Hall of Horrors is like a micro galaxy in-between the huge Horrorland run and Most Wanted series. I've gotten back into skateboarding and I love listen to you Michael and Goosebumps Completionist while cruising around or trying to land a new trick.
Hey, man, thanks for that! I appreciate you watching my stuff-Completionist rocks, too! Love the dude’s videos hahah. Have you listened to his horror movie reviews, on his other channel? That’s my personal favorite content he’s put out; the guy is super knowledgeable about everything I’ve seen him discuss hahah. Really recommend those, if you haven’t listened to them, yet. Thanks again, man!
I actually only read one from this series but it's kinda amazing how every Hall of Horrors ranking I see from different people has a unique #1 spot, like all of them I've watched has very different favorite given that this series only has 6 books, which kinda shows how this series kinda varies in quality.
I’m just glad you loved this series. Hall of Horrors is kind of an adjunct favorite of mine, it’s a short and sweet, pick your flavor type of series, no sequels. Some books are former ideas spliced, some are new to Goosebumps and are refreshing, and some feel like they’re trying to replicate a formula of the past. But it’s a good series and imo, probably the best modern series in terms of consistency. Here’s my ranking from worst to best: 6. Why I Quit Zombie School - not good/not bad. Had a decent start but lost its way for me a bit. Dropped ideas, repetitive you gotta believe me, and really no satisfaction in the conclusion department. 5. The Birthday Party Of No Return - has one of the most annoying GB protagonists I’ve ever read, but the idea kind of works. It’s How I Learned To Fly and It Came From Beneath The Sink put into a blender. Most of the story is bland, but there’s no plot holes and the ending kind of sells me on it. It’s above average. 4. The Five Masks Of Dr. Screem - for such an atmospheric book and having MC’s being fleshed out the way they were, and to have really cool villains on paper, the book was just rushed. It didn’t explore the areas that made the book what it was all that well. And the ending feels kinda disappointing. Still, a very good GB Halloween book. 3. Claws! - I thought this book was very refreshing. I like the more mature themes in it, had good tension, and even good morals to it. The only thing I don’t like is the wonky logic and plot convenience getting muddled up in the end portion of the book. Feels kinda cheap, but there’s worse final acts in the series. 2. Night Of The Giant Everything - I think this is the modern day equivalent of MB2 as a guilty pleasure book. It has clear flaws but the flaws kinda weirdly work in the special case to me. It’s weird. 1. Don’t Scream! - honestly, the best idea that has come out of the modern books. Emmy is a master class villain of the series, the story is so ripe with subtext about technology addiction and such, and it’s legit tense. You have really good imagery here. The only thing holding it back is last 2 or so chapters from being one of the best books in the entire series. But it’s still my favorite. Great ranking Michael god bless you!
Michael, just letting you know that I actually have a Claws book with the HorrorLand logo on it (1st U.S.A. edition) Also sorry for not commenting a lot on your videos lately, I'm currently in Year 11 and it's getting hectic! God bless you, Michael! Much love from Australia
Hall of Horrors is an odd one. A short series that was a return to normal after HorrorLand was arc heavy. I think it was a fine series. Better than HorrorLand Arc 2 but not as good as arc 1. This is where the modern era got more tired. That said, it did heavy some cool stuff to and they all have at least some memorable/fun stuff to them and a few reach some solid heights. Of the 6, I only fully like half of them and one of those is only barely that way so just 2 i quite like and the others are mixed-ish. Not a great ratio but not awful either. Anyway, worst to best: Why I Quit Zombie School: Some fun comedy and gore but a a non-story where nothing escalates right. Feels so abrupt, a quota book that could have been so much more. Night of the Giant Everything: Fairly dumb for the twists and where it goes, but can be fun in a guilty pleasure way. It's grown on me but not great. The Five Masks of Doctor Screem: such a mixed bag. Lots of good ideas and moments, but a messy story. Weird, I don't know if I like it or not but I cane enjoy despite being a mess of a plot. At least the pacing and structure has effort put into it so it goes here. The Birthday Party of No Return: Above average thanks the ending. Kind of bland and wonky but the ending is string and adds more themes and makes most of it worth it. It gets into Good because there's not much wrong here, just not super memorable until the ending. It's fine at least and feels more thought out due to the ending, compared to some others. Don't Screem; Really solid idea and great villain. Ending was kinda weak though, could have been better in that part. Claws: Weird and goofy at the ending but it's a fun take on old ideas and even has emotion to the ending. It's a close call but the good ending puts this a bit above of it, even if it's a bit more flawed at times. My mind can change, the top 2 are tied but for now, this can be my favorite. It's no Cry of the Cat though Wow, we agreed on the top 2 at least. Surprised.
