‘Goosebumps’ Series Harnesses Millennial Nostalgia and Elevated Horror to Delightful Effect

“Goosebumps” has not suffered from a lack of adaptations in the decades since R.L. Stine’s YA series of novels first terrorized millennials. In addition to the anthology series that ran for four seasons in the mid-’90s, a 2015 film adaptation starring Jack Black and directed by Rob Letterman also earned a standalone sequel in 2018. Now, Slappy the Dummy, haunted cameras, evil Halloween masks and sinister cuckoo clocks are all back with the Disney+ and Hulu “Goosebumps” series, which takes on a decidedly darker tone.

Created by Letterman and Nicholas Stoller (“Neighbors”), the serialized approach encompasses multiple Stine novels as a group of high schoolers are terrorized by the vengeful ghost of a teen who died in 1993 — accidentally, at the hands of their parents. The resulting show manages to marry genuine scares with the horrors of high school and that scratchy, itchy feeling that comes with the dawning realization that you might not know the people with whom you live as well as you think. Even if they raised you. And yet, even as a sister possessed by an evil mask terrorizes her little brother in a tree house, the show’s slippery tonal balance remains in equilibrium. This is still a YA series, but an elevated one.

More from IndieWire

• Paramount Lost *Only* $238 Million from Streaming in First Full Paramount+ with Showtime Quarter

• 'The Price Is Right' Helped Shape the Zany Game Show Aesthetic of 'Quiz Lady'

Letterman, Stoller, and executive producer Hilary Winston gathered together in Hollywood Forever Cemetery before a screening of the first two episodes to tell IndieWire about bringing Stine’s creations to life for a new audience.

IndieWire: For the most part, every episode adapts one of the Goosebumps books as part of a serialized story. How quickly did you land on the books you wanted to include?

Stoller: Rob and I wrote the pilot, and we settled on “Say Cheese and Die” pretty quickly.

Letterman: We looked at the first 60 books mostly, because those are kind of the OG. The conceit of the show is it’s serialized and we’re mapping books to characters, so we started figuring out the arcs and then books that fit that. We didn’t want to have genres that were redundant, so we were also looking for subgenres of horror. But it did happen pretty quick.

And Slappy the Dummy becomes an important character by Episode 6.

Winston: We really wanted to go back to the history of who Slappy was in the books, and Rob is such a great resource. Rob knows everything about Slappy. But going back to do a sophisticated, scary origin story of Slappy, which is buried in those books, even if people aren’t totally aware of it.

The tone is so impressive; a co-worker watched the trailer and asked, “Is it still for kids?” And it is, but it’s darker than what we might expect even while there’s still comedy twined throughout.

Stoller: That’s the best reaction ever. I love that reaction. I would say the three of us speak the same tonal language. As we were working on the pilot, it had to be something that amused us as well as an intended kid audience.

Winston: And also teenagers are so self-centered in the best way that, even when the world is burning down around them, it would still be like, “Are you mad at me? Because it seems like you’re mad at me.” So there’s always going to be that humor built in.

As you got to know your cast, did that affect writing their characters?

Letterman: The casting process was intense. We’re so lucky to have the group that we have. I think we all, coming out of comedy, know how to adjust and write towards them, and encourage improv’ing, and just really try to get into their heads. We did notice some relationship patterns that we wrote to.

Winston: Just as the group clicked, like, it made it easier to write for the group, I think. As they became friends offscreen, you really see those connections build as the series goes on. At the beginning, these kids aren’t really all friends, and then they find that, and that was really nice.

Letterman: It’s a parallel. Offscreen, they became friends in the same chronological order as they became close onscreen.

Stoller: We kept trying to hang out with them, and they were like, “You’re, like, a lot older than us. And this is weird.” So we stopped.

But you had Justin Long and Rachael Harris and Rob Huebel to hang out with! It’s so fun getting to see them in this, especially Rachael. She’s just incredible.

Stoller: You take comedy people and have them do drama. And then things are really good. It’s a slam dunk almost every time.

There are four episodes left. What can you tease about where things go?

Winston: Everybody just found out a lot of the backstory of Slappy, so now Slappy is out of the box literally and figuratively, and the back half of the season is a lot of Slappy. In a good way.

Letterman: Without giving it away — it’s Nick’s favorite movie, he watches it all the time — we have an homage to “The Shining.” If someone’s paying attention, they will literally see the shots that I’m talking about.

And finally, Rob, why do you remain such a Slappy fan?

Letterman: I got to know him a little bit during the movie. It’s hard to do “Goosebumps” without having Slappy in it, you know what I mean? On the movie, I had the actual one for a split second and I brought it home to show my kids. They were very young at the time, and they were screaming. Freaking out. And I was like, “Take this thing back! Take this thing back. Put it back in the Pelican case!”

New episodes of “Goosebumps” premiere Fridays on Disney+ and Hulu.

Best of IndieWire

• Where to Watch This Week's New Movies, from 'Rustin' and 'All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt' to 'Quiz Lady'

• Sofia Coppola Movies, Ranked: 'Priscilla,' 'The Virgin Suicides,' 'Marie Antoinette,' and More

• The Best Modern Westerns, from 'The Power of the Dog' to 'Killers of the Flower Moon' to 'The Hateful Eight'

Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.