Scholastic, $3.99, ISBN 0-590-56646-6
Horror, 1995

You are the new kid in school – a pretty standard trope in a kiddie horror story, yes, but because this is a Give Yourself Goosebumps gamebook, this means you are going to get freaky with some weird, probably otherworldly kids soon. Indeed, you bump into an unfamiliar kid, Nick, who turns out to be your neighbor – he claims that his family just came back from vacation, hence you never meeting him in the month since you’ve moved here. He invites you to join the Horror Club, which meets in an old mansion, Bat Wing Hall, to exchange horror stories. Bat Wing Hall is said to be haunted, with the previous owner Professor Krupnik being quite the evil mad scientist sort.

Only, when you arrive, you realize that it’s not a typical Horror Club meeting that night. It’s a “special night” – no, not in the It way, people, sheesh – and the kids are breaking up into two teams of three for some spooky games instead. They reluctantly agree to let you join, despite you being kid number seven and hence the spoiler, so you get to pick either to join Nick’s team for a game in the Bat Wing Hall itself, or Marcie’s team to sneak into the nearby graveyard and break into Krupnik Crypt.

Your choice will lead to a divergence of the campaign into two very different arcs. Explore Krupnik Crypt and you may meet the ghost of the previous owner and be turned into a bat. Sadly, you won’t be as cool as the one on the cover, instead you will be trying to become human again. Stay in the Bat Wing Hall for fun and games, and you will have to participate in a scavenger hunt run by monsters. Yes, Nick and his team members turn out to be monsters in disguise, and they will sabotage you so that you will fail to complete the hunt and be changed into a monster just like them. Ooh, so which will it be?

Trapped in Bat Wing Hall may not be a completely accurate title for the campaign, but the good news is that it offers two wholly entertaining and zany arcs that are quite inspired in many ways. The bad endings are hilarious, as they range from being molested by a werewolf to being trapped in an ignoble position with your rear end sticking out from a narrow opening. The level of gore or violence isn’t particularly high – things are more wacky than anything else for the most part – but there are still a handful of bad endings that are on the gruesome side, such as the one where you and your friends are forcibly buried alive. Throughout it all, there is razor sharp humor, self-depreciating observations, amusing nods to popular horror tropes, and over the top nonsensical fun. The LOL random stuff is here, of course, but for the most part both arcs still feel fresh, cohesive, and well structured. The whole thing is really, really dumb in a good way.

All in all, this is a particularly above average entry into the series. All hail the Krupnik!