The Stinal Countdown: Goosebumps HorrorLand #12: The Streets of Panic Park

We've made it. The final book of the initial HorrorLand story. It's been twelve books, mostly filled with callbacks to the original 62, with some new stories, all culminating with sixteen kids finding themselves in HorrorLand. And after a strong penultimate chapter in Escape From HorrorLand, can R.L. Stine stick the landing on his most ambitious saga? Let's find out with The Streets of Panic Park.

COVER STORY

Cover is pretty cramped feeling, but otherwise fine. We get the return of Slappy, and I'm still not too fond of his face. Again, not trying to oversell Tim's work, but Dorman's Slappy just doesn't come off as super creepy. Especially not here. But thankfully the flaming horses on the carousel make up for it as they look very intimidating. Overall, it's a middle of the road cover at best.

STORY

We left the story off with the sixteen very special guests entering Panic Park, only to learn it is in some sort of limbo, trapped in 1974. The kids have to learn to trust Luke and Lizzy Morris, the kids who have faced HorrorLand before. Byron, the horror who has been supposedly trying to help them, leads them to the midnight maze, where several of the monsters that the kids have faced before entering HorrorLand return, including the haunted mask. Eventually, they wind up in the presence of Karloff Mennis, better known as The Menace, who intends to keep the kids in Panic Park forever.

The Menace takes the kids into a seat-less theater room and brings up how scared they all must be, then mentions that someone in the group has been lying to them. Immediately, the kids suspect Jillian and Jackson, since they were the one who didn't trust Lizzy and Luke and were the ones who insisted that everyone would be safer in Panic Park. Jillian and Jackson insist they weren't working for The Menace, but The Menace breaks the news to them that it was he who gave them their psychic powers. It was never the Madame Doom machine, but a special delivery from The Menace himself. The kids start to attack Jillian and Jackson, when the twins are dragged away by the shadows.

Billy tries to escape the room, but the shadows grab him, turning him into one of them. Then The Menace has a shadow grab a trophy for the kids to see, Jillian's Head! As the kids panic and puke, the head is thrown at Robby, who realizes that it's just a rubber head. The Menace then has the shades place a silver bracelet on the arms of the kids. If they try to remove it, it burns into their arms. The Menace tells them that he needs to collect their fear and their screams. Suddenly, a strange grandfather clock-looking device called the Fear Meter is wheeled onto the stage by a horror. And not just any horror, it's Byron. Yep, he's been playing the kids the entire time. He works for The Menace.

The kids are obviously confused, since Byron gave Matt the keycard and was being chased off by the other horrors in the park. The Menace tells them that it was all an act to keep the kids invested in the park. It was Byron who picked out the kids to be special guests, since they had all faced off with evil villains at home and survived, meaning that they will be perfect subjects for the fear meter. Especially since they tried this with other kids, but they didn't quite survive. The Menace tells them that they need the fear of the kids to bring the park back to reality, since it was fear that trapped them in this limbo. Then, he removes his hat and spins his head. The Menace has a second face on the back of his head.

The second face is more monstrous, with a fiery red complexion and a more nasally voice. The two faces also seem to argue with one another. The fear meter has numbers going from 1 to 100. It's currently up to 20, but after the Menace and the shadows surround the kids, it jumps to 25. As Lizzy ponders how bad it must be to get to 50 or even 100, the floor beneath them disappears and they fall into another room below. This one being a movie theater with chairs that grab the kids and lock them in place. Lizzy can even hear a heartbeat inside the chairs. The movie screen shows kids on a roller coaster. Suddenly the chairs rise into the air and start moving like how the roller coaster is. Suddenly the coaster flies off the rails in the film and the chairs do the same. As the kids panic, suddenly they're brought back on to the floor unharmed. The Menace tells them that this is where the horror for the park began, with a roller coaster accident that took the lives of the riders.

The film then continues with The Tower To Nowhere, a tower that went so high that nobody could ever leave. The kids suddenly feel hot and can't catch their breath, simulating I guess climbing up to the sun. The faces of The Menace argue some more, as we realize the dark face was the one who would experiment with the outer limits to create the scariest attractions ever, while the other face seems to be more rational, thinking the other went too far. We then go to the next attraction, Ride The Whirlwind, which blows air so powerful that the kids can't breathe. After turning off the ride, The Menace mentions that he had become bored being stuck in the limbo of 1974 and wanted to get out. He then learned that HorrorLand was built on the same grounds as Panic Park and that any mirror could work as a gate between parks. However, on one of his experiments, he went through a two-way mirror, which caused the second red face to form on the back of his head.

He presses the kids again about needing the Fear Meter to rise just enough to bring the park back, but the kids aren't having it, but The Menace has the chair begin to strangle the kids until they comply. Byron leads them into their sleeping quarters, then presses Matt to give him back the keycard. Matt claims it's lost, until Byron grabs him by the leg and shakes him until Matt complies. After Byron leaves, the kids again start blaming one another, claiming that Luke and Lizzy must really be spies. Carly Beth manages to calm everyone down. They come to the conclusion that they have to escape and that they have to make sure that The Menace never gets to bring Panic Park back to reality. Luckily for the kids, Byron left the door open, so they make their escape.

