REVIEW – Welcome to Camp Nightmare (Goosebumps #9) by R.L. Stine

Next summer you'll stay home...if you survive!
The food isn't great. The counselors are a little strange. And the camp director seems demented. Billy can handle all that. But then strange things start to happen after dark, his parents won't answer his letters, and his fellow campers start to disappear. What's going on? Camp Nightmoon is turning into Camp Nightmare! And Billy might be next.
It's our fourteenth fan-favorite prequel to R.L. Stine's blockbuster Goosebumps HorrorLand series. Now with all-new bonus features including author secrets, fear facts, haunting games, and more!

Welcome to Camp Nightmare is the ninth instalment of the hugely successful Goosebumps series aimed at pre-teens. This was a series that I became obsessed with as a child, and I wanted to revisit it to see if it still held up nearly twenty years later. I’ve started with Welcome to Camp Nightmare, number 9 in the instalment (I’m a bit of a rule-breaker ha-ha). This was my first outing into horror as a child and it’s been something that has been upheld ever since. I’m pleased to say that I still found this one enjoyable with plenty to keep the reader entertained.

Billy has been shipped off to Camp Nightmoon for the summer. It’s almost a right of passage for American kids. Getting there in itself seems to be a bit of an adventure. He is introduced to characters that become engrained in his heart. He develops friendships with them, he cares about what happens to them and they look out for one another. He also meets two girls that are heading to the girls only camp across the water. Things seem off from the very start – why on earth have the campers been dumped in the middle of nowhere, how will they arrive at the actual camp?

Whilst waiting on the arrival of somebody they are hunted and circled by creatures? They seem hungry and determined to have their next snack. The children are fearful for their lives, until the camp director turns up, named Uncle Al, who shoots the creatures dead. Uncle Al acts very strangely but so is the things that begin to happen around the camp. Mike gets bitten by a snake and disappears one night, another boy disappears after sneaking out to spy on the forbidden bunk, but that’s where Sabre lurks…

Welcome to Camp Nightmare was still an enjoyable read but I don’t think it’s my favourite one. There’s plenty of intrigue and mystery to keep a young reader entertained but as an adult, I really need more shocking moments. I also needed the plot to be moving at a faster pace, it was a lot slower than I’m used to. I really enjoyed the twist at the end, it had the aura of The Twilight Zone.