Complete Monster (Who's Your Mummy?): Tuttan-Rha, a 2000-year old Egyptian alchemist, discovered that he could prolong his own life by cannibalizing living mummies, which he creates through a resurrection ritual that involves a special protein found only in naturally straight, jet-black human hair. The mummies, decayed on the outside but "fresh" on the inside, are fully aware and conscious, but unable to do anything other than beg for death as they're gradually consumed over the course of several years by Rha. To get the protein that he needs to revive mummies and keep them alive, Ra captures people whose hair contains it, and holds them prisoner until their hair begins to grey with age, at which point he disposes of them. Becoming aware of two dark-haired siblings named Abby and Peter Martin, Rha poses as their Uncle Jonathan to lure them to his mansion, where the children eventually walk in on him ripping out and eating a mummy's internal organs. Recapturing Abby and Peter after they run away, Rha explains his immortality and why he wants their hair to them as he shows the terrified children his collection of partially-devoured mummies, all of whom are pleading to be allowed to die. When the real Uncle Jonathan appears to try and save his relatives, Rha gleefully tries to strangle him to death in front of Abby and Peter.
Arc 1 (books 1-12) contains examples of:
Angst? What Angst?: Most of the protagonists in the HorrorLand books go through truly disturbing and traumatic ordeals, but quickly think nothing of it once they get invited to HorrorLand. Justified for some, who specifically go to have fun after everything they've been through.
Designated Hero: Jillian and Jackson Gerard from Help We Have Strange Powers might be two of the worst examples in recent history. Despite being given the titular powers, the twins are lazy, mean-spirited brats who spend all their time causing trouble, despise poor Artie and Nina Lerner just for being too polite, and spend most of their time with powers bullying them, to the point of contemplating stranding them on the moon for fun. They only start being nice to them when it's discovered the Lerners have powers themselves. Their gifts are completely undeserved, and some reviews cite the book would've been better following the Lerners instead.
Les Yay: Sabrina kissing Carly Beth on the cheek as her symbol of love in Escape from HorrorLand.
Nightmare Retardant: Many of the HorrorLand books retain the series' trademark twist endings. Except that there's another piece of story to continue on with, meaning the endings are either ignored, or resolved off-screen. After hearing Michael shrug off his entire family mutating into alien monsters, it's not hard to imagine every twist ending being undone without consequence.
Replacement Scrappy: Dr. Maniac is not looked upon kindly by fans who remember the Masked Mutant as the franchise's original comic-based monster. Common complaints are that Dr. Maniac lacks the Mutant's style and flair, as well as his overall menacing presence. Compared to that, Dr. Maniac is just some crazy guy in an ugly costume spouting out bizarre slogans and concocting random schemes.
A very rare example, but Scream Of The Haunted Mask is considered by quite a few to be one of the better HorrorLand spin-offs. Compared to the original sequel, the focus is back on Carly-Beth and the Mask itself, the continuity is surprisingly consistent, the formula of the first two books is abandoned, and we get a look into the Mask's dark past.
Monster Blood for Breakfast! completely scrapped the cast of the original four books, which made it a lot more easier to read especially since Bradley gets his comeuppance at the end when his ivy plant starts to wrap around his legs and Matt deliberately chooses not to help him.
Say Cheese And Die Screaming replaced the cast of the first two books and introduced Julie Martin, who immediately proved to be smarter and more endearing than Greg Banks when she tried her hardest to get rid of the Evil Camera.
Many of the original characters and monsters from the pre-HorrorLand books can fall under this category. While some, such as Slappy, the Deep family, Carly-Beth and the Haunted Mask, the Horrors, and the Morris siblings returned, the majority of the heroes and villains were brand new, with some of them featured in rehashes of older books. This is problematic in that the concept of Goosebumps HorrorLand and Goosebumps Most Wanted was that the worst villains Goosebumps had to offer would return, but so far only a small chunk of the villains were transplanted from the older books, and almost none of the protagonists have come back.
When HorrorLand was launched it included reprints of classic Goosebumps stories as companions, although some of the accompanying reprints don't really match up with the HorrorLand books. The original HorrorLand story was reprinted alongside Dr. Maniac Vs. Robby Schwartz, even though Attack of the Mutant seemed like a more natural choice. Weirdo Halloween received The Scarecrow Walks At Midnight instead of Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns which was also a book about kids dealing with aliens on Halloween. (Although it was later reprinted to tie into the second movie.)
The HorrorLand series in general has this problem. While intended to follow up on many of the original books, many of them only vaguely resemble older books, and many of them only feature the same supernatural elements rather than returning protagonists. As a result, the group in HorrorLand is made up mostly of new arrivals. Some fan favorites, such as Attack of the Mutant, did not receive any follow up at all.
In fact, up until the last two books, the ongoing plot is mostly made up of the kids wandering around the park being spooked by various attractions, mostly teasing encounters with recurring villains that ultimately never happen.