Dude, I’m surprised about our top 2, too! Great minds lol. Great list, by the way; I understand a lot of where you’re coming from on most of these books. Hall of Horrors was pretty cool-I’m really glad I saved these to be the last ones I read, because they were very surprisingly fun lol. One rough book out of six consistently good ones ain’t bad at all, in my opinion. Thanks for being here, man!
Claws is a freaking brilliant piece of work, man! One of my newer favorites from Goosebumps, in general! Sad to see it take so long for me to get around to it, too hahah. Glad I saved it for so long, to have something to give such a positive review about, recently hahah. Thanks for watching, dude!
I found a lot of this entire series on ebay for $20. I have a feeling the series is overall worth it. I just placed the order. I'm excited to start these ones!
Great ranking bro (except for Birthday Party's spot... I'm hurt by that lol) Night of the Giant Everything was decent enough for a Shrinking type story - even though it was my bottom in my ranking I still didn't hate it or anything. I also think that Five Masks should have been a little bit longer or at least taken the time to explain things better and spent more time on the last couple of masks they find. The ending was also a bit of a disappointment but the journey was fun enough to where I could be a bit more forgiving of its flaws. Zombie School isn't bad either and I can see why you enjoy it, for me it's a bit too cartoonish and feels like a cheap rip-off of Creature Teacher in some ways. Don't Scream is great, of course, though I find it hasn't stuck with me as much as some of the others here. There's not many flaws with it but for whatever reason it hasn't stuck out to me as being as memorable. Claws was also good and had a cool final act, but I found it lacking in some areas. Overall Hall of Horrors is such an underrated series that doesn't have a single bad book in it, in my opinion.
Sorry to hurt your feelings like that, man 😂 I agree with most of what you said about all of these books-especially that it’s a super underrated series. I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed it, overall lol. Really surprising. Thanks for watching, man! I’m off to listen to your ranking video for these, now that I’ve finally finished reading them all 😂
IDK if you will read this but I felt you were too harsh with #6- birthday part of no return. I liked the characters being competitive and "awful". The plot twist was also nice. Not my favourite, but all the books are solid in this series in my opinion (haven't read #4 yet). My list: X- book 4 (haven't read) 5- book 2 (very forgettable tbh, but it was fun when I read it. I would say it's a good one time read. 3 stars) 4/3 - book 5 and book 6 (I liked both of them tbh. I would give both 3.5 or 4 stars. I have to read them again to break the tie.) 2- book 3 (I loved the longer book and I loved the mystery aspect of what book would be next. The ending was gonna be bad 'it was all a dream' type ending. Thank god it wasn't the case. 4+ stars) 1- book 1 (honestly, this is over book 3 just because of the cat aspect 😻. For some reason though, I felt like I had read a similar pet dying story but couldn't remember it 😅. The storytelling in this one was amazing though. 5/4 stars) Tbh all are 3+ stars reads (imo)!
@@michaelgoosebumpsfan9934 abbot and Costello meet the killer Boris Karloff and there is a episode of there tv show that you can get on dvd where they meet the Gill man .
Funnily enough, my ranking is the complete opposite aside from Dr. Screem being the worst. I actually really enjoyed The Birthday Party of No Return, despite the misleading title and cover.
Honestly, I’d go the darker route hahah. I love Goosebumps even more when it does that, and I think I’d focus on movies and maybe a creature feature tale. I really like that kind of thing.
@@michaelgoosebumpsfan9934 I would love to see one of the mummy books in creature feature format. Maybe they film the movie down in a pyramid and accidently awake a mummy. That would be very interesting.
