_{By: Amanda Guarragi}

As someone born in the ‘90s, the Goosebumps series by R. L. Stine was everywhere. His books have always centred on children experiencing obscure fantastical events. Each book had a creature that would be directly linked to how the characters in his novels were feeling. Stine often wrote parallels between grief and loss when constructing his supernatural stories. The Goosebumps series was on every shelf in the early 2000s and has since been adapted. The first adaptation of the book series included R. L. Stine himself. From 1995-1998, the Goosebumps television series was the perfect anthology series to introduce children to the horror genre. For 12 episodes, Stine introduced the story based on the books he wrote, which allowed viewers to connect with him even more. In 2015, Jack Black and Dylan Minnette starred in the film adaptation that revived the love of the beloved books. 

It is 28 years later, and Goosebumps is back as a television series on Disney Plus. In 2015, Director Rob Letterman incorporated Stine’s life’s work and the creatures he created while sending the teens who believed in the supernatural to do some detective work in the 2015 film. Letterman carries this combination in this new series. This series does have a monster of the week structure for each episode. However, some objects are presented to these five high school students and are pieces in the over-arching story. Letterman and Nicholas Stoller co-created this series and balanced the horror comedy well. Even the Gen Z humour worked well and wasn’t written to cater to that specific generation. These five high school students, Isaiah (Zack Morris), Lucas (Will Price), Margot (Isa Briones), James (Miles McKenna), and Isabella (Ana Yi Puig), are all connected. They may be divided based on high school social status, but when they unleash these supernatural forces upon their town, they work together to save it. 

The series opens with Harold Biddle (Ben Cockell), a loner who keeps to himself. Letterman sets the scene with the fog setting around the house and an eerie score to accompany it. Biddle lives in a large home in the middle of the forest that looks old and run-down. Almost as if ghosts were creeping around the closets. After getting bullied at school, he finds solace in the basement with all his obscure belongings around him. Biddle had pet worms, was into photography, and kept a scrapbook, which doubled as a journal. It came down to one horrific night when the doorbell rang, and no one was there, but a spirit did enter the house and blew the power. The sound design is a standout because creeks, doorbell rings, and subtle noises around the house were all heightened. As he held a candle to go to the basement, he missed one of the steps on the stairs and accidentally burned himself to death in his favourite place. It then cuts to the present day, where the spirit of Biddle returns to wreak havoc on a group of teenagers. 

Each episode of Goosebumps focