Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns

Goosebumps Presents #16

by Carol Ellis, Billy Brown (Based on Teleplay By), Dan Angel (Based on Teleplay By)

Drew Brockman notices that an evil transformation seems to have come over his friends Shane and Shana after they dress up like monsters with pumpkin heads for Halloween.

Genres: Horror, Fiction

58 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1997

About the author

Carol Ellis is an American author of young adult and children’s fiction. Her first novel, My Secret Admirer, was published in 1989 by Scholastic as part of their popular Point Thriller line.

She went on to write over fifteen novels, including a few titles in the Zodiac Chillers series published by Random House in the mid-1990s, and two titles in The Blair Witch Files series for young adults, published by Bantam between 2000 and 2001.

Reviews

[Alex Joseph]

Particular TV Books are notoriously hard to obtain, and this is one of them. And to add insult to injury: this book has been the soul reason for my inability to do a Halloween GB story ranking for the past two years. So now having read it… it’s a solid adaption of an already really good episode. The Jack-O’-Lanterns—we all know who they really are—are a great threat and the whole back half with them is really enjoyable. The twist ending is nice and appeals to me and has some darker innuendos. The Halloween atmosphere is great too, and that dream sequence is the most famous thing from the episode—and rightfully so since it’s so unnerving. The only two things holding this book back are the slower first half and… I mean, you guessed it: presents syndrome. Do I even bother saying it? Fuck it: PS is the condition/trade off of these books being direct adaptations of their episode counterparts; the reading experience is semi-hindered by the fact that it’s a retread of very familiar territory. Anywho… overall, 9/10. For GB Presents book standards, this is peak. Now only one book left in this series, and as it stands, for me to read in Goosebumps as whole… I feel unc.

[RalleyRagnarok]

Halloween stories are the best. Cute with great scares. Might be too scary for little ones. Still as a parent it has some good lessons on staying safe, bullies, peer pressure, and stranger danger.

[House of Goosebumps]

Good adaptation and is rather true to the original story. Although it as if it omitted some key details.