Looks like no one's mentioned it in your Night Of The Giant Everything review, but I will. That book was originally gonna be part of Stine's "Goosebumps Gold" series that he planned YEARS back, with amazing story concepts. It was gonna be the series that'd give us a Haunted Mask 3. But the series was cancelled due to Stine's expiring contract with Scholastic. Thankfully that book became reality when he started doing the HOH series, he was able to rework it. During Goosebumps Gold, it was gonna be called "The Incredible Shrinking 5th Grader". Dead giveaway compared to the actual title attempting to throw people off. Not at all a fan of the story though. As for Why I Quit Zombie School, I wish Stine made that story a sequel to the GYG Zombie School book. Neither book has connection to each other. They're two completely different schools, one being more zombie based than the other, and that really bugs me. Makes me wonder if Stine forgot what the GYG story was all about. Great ranking of HOH, bless you Michael! :)
@@SpongeyTheEditor Did he really? Yeah, I saw you mention that title, didn't know it was an RL Stine book. XD Looked it up, did not know that 2012 BOOK existed, wow. 😮 I always thought Night Of The Giant Everything was the solution to the Shrinking 5th Grader idea. Sucks that the rest of the Goosebumps Gold stories got canned though. We never got a true Haunted Mask 3. 😕
Hall of Horrors is like a micro galaxy in-between the huge Horrorland run and Most Wanted series.
I've gotten back into skateboarding and I love listen to you Michael and Goosebumps Completionist while cruising around or trying to land a new trick.
Hey, man, thanks for that! I appreciate you watching my stuff-Completionist rocks, too! Love the dude’s videos hahah. Have you listened to his horror movie reviews, on his other channel? That’s my personal favorite content he’s put out; the guy is super knowledgeable about everything I’ve seen him discuss hahah. Really recommend those, if you haven’t listened to them, yet.
Thanks again, man!
I actually only read one from this series but it's kinda amazing how every Hall of Horrors ranking I see from different people has a unique #1 spot, like all of them I've watched has very different favorite given that this series only has 6 books, which kinda shows how this series kinda varies in quality.
You know, I noticed that, today, too hahah. Good observation, dude!
And thanks for watching, once again!
I’m just glad you loved this series. Hall of Horrors is kind of an adjunct favorite of mine, it’s a short and sweet, pick your flavor type of series, no sequels. Some books are former ideas spliced, some are new to Goosebumps and are refreshing, and some feel like they’re trying to replicate a formula of the past. But it’s a good series and imo, probably the best modern series in terms of consistency. Here’s my ranking from worst to best:
6. Why I Quit Zombie School - not good/not bad. Had a decent start but lost its way for me a bit. Dropped ideas, repetitive you gotta believe me, and really no satisfaction in the conclusion department.
5. The Birthday Party Of No Return - has one of the most annoying GB protagonists I’ve ever read, but the idea kind of works. It’s How I Learned To Fly and It Came From Beneath The Sink put into a blender. Most of the story is bland, but there’s no plot holes and the ending kind of sells me on it. It’s above average.
4. The Five Masks Of Dr. Screem - for such an atmospheric book and having MC’s being fleshed out the way they were, and to have really cool villains on paper, the book was just rushed. It didn’t explore the areas that made the book what it was all that well. And the ending feels kinda disappointing. Still, a very good GB Halloween book.
3. Claws! - I thought this book was very refreshing. I like the more mature themes in it, had good tension, and even good morals to it. The only thing I don’t like is the wonky logic and plot convenience getting muddled up in the end portion of the book. Feels kinda cheap, but there’s worse final acts in the series.
2. Night Of The Giant Everything - I think this is the modern day equivalent of MB2 as a guilty pleasure book. It has clear flaws but the flaws kinda weirdly work in the special case to me. It’s weird.
1. Don’t Scream! - honestly, the best idea that has come out of the modern books. Emmy is a master class villain of the series, the story is so ripe with subtext about technology addiction and such, and it’s legit tense. You have really good imagery here. The only thing holding it back is last 2 or so chapters from being one of the best books in the entire series. But it’s still my favorite.
Great ranking Michael god bless you!
Great thoughts on this series, man!
And thanks for watching, as always!
