Goosebumps #35: A Shocker on Shock Street

Blurb
Erin Wright and her best friend, Marty, love horror movies. Especially Shocker on Shock Street movies. All kinds of scary creatures live on Shock Street. The Toadinator. Ape Face. The Mad Mangler. But when Erin and Marty visit the new Shocker Studio Theme Park, they get the scare of their lives. First their tram gets stuck in The Cave of the Living Creeps. Then they're attacked by a group of enormous praying mantises! Real life is a whole lot scarier than the movies. But Shock Street isn't really real. Is it?

Plot
Our protagonists, Erin and Marty are big fans of the Shock Street movie franchise. Don't worry, it doesn't make any sense how any of the characters are connected in one big universe anywhere else in the book either, for those who read the blurb. Except for the fact that everything happens on the one street or whatever. Geez, as if horror movies in the past 20 years haven't been garbage enough already. And, wouldn't you know, Erin's dad is a robotics engineer, and is designing a new theme park based off of Shock Street. And by "theme park", I expect they mean, "Collection of sets and props that aren't in any way theme park, but are still fantastic to look at regardless."All of the old sets that aren't being used for anything else anymore attractions will contain animatronic robots (as opposed to animatronic shelves), and Erin's dad wants Erin and Marty (why Marty?) to be the first kids to go to the park. Don't you have specialists for this kind of thing?

Upon arriving at the park, Erin and Marty are met with their tour guide Linda, who, like a good tour guide, is as good as erased from reality the second she leaves the scene. She hands them plastic red 'laser guns,' which one would hope are from a ride similar to Laser Raiders at Legoland, but are not. Linda informs them that these items of rejected Power Rangers merchandise can be used to stun monsters. The kids will get to tour Shock Street on a tram, like Jurassic Park except not fun. And, of course, Linda's not coming with them. I'm so glad she was in this story; she added so much!

The tram takes the kids into a haunted house. I have no idea how that ties into the Shock Street franchise, but then again, I don't get how anything ties into one franchise. Said house is actually some kind of rollercoaster. The old switcharoo. Erin and Marty almost fall out of the tram, because it doesn't have any seatbelts. Oh yeah, this park is completely safe to open to the public!

The tram leaves the haunted house, and Erin and Marty are approached by various stars of the Shock Street movies. The monsters then sign autographs for the kids.

The tram continues on to The Cave of the Living Creeps, as opposed to the Creeps that have been dead for some time. Within the Cave of the Living Cliches, Erin and Marty are attacked by large spiders and white worms. Even 'the Lair of the White Worm' is on the quality chopping block in this franchise. Suddenly, the tram stops, so Erin and Marty think, "Screw this," and get out. Because I guess they couldn't have waited for the ride to start up again; it might be just a short pause.

Erin and Marty then encounter gigantic praying mantises that probably look as awful as the one on the cover. Said mantises can also spit burning black liquid. Look out! America will be coming to get their hands on that stuff any second no- wait, they're in America. So, the 2 come up with a foolproof plan - they need to defeat the giant mantises like regular ones, by stepping on them. And they proceed to do so. Oh yeah, these were totally worth a)having the cover dedicated to them and b)coming back in the movie.

After getting rid of the wimpiest cover monsters ever, Erin and Marty leg it, and wind up on Shock Street itself. They go into a cemetery, because, given what's already happened, it sounds like the safest place on Earth! Marty (oh yeah, I forgot he was in this story) is suddenly grabbed by hundreds of zombie hands, since I guess they needed other work after being stunt doubles in The Addams Family. Erin saves him, and the 2 run out of the cemetery, whilst it figuratively disappears from existence. Much like everything else in this bloody story.

Erin and Marty decide that they need to find the park's main building to get help and escape the park. OK, that's actually a pretty foolproof plan. They climb atop a wall to get a better view of the park, but they fall off because that was a stupid idea, and land in quicksand. Looks like it's all over (finally), but then Erin and Marty are saved by werewolves. Typical Tuesday afternoon. Said werewolves are the creatively named Wolf Boy and Wolf Girl, more stars of the rhyme-and-reason-less Shock Street franchise. The wolf siblings or whatever look very realistic (in a hyper sort of manner, one might say), and start to attack Erin and Marty. Remembering the plastic guns, Erin grabs one which is there, I guess, and fires it at the werewolves. It is of course as useful as an English essay, and the werewolves are unphased. Suddenly, they spot their tram in the distance, which got there when shut up, so Erin and Marty clamber into it and speed off into the sunset, presumably whilst the Lone Ranger theme plays.

But the tram is full of skeletons. Oh no, not again! The skeletons start attacking the pair. Man, this Jason and the Argonauts remake isn't very good. And, because we aren't having enough stuff thrown at us, the tram's about to crash into a wall. I'm pretty sure there was less going on in the 'One Day More' scene in Les Mis. Erin and Marty dive out of the tram (this is the worst James Bond film ever), and it crashes into the wall.

 Erin and Marty start wandering round, fearing that they'll be trapped in the park forever. (*dramatic music*) And... cut! The park's director, Russ Denver, appears out of nowhere (he's actually Batman, you see) and informs Erin and Marty that filming has been successful. All the monsters they encountered were merely animatronics. Incredibly realistic, very dangerous animatronics. Yeah... no. Just no. They'd been filming Erin and Marty's escapades the entire time for the next Shock Street movie.

Erin demands to see her Dad, so Russ tells her that, to get to him, she and Marty must run through Shockro's House of Shocks, yet another thingymajig from the Shock Street movies. In the movies, as Erin and Marty know, anyone who enters Redundanto's House of Redundancy is shocked to death by thousands of volts of electricity. However, Russ says that since this is just an attraction, everything is perfectly safe. Because all the other attractions up until now have been the pinnacle of safety. As Marty heads into Obvious' House of Trap, Erin notices a plug coming out of Russ (oh, I say): he's a robot. Which I guess makes him untrustworthy. Boy, C-3P0 looks like he's up to something evil right now. As Erin cries out in terror (and, in fairness, this part isn't that bad), Marty is shocked by electricity and falls to the ground. Erin's dad suddenly appears (he is also Batman), and she asks him for help. Then, she realises that it isn't her father, and, as she tries to run and it looks like we're about to get a decent ending...

Erin's speech slurs and she falls over. She and Marty were robots the whole time.

Erin's "Dad" looks over the  robots, and sees that they have damaged chips. Dammit. Back to the chippy! And, as soon as the chips are fixed, the robots will be able to finish testing the incredibly unsafe theme park. Well, at least it makes more sense as to why Erin and Marty were chosen.

Extra Toppings
So, Erin's "Dad" programmed his 2 robots to love the film franchise of the theme park he was working on. That's modest of him.

Any Questions?
Wouldn't it have been cheaper to hire qualified theme park testers than building robot ones? Just saying.

Conclusion
A Shocker on Shock Street is dull. So, so, dull. It's just random things happening that are never mentioned after wards. And it's not like it can't be done well (ie: Mary Poppins), but most of the time, it's done horribly. Nothing goes anywhere or is mentioned again once it's over, nor does it partially contribute to, say, character development. Just give this one a miss.