release date: January 2001
Publisher: Mondadori

Differences

• The French tagline is "C'est pas du jeu!" which is an expression meaning, figuratively, "It is not fair," and literally "It is not a game."
• Some of the names in the French version were changed.
  • Lizzy is called "Lise."
  • Luke is called "Luc."
  • Clay is called "Matthieu."
  • HorrorLand is called "Horror Park."

Gallery

• Artwork
• Advertisement

Cover artwork by Tim Jacobus.

Book advertisement from Brain Juice.

Trivia

• This book seemingly tries to establish a continuity between Monster Blood, One Day at HorrorLand, and Bad Hare Day.
  • Evan Ross cameos on television, explaining how Monster Blood works. He describes Cuddles the Hamster growing huge, an allusion to Monster Blood II. Nobody in this story believes Evan, and they mostly ridicule him.
    • The green ice cream on the front cover looks similar to Monster Blood.
  • Amaz-O from Bad Hare Day makes a cameo. He has rabbits with him, but it's unclear if any of these are meant to be Tim Swanson.
• The idea of a shared Goosebumps universe would later be revisited with Goosebumps HorrorLand.
  • While the books in Goosebumps HorrorLand don't completely contradict Return to HorrorLand, they seem to retcon it to some degree. In Goosebumps HorrorLand, Lizzy doesn't seem to know that anything truly evil is going on in the park until a Horror emails her. Meanwhile, the concept of HorrorLand being evil is presented to Lizzy early in Return to HorrorLand and reaffirmed at the end.
• This book currently marks the final book appearances of Clay, Evan Ross, and Amaz-O.
• This, and The Curse of the Cave Creatures are the last Goosebumps Series 2000 and Give Yourself Goosebumps books to have advertisements from the previous book in the series.
• This book references Tom Selleck, King Kong, the Florida Marlins, and Dana Scully from The X Files.
  • The show Weird Copy is a parody of tabloid news television show Hard Copy.
  • The tagline is a reference to the saying, "Long time no see."
• The except on the back is slightly different from the actual book. On the back, a Horror says "They're pretty good with ketchup". In the book it says "They're pretty good with a lot of ketchup".
• The summary on Scholastic's website refers to Clay as Chris. This is made more egregious by the fact that he called by his correct name in the same summary.