The man slowly turns his massive head…

While getting lost in a nightmarish department store in the previous entry was a lot of fun, the first entry in the Plot Your Own Horror Stories series is a bit less inspired, though it did set the standard for the series in a lot of ways…for better or worse, from what I’ve read.

Craven House Horrors is a bog-standard haunted house setup. Oh no, I’m caught in the rain! Better take shelter in the house I’ve heard nothing but terrible things about!

At least the buildup to the house is atmospheric, almost to R C Welch levels of ominous.

The gist of Craven House’s dubious history is…well, conflicted. People can’t seem to agree what’s wrong with it, except that the guy who lives there is more than a little crazy and maybe even spooky. That, however, does little to prepare you for the weird and awful things we find inside the manor, most of which has no bearing on a crazy old dude living there. I would expect to be chased by a maniac, but Craven House also has talking birds, machines that turn people into clay statues, demonic little girls, a disappearing doorknob or two, hypnotic old bedridden men who want you to nap with them forever…

It’s a weird house, without a doubt. There’s just nothing to tie all the spooks together. To that end it reminds me of Uncle Harry’s Scream Shack, and it would seem that “assorted, unrelated spooks” is the running theme of PYOHS, which is a shame because if there were a way to really tie all the spooky things together, it would make for a better read. At least in Nightmare Store I could chock up the random scares as my simply having a literal nightmare in the store. Here it’s just nonsense meant to go “BOO!” at young readers.

That’s not to say that the spooks aren’t any good. Objectively the spooks are all effective. The talking raven is a creepy moment, the wiry robot slave is weird and terrifying, and the demonic little girl (Poltergeist Peggy?) is the stuff of nightmares. They’d just be more effective if they were connected somehow.

And as long as we’re on the topic of “unnerving”, how about that artwork? I’m gonna see that little girl in my sleep for weeks. Look, her eyes even follow you no matter where you are, like a hideous, prepubescent Mona Lisa. She steals the prize as far as spooks go in this book, and she pops up more than once. I’d give her cheek a pinch if I didn’t value my fingers.

One nice thing about this series is how each chapter has a reference to the previous chapter at the top of the page, so completionists can navigate the book more easily. I always thought this was a nice touch, and wish more gamebooks had utilized it.

Something that I find odd, though, is the series’ habit of giving the rearer the option to outright change the narrative. Take this example above: it’s not asking if I should take action on the assumption that the bird will attack nor not, it’s asking me to decide what the bird actually does next. It’s an odd narrative choice that I personally don’t care for, but some readers might find it fun.

There’s even a chapter where you’re simply told to pick a page to turn to. No in-universe actions required, simply decide which page to turn to next. They’re both bad. It doesn’t matter. Just pick a page. C’mon, the author’s deadline is tomorrow morning, just say page 10 or page 115! Doesn’t matter what you think you’re doing!

Overall Craven House Horrors isn’t terrible, it’s just not great, either. Poltergeist Peggy is best in show for sure, and the raven and the robot are tied for second place as far as memorably creepy. On the whole, though, I got a bigger fix from Nightmare Store, and the random nature of the hauntings suited that story better, as weak as the premise was. Plus it had a higher ratio of memorable moments than this one.

Can’t go wrong with the artwork, though. It’s all top notch and guaranteed to make your little ones lose a few nights’ sleep.

Time for bed. Uncle Mac out.