Amazing ranking of the goosebumps hall of horrors series. Hall of horrors is my third favorite goosebumps series
Thanks for watching, again, dude, and I understand you ranking it that high! It’s a good series, for sure!
Michael, just letting you know that I actually have a Claws book with the HorrorLand logo on it (1st U.S.A. edition)
Also sorry for not commenting a lot on your videos lately, I'm currently in Year 11 and it's getting hectic!
God bless you, Michael!
Much love from Australia
Hall of Horrors is an odd one. A short series that was a return to normal after HorrorLand was arc heavy. I think it was a fine series. Better than HorrorLand Arc 2 but not as good as arc 1. This is where the modern era got more tired. That said, it did heavy some cool stuff to and they all have at least some memorable/fun stuff to them and a few reach some solid heights. Of the 6, I only fully like half of them and one of those is only barely that way so just 2 i quite like and the others are mixed-ish. Not a great ratio but not awful either.
Anyway, worst to best:
Why I Quit Zombie School: Some fun comedy and gore but a a non-story where nothing escalates right. Feels so abrupt, a quota book that could have been so much more.
Night of the Giant Everything: Fairly dumb for the twists and where it goes, but can be fun in a guilty pleasure way. It's grown on me but not great.
The Five Masks of Doctor Screem: such a mixed bag. Lots of good ideas and moments, but a messy story. Weird, I don't know if I like it or not but I cane enjoy despite being a mess of a plot. At least the pacing and structure has effort put into it so it goes here.
The Birthday Party of No Return: Above average thanks the ending. Kind of bland and wonky but the ending is string and adds more themes and makes most of it worth it. It gets into Good because there's not much wrong here, just not super memorable until the ending. It's fine at least and feels more thought out due to the ending, compared to some others.
Don't Screem; Really solid idea and great villain. Ending was kinda weak though, could have been better in that part.
Claws: Weird and goofy at the ending but it's a fun take on old ideas and even has emotion to the ending. It's a close call but the good ending puts this a bit above of it, even if it's a bit more flawed at times. My mind can change, the top 2 are tied but for now, this can be my favorite. It's no Cry of the Cat though
Wow, we agreed on the top 2 at least. Surprised.
Dude, I’m surprised about our top 2, too! Great minds lol.
Great list, by the way; I understand a lot of where you’re coming from on most of these books. Hall of Horrors was pretty cool-I’m really glad I saved these to be the last ones I read, because they were very surprisingly fun lol. One rough book out of six consistently good ones ain’t bad at all, in my opinion.
Thanks for being here, man!
Hall of Horrors is a unique series . " Claws " is such a fun read. Love the concept in this book. Awesome rank Michael!
Claws is a freaking brilliant piece of work, man! One of my newer favorites from Goosebumps, in general! Sad to see it take so long for me to get around to it, too hahah. Glad I saved it for so long, to have something to give such a positive review about, recently hahah.
Thanks for watching, dude!
I found a lot of this entire series on ebay for $20. I have a feeling the series is overall worth it. I just placed the order. I'm excited to start these ones!
I hope you like them!
Thank you for this
Great ranking bro (except for Birthday Party's spot... I'm hurt by that lol)
Night of the Giant Everything was decent enough for a Shrinking type story - even though it was my bottom in my ranking I still didn't hate it or anything.
I also think that Five Masks should have been a little bit longer or at least taken the time to explain things better and spent more time on the last couple of masks they find. The ending was also a bit of a disappointment but the journey was fun enough to where I could be a bit more forgiving of its flaws.
Zombie School isn't bad either and I can see why you enjoy it, for me it's a bit too cartoonish and feels like a cheap rip-off of Creature Teacher in some ways.
Don't Scream is great, of course, though I find it hasn't stuck with me as much as some of the others here. There's not many flaws with it but for whatever reason it hasn't stuck out to me as being as memorable.
Claws was also good and had a cool final act, but I found it lacking in some areas.
Overall Hall of Horrors is such an underrated series that doesn't have a single bad book in it, in my opinion.
Sorry to hurt your feelings like that, man 😂
I agree with most of what you said about all of these books-especially that it’s a super underrated series. I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed it, overall lol. Really surprising.
