Welcome to another entry in the gooey green trek down memory lane as we revisit the original
Goosebumps series one book at a time, and I reminisce about reading the books back in the day, then read them as a 41 year old and see how they hold up. If you missed any of the previous entries and want to go back and check those out, you can find them at the link below.
This time, we’re off to summer camp in Welcome to Camp Nightmare. The summer camp setting is one we will revisit a few times throughout the series. One of those is in my list of favorites from memory (The Horror at Camp Jellyjam), but we’ll get to that one down the road. For now, we’re on our way to Camp Nightmoon!
My thoughts from memory:
Welcome to Camp Nightmare is a unique book in the early entries of the series for me, as it is the only book in the first dozen or so that I wasn’t able to get when it came out. I don’t recall why, but my guess is I just wasn’t able to find it for a while. Because of that, it’s the early book that I have the least attachment to. When I finally did get it, I remember liking it, but otherwise, I remembered nothing at all about the plot outside of the camp setting indicated by the title. With the number of times I reread so many of the early books, I was excited to give this one another go on what is almost a completely new read.
How does it hold up?
I came into this one with no real expectations, and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It’s the story of a kid sent off to a mysterious summer camp called Camp Nightmoon. It opens with the bus ride to camp along with the majority of our cast of campers, and the action picks up right away. They get dumped in the desert (where is this camp exactly?), and nearly eaten by savage animals before being rescued by the camp owner and counselors who take them the rest of the way to camp. A mystery unfolds as terrible things begin to happen, campers go missing, and the counselors appear to be seriously neglectful of the safety of their charges.
This book really reaches into psychological horror more so than any other book in the series so far, and it clicked nicely as an adult. I feel like I didn’t appreciate that aspect of the book when I was a kid, very much like I felt with Stay out of the Basement and Let’s Get Invisible. From my perspective, when Stine ventures away from the monsters and gross out stuff, and plays with more mature horror themes like psychological trauma and straining emotional relationships, that’s when these books really shine upon a reread.
Since I had no memory of the plot, I didn’t remember the ending twist at all, and it is a double whammy straight out of the Twilight Zone that I couldn’t help but chuckle at while listening (I’ve started listening to the audio book versions to get through these faster). It’s a very solid entry in the series, and I give it 5 gooey green stars!
Does it crack the rolling top 10?
We are very near the point of not every book making the top ten, but this one would’ve made the list either way. I really enjoyed the more mature take on psychological horror and slide this one at #4.
That’ll do it for this entry in Goosebumps Revisited! Come back next time as we close out the original ten books in the series and have a play date with The Ghost Next Door!
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