The kids find an elevator and get inside. However, they can't find a down button, nor can they leave. Suddenly, the elevator begins to fall, and eventually crashes. The kids are banged up, but they're still alive. Matt then reveals that he still has his keycard, and the card Byron took was his library card. After a while, they manage to exit, now outside of The Menace's mansion. They continue to search through the park, but suddenly Carly Beth gets surrounded by the shadows, all wanting her to hug them. They save her, but like Billy, she's become a shadow too. Then the kids (and R.L. Stine apparently) remember Britney and Molly, who did manage to escape the park and return to HorrorLand, but they can't recall. They do remember going into a little white house, where the kids conveniently end up. Inside is some sort of waiting room like a doctor's office. Unfortunately, that doctor reveals himself to be Dr. Maniac. Not only that, but the kids can see the fear meter is past 50.

Dr. Maniac and the shadows lead the kids to The Shake Shack, which looks to be a little milkshake diner. However, the term "Shake Shack" is literal as the building rises and begins to shake like a mini-earthquake. The kids bounce back in forth and smash into one another, knocking them out. They awaken later. Dr. Maniac then takes a paintbrush and begins to wipe it over Robby, causing him to disappear. The kids panic, while the meter is now at 75. Dr. Maniac takes his leave as Robby begins to speak. He's been turned invisible. The kids are now starting to have their doubts that they'll make it out of this affair alive, but they press on.

They find another white building that may have been where Britney and Molly were in. This one being more like a church with the words "What A Shame" written on the door. As they go inside, they see portraits of children on the walls with the initials FTD inscribed on them. It doesn't take long for the kids to realize that stands for "Frightened To Death". Not only that, it says that when the meter hit 100, the kids never survived. The kids then find the hall of mirrors and think that this will be their ticket to freedom. Except when they rush to the mirrors, they just smack into them. Not only that, but now they're locked inside. Suddenly the kids faces vanish from the reflections and the image of the haunted mask shows up. Then Long Ben One-Leg. Then Dr. Crawler. Then a mummy. And then finally, Slappy. He mocks the kids some more, saying that they'll never survive the fear meter. Then he points at Britney, using a spell The Menace taught him. Suddenly Britney's face turns solid like hard wood. Her face is now a dummy's face.

Slappy and the monsters vanish from the mirror as The Menace returns to mock them some more. Michael begins to rage, pounding at the mirrors, when suddenly The Menace makes a lizard monster face appear on the back of Michael's head. The kids are now even more frightened and the meter is at 95. Which means either the park will be brought back to reality, or the kids will be frightened to death. The Menace lets the kids out, but before they can think, Slappy, Dr. Crawler, Inspector Cranium, Dr. Maniac (Holy crap Stine, that's a lot of doctors) and the other monsters show up, ready to finish this once and for all. But we get a bit of a swerve here. The monsters reveal that while Byron was always evil, Ned, the other horror that's been around in some of the books was actually helping them. He was Monster X, a horror who contacted Luke and Lizzy, warning them about HorrorLand and Panic Park. This was elaborated more in side stuff including the website and a non-chapter book called Welcome To HorrorLand: A  Survival Guide.

But not just that, the villains reveal that when the meter hits 100, not only will the kids be prisoners, but the villains as well. So, the villains offer a truce. Considering the fact that the villains have up to this point been antagonizing the kids, the kids aren't interested in this deal. The villains say that they don't like this either, but only the kids can stop The Menace by showing they have no fear. The kids are still against it, but at this point what choice do they have. The villains lead the kids back to the mansion, back to The Menace. But as they face him, they get stopped by Byron. The kids chant "No Fear!" at him, despite obviously still having fear in them. The Menace isn't impressed and has giant worms emerge from the kids' faces. As the meter gets to 99, Lizzy cracks a joke, which gets the kids laughing. The meter starts to drop, faster and faster. The Menace warns them that if the meter falls, the park will shrink with them still in it.

The kids are concerned, causing the meter to rise again, but suddenly the villains arrive and keep cracking jokes. More laughter fills the room as The Menace panics. Suddenly, the red face on his back melts off and The Menace himself starts to shrink. The whole room starts shrinking as well, now that the meter is back to zero. The villains lead the kids to the Whirlwind ride, saying that it's faster than mirrors and can transport them back to reality. Suddenly Jillian and Jackson show up. The kids still think they're trying to stop them, that they're still The Menace's spies. They reveal that when Cranium used his device on them back in their book, that's when The Menace took control. But now that The Menace has shrunk, they are no longer under his spell. Jackson uses his powers to open the locked door to the ride and the kids get inside as Panic Park shrinks to nothingness. They awaken back in HorrorLand. The cursed kids back to their normal bodies and all the parents waiting for them when they exit. It's a mega happy ending!

