Disney+ resurrects classic tween tales of terror for new audience

“Reader beware- You’re in for a scare!” Over three decades later, R.L Stine’s incredibly popular Goosebumps series has risen from the grave once again, with a 10-part serial drama debuting on Disney+.  Following five high schoolers plunging into the unknown to uncover the past of their parents, the series deals with high school drama…and the day-to-day struggle of defending against supernatural forces along the way.

Launching with a five-episode premiere, each installment plays more into a semi-episodic format, with loosely connected storylines that share the titles of individual classic Goosebumps books (such as Say Cheese and Die! or Night of the Living Dummy), while still setting up an overall storyline similar to that of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated than anything previously seen in the franchise. The main plot point of the aforementioned Scooby-Doo! series being Mysterious Incorporated (composed of the classic Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, Shaggy Rogers, and Scooby Dooby Doo) trying to delve into the history of the previous meddling kids of the town they inhabit, that being the puzzling and peculiar, Crystal Cove. Goosebumps follows a similar trail of clues, with the meddling kids (minus one talking dog) attempting to know the truth behind the murder of the town’s local ghost story, Harold Biddle (Ben Cockell, The Mysterious Benedict Society).  

This jump to live-action is nothing new to the Goosebumps name, as the series has previously been adapted into a total of 74 episodes, and two theatrical movie releases, both of which have their own pros and cons. The last time the Goosebumps brand name had been adapted was with the extremely disappointing 2018 movie Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, a rather disconnected sequel to its predecessor, the 2015 Goosebumps starring Jack Black. When the synopsis of this new installment was announced, longtime fans groaned fearing that it would just be another sloppy adaptation of a popular name,  without any of the magic that made it popular in the first place.

On the flip side, the 2023 version’s TV-14 rating grants the body-convulsing serial to ascend even further from its childish counterparts, without straying too far from the source material. Although it was based on a children's horror series, the ideas behind the frights have always been bowel-clenching, to the point where they’re almost toe-curling. 

In the first scene of episode one, viewers are greeted by a typical expository flashback to 1993, with Harold Biddle sketching in an eerie journal with a few familiar faces popping off the pages, and resting on the desk right before he dies in a fiery blaze. Some of those aforementioned objects, such as the mask later seen in episode two, “The Haunted Mask,” set up storylines that would play great into future seasons, even extending after what was originally scheduled. Goosebumps as a series has had numerous spinoffs, and the main semi-antagonist having a notebook full of oddities is an almost too convenient set-up for future installments.

As a reintroduction to a series that was six feet under, Goosebumps delivers the spine-chilling horrors the original series and movies could only dream of. With the potential for numerous future seasons, and even more tummy-squirming terrors yet to appear, this undead spirit walks the earth once more to claim its stake in the modern-day.

Grade: A

Goosebumps resurrection revives a long-lived series in a new light, refreshing tales decades old as new scary stories to tell in the dark.

by Evan Parfitt

Published October 30, 2023

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