Thanks for watching, man! I’m off to listen to your ranking video for these, now that I’ve finally finished reading them all 😂
great review love these books
this list is almost exactly how I ranked my books
Thanks for watching, dude!
It’s one of my fave series!!!
I’m glad you liked it, too, Alyssa! It’s pretty solid!
Nice list
Thanks for watching, pal!
@@michaelgoosebumpsfan9934 no problem
Nice review
Thanks, dude!
IDK if you will read this but I felt you were too harsh with #6- birthday part of no return. I liked the characters being competitive and "awful". The plot twist was also nice. Not my favourite, but all the books are solid in this series in my opinion (haven't read #4 yet).
My list:
X- book 4 (haven't read)
5- book 2 (very forgettable tbh, but it was fun when I read it. I would say it's a good one time read. 3 stars)
4/3 - book 5 and book 6 (I liked both of them tbh. I would give both 3.5 or 4 stars. I have to read them again to break the tie.)
2- book 3 (I loved the longer book and I loved the mystery aspect of what book would be next. The ending was gonna be bad 'it was all a dream' type ending. Thank god it wasn't the case. 4+ stars)
1- book 1 (honestly, this is over book 3 just because of the cat aspect 😻. For some reason though, I felt like I had read a similar pet dying story but couldn't remember it 😅. The storytelling in this one was amazing though. 5/4 stars)
Tbh all are 3+ stars reads (imo)!
I do 100% agree on book 6 having a bad title. Should have been something else. The title reminds me of happy death day lol😂
Have you ever watched the abbot and Costello meets the monster series ?
Every single one except for the random Boris Karloff one (can’t remember the title lol). Loved the Frankenstein one the most!
@@michaelgoosebumpsfan9934 abbot and Costello meet the killer Boris Karloff and there is a episode of there tv show that you can get on dvd where they meet the Gill man .
Funnily enough, my ranking is the complete opposite aside from Dr. Screem being the worst. I actually really enjoyed The Birthday Party of No Return, despite the misleading title and cover.
Nice ranking Michael. I
Thanks, man! And thanks for watching!
If you could make a goosebumps book what would it be like?
nice review
Honestly, I’d go the darker route hahah. I love Goosebumps even more when it does that, and I think I’d focus on movies and maybe a creature feature tale. I really like that kind of thing.
And thanks for watching, by the way!
@@michaelgoosebumpsfan9934 I would love to see one of the mummy books in creature feature format. Maybe they film the movie down in a pyramid and accidently awake a mummy. That would be very interesting.
Looks like no one's mentioned it in your Night Of The Giant Everything review, but I will. That book was originally gonna be part of Stine's "Goosebumps Gold" series that he planned YEARS back, with amazing story concepts. It was gonna be the series that'd give us a Haunted Mask 3. But the series was cancelled due to Stine's expiring contract with Scholastic. Thankfully that book became reality when he started doing the HOH series, he was able to rework it. During Goosebumps Gold, it was gonna be called "The Incredible Shrinking 5th Grader". Dead giveaway compared to the actual title attempting to throw people off. Not at all a fan of the story though.
As for Why I Quit Zombie School, I wish Stine made that story a sequel to the GYG Zombie School book. Neither book has connection to each other. They're two completely different schools, one being more zombie based than the other, and that really bugs me. Makes me wonder if Stine forgot what the GYG story was all about.
Great ranking of HOH, bless you Michael! :)
Actually, Stine already got to do Shrinking 5th Grader as Adventures of Shrinkman.
@@SpongeyTheEditor Did he really? Yeah, I saw you mention that title, didn't know it was an RL Stine book. XD
Looked it up, did not know that 2012 BOOK existed, wow. 😮 I always thought Night Of The Giant Everything was the solution to the Shrinking 5th Grader idea.
Sucks that the rest of the Goosebumps Gold stories got canned though. We never got a true Haunted Mask 3. 😕
@@zondrabarth4508 we got Scream of the Haunted Mask.
@@SpongeyTheEditor Would that really count as a literal sequel to Haunted Mask 2 though?
@@zondrabarth4508 Sure
3:05 is he worse than Eric cartman