TWIST ENDING

Lizzy returns home to her room and starts to open her suitcase, only to see that Slappy hitched a ride home with her. Sure, I guess that's how we can end this.

CONCLUSION

The Streets of Panic Park is an interesting book to end the saga on, but for some reason it felt really underwhelming. I think that has to do with the fact that this conclusion has to be the major lore dump for most of the story. And that's not a bad thing, but it means that the book feels slower in a lot of places in comparison to what we had in Escape From HorrorLand. And while we do get a good set of new scary scenarios, like the dummy head, or the living chairs, a lot of the story starts to fall into redundancy, which I'll bring up shortly. The Menace is an interesting villain, with his two faces and such, but just comes off more as just a loudmouth than any actual threat. Like I was hoping for a bit more from him and it never really lives up.

If I did like anything, I liked the big final showdown with the villains, though it seems that cursed items like monster blood or the camera just never factored into this story, which seems like a total waste. The brief face turn for the villains feels like the only proper way to settle this story, with them aiding the kids in defeating The Menace and the Fear Meter. I will say the finish rushes a bit, but the pacing overall was fine for 137 pages. The book ends on a wet fart of a twist after everything that went down, but I guess it could have been worse. Stine could have pulled an "it was all a dream, or was it" crap on the reader and that would have been horrible. In the end, the book is satisfying enough a conclusion, but not as strong as I had hoped. The Streets of Panic Park gets what many of the books in this series got, a B+.

CONCLUSION: HORRLAND ARC #1

R.L. Stine came back to Goosebumps after an eight year hiatus. Before that hiatus, Stine had been swamped for almost a decade with having to work on at least two books a month. It's there where you can see his fatigue grow. In the original 62 especially. You could see the formula that Stine had perfected become stale and the series begin to suffer greatly, even if Series 2000 felt more inspired for the most part. I think that Stine leaving Scholastic in 2000 was the best thing that could have happened for both parties, because you could tell the time off gave him the idea to finally take some of the ideas of the series and bring them together for HorrorLand. And when 2008 arrived and he finally returned to put his creation on paper, what we got was definitely a rejuvenated Jovial Bob.

HorrorLand was a good saga. I say good, not great. Stine does a fine enough job building a mystery throughout twelve books. Ten of those books being allotted 30-40+ pages to build the story up, while giving us characters both classic and new. And the picks of Billy, Sheena, Carly Beth and Sabrina as the classic representatives were wise choices. Of the characters who appeared in sequels, they were easily the most likable of the bunch. Imagine this story with an Evan Ross, a Greg Banks or a Gabe Sabry and count your blessings. Then bringing back Luke and Lizzy, who were in the two previous HorrorLand stories to be the final piece to patch this Goosebumps shared universe together, which I also really like the idea of. That Goosebumps is its own universe and that the many monsters and cursed objects all exist within this one world. Granted, some books can't connect, but this weird pre-MCU idea of a connected world where all these characters exist is pretty inspired.

The new kids are interesting, but you can tell which characters felt more important than others. And that is my biggest issue with the HorrorLand saga. There are too many kids. Sixteen kids is way too many. And this begins to be truer and truer the further the story goes. Characters like Britney, Molly, Julie, Abby and Boone feel like they matter far less to the story as things progress. The only characters who feel like they have any major parts to the story by the end are Matt, Michael, Robby, Sabrina, Carly Beth, Jillian, Jackson, Luke an Lizzy. And really, Britney and Molly only need to be here for Slappy to have a reason to be involved with the plot. And that means that honestly, you could have done this story with less books. Shrinking the number from ten books before the final two to at least six. Also there were way too many scenes of the kids just arguing with one another and mistrusting the others.

As for the story itself, I like the mystery and its twist and turns. HorrorLand and Panic Park are well built up, giving us lots of scary attractions and unique ways to put the kids in peril. But you can see Stine spin his wheels as they progress. We get a couple quicksand scares, multiple scenes involving the kids falling, having boat-related perils, freezing, heating. This is another issue with the story spanning through so many books. Also, jeez Stine, three Dr. villains? The new villains are interesting, with Inspector Cranium and Dr. Maniac feeling like the standouts for new threats. Hell, Dr. Maniac returns in the Most Wanted series. But aside from Slappy and those two, none of the new villains are all that amazing or interesting. Not even the reptile aliens, and especially not even The Menace, who the book barely builds up before the final two books and when he's revealed is just a loudmouth with two loud mouths. Part of me thinks it should have been Byron as the villain, not the lackey. Make him The Menace instead, since his constant misleading of the kids factored into almost every book leading to the final two.

In the end, I think the first HorrorLand saga was fine. Stretched a bit too thin, suffered from some redundancy, but for R.L. Stine, I think this is his magnum opus. His most inspired work. And it was successful enough, helping bring Goosebumps back to a new era which is still going on. Far longer than even its original run. Despite the main story ending, Goosebumps HorrorLand continued for seven more books, now with a new storyline and new characters. But that will be a story for another time.