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Choose Your Own Nightmare #5
The Halloween Party
Meg, the new girl in your apartment building, is having a big Halloween party, and you can't wait to go. You've got a great costume and you love getting spooked. But you didn't realize that Meg was so....different. Her party isn't quite what you expected. The ghoulish masks the guests are wearing aren't masks they're real!
87 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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53 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 31, 2025
Some of the best original eighteen Choose Your Own Nightmares relied heavily on atmosphere. Night of the Werewolf, Risk Your Life Arcade, Welcome to Horror Hospital, and The Halloween Party fit this category. Meg Robinson, who just moved into your apartment building, invites you to her Halloween party. You attend in costume as a panther, wearing a face paint pattern said to ward off evil. Meg leads you and your friends Laurie and Peter to a back room for a special effects show, but things turn horrifying when a witch emerges and threatens you. If you survive until midnight, she screeches, you can go free. As a smoke bomb goes off and you evacuate the room, a panicked Meg claims her mother is missing. Should you accompany Peter and Meg to search for her, or go with Laurie to get help?
Joining Peter and Meg, you discover her mother isn't missing at all. She was the witch who cursed you. You and Peter can escape the apartment through a service elevator, but Meg follows, insisting that witch isn't her real mother. The three of you end up in the apartment building's basement, then stumble out a tunnel into the open air beside a cemetery. Cut through the woods to avoid the gravestones, and you'll be accosted by living skeletons. Going through the cemetery could be better, but Peter gets lost on the way. If you go back for him, you meet a group of strange kids hiding in a mausoleum. Will they lead you to Peter, or your doom? Don't readily trust anyone tonight.
If you originally went with Laurie for help, all the apartment building's hallway lights are out. Do you want to try the elevator, or stick with the stairs? Knocking on an apartment door at random, you meet a faded-looking man and woman you grow to suspect are kidnappers. Can you get outside the building and sneak away down an alley? Alternatively you could hide in the laundry room, but may find yourself in a war between the witch and some ghosts. If you and Laurie took the elevator and not the stairs, it opens onto a floor labeled minus thirteen. Maybe you should just press the lobby button and wait with Fred the doorman until midnight, but even that's a risk on this cursed evening. Exploring the minus-thirteenth floor might be your best bet; you end up at a Halloween party with Mr. Grimaldin, a grouchy neighbor. The party is full of paranormal enemies, and you hope your face paint will keep them at bay. With help from Mr. Grimaldin, you just might live to midnight.
The Halloween Party has flaws, but the atmosphere is memorable. Who is E.A.M. Jakab, though? Solid information on the author is difficult to come by, so I wonder if it's a pen name. I rank The Halloween Party in the upper tier of Choose Your Own Nightmare, and I go back for a read every October. Eerie atmosphere is a rare quality, and this book has it.
Joining Peter and Meg, you discover her mother isn't missing at all. She was the witch who cursed you. You and Peter can escape the apartment through a service elevator, but Meg follows, insisting that witch isn't her real mother. The three of you end up in the apartment building's basement, then stumble out a tunnel into the open air beside a cemetery. Cut through the woods to avoid the gravestones, and you'll be accosted by living skeletons. Going through the cemetery could be better, but Peter gets lost on the way. If you go back for him, you meet a group of strange kids hiding in a mausoleum. Will they lead you to Peter, or your doom? Don't readily trust anyone tonight.
If you originally went with Laurie for help, all the apartment building's hallway lights are out. Do you want to try the elevator, or stick with the stairs? Knocking on an apartment door at random, you meet a faded-looking man and woman you grow to suspect are kidnappers. Can you get outside the building and sneak away down an alley? Alternatively you could hide in the laundry room, but may find yourself in a war between the witch and some ghosts. If you and Laurie took the elevator and not the stairs, it opens onto a floor labeled minus thirteen. Maybe you should just press the lobby button and wait with Fred the doorman until midnight, but even that's a risk on this cursed evening. Exploring the minus-thirteenth floor might be your best bet; you end up at a Halloween party with Mr. Grimaldin, a grouchy neighbor. The party is full of paranormal enemies, and you hope your face paint will keep them at bay. With help from Mr. Grimaldin, you just might live to midnight.
The Halloween Party has flaws, but the atmosphere is memorable. Who is E.A.M. Jakab, though? Solid information on the author is difficult to come by, so I wonder if it's a pen name. I rank The Halloween Party in the upper tier of Choose Your Own Nightmare, and I go back for a read every October. Eerie atmosphere is a rare quality, and this book has it.
October 20, 2025
A bit messy but good no less. I liked the apartment setting for this one, alongside some of the darker endings. In fact, all the endings were decent here. The story is decently fun but it’s kind of a mess. It’s not random per say but goes to so many weird avenues that I wasn’t entirely interested in, and it feels rather forgettable. It’s good but only for the vibes, 5/10.
August 22, 2014
In this choose your own nightmare Halloween themed book, you are invited to a Halloween party by the new people in your building, they have a daughter, Meg, who is your age and it looks to be a spooky and fun party, until Meg pulls out a book belonging to another person in the building, it's a spell book and Meg is ready to cast a spell, but the spell ends up being a curse, summoning a witch who is determined to destroy all of you before midnight that Halloween, will you make the right choices to survive until midnight and outlive the witch's curse?
With choices that will lead you everywhere from a creepy cemetery to the building's laundry room and even a party full of ghouls, this is a story that is sure to delight and spook readers.
With choices that will lead you everywhere from a creepy cemetery to the building's laundry room and even a party full of ghouls, this is a story that is sure to delight and spook readers.
July 2, 2018
This one terrified me as well.
November 1, 2021
A really good Halloween 🎃 read ! We read it over several evenings, exploring all the different decisions!
October 10, 2023
I didn't really enjoy it , i would prefer if the book stayed at the halloween party as the title!! But it's already out of it and the endings were kinda dull
(Verdict: 5/10)
(Verdict: 5/10)
October 17, 2018
I don't really know how I feel about this book. It's really quite a mixed bag. At times it was humorously cheesy and mildly intriguing at some points, but it is pretty low quality. Your character starts off at a Halloween party thrown by a new girl in your apartment complex, which leads to your friends and the girl jokingly casting a spell. From then on, you are all under a witch's curse and must try to escape. Honestly, the Halloween Party is not too accurate of a title, as you're only there for a couple of scenes. The action and writing in this book were very jerky and uneven, but most of the endings were fairly satisfying. It felt like it was kind of rushed and the author couldn't settle on a particular tone. I didn't hate this book, but I don't love it. It's definitely a lower tier entry in the series.
Fun fact: There is a list in the back of Halloween party ideas. One of the suggestions is dripping ketchup in your hair to look like fake blood. Yeah, I'm gonna pass on that one.
Fun fact: There is a list in the back of Halloween party ideas. One of the suggestions is dripping ketchup in your hair to look like fake blood. Yeah, I'm gonna pass on that one.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews