The Goosebumps Series 2000 book where kids attend a camp run by a horror movie director.
Andrew Herman and his brother Tyler love the films of horror director R.B. Farraday, who's recently opened a summer camp based on his movies — "Fright Camp", which is full of fake scares meant to keep the campers on their toes. But as the week goes on, they find out the scares may not be as fake as they seem.
This book provides examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: No one in charge of the camp seems to care about the kids' safety. R.B. is especially bad with how he set this all up as a prank.
- Author Avatar: The style of R.B.'s name hints at him possibly being one of R. L. Stine.
- The Bad Guy Wins: R.B. ends up getting back at the kids with his own big prank, and declares there's still two more weeks of camp.
- Broken Pedestal: Andrew and Tyler are big fans of R.B. Farrady but in the end he's a jerk who is so into getting scares that he sets up all everything scary in the camp as a cruel prank to get footage.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover features a wild evil-looking raccoon. It has nothing to do with anything, although there is a small moment where they spot a raccoon in a trash can.
- Cruel Twist Ending: Even when the kids get R.B. back, he fires back and it's stated they will have at least two more weeks of horrors to go through.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: All the supernatural elements are staged since it's set at a fantasy summer camp run by a famous horror movie director. This makes it the first book in the whole franchise to not have supernatural events happen.
- Killer Gorilla: One of R.B.'s films, "Conquerors of the Gorilla Planet", is centered on one. There's a scene where they bring out one of the gorillas from the movie, and it breaks out and causes havoc.
- Mad Artist: R.B. Farrady will go to any lengths to get good scary footage for his movies. As is shown by the end with how everything was a big cruel prank.
- Shout-Out:
- R.B. Farraday is believed to be an Affectionate Parody of William Castle.
- The front tagline is "Where the wild things are... out of control!"
- Sinister Surveillance: The camp has cameras everywhere to make sure the kids aren't trying to escape.
- Summer Campy: The story is set at a fantasy summer camp, and is full of scary elements aimed at unnerving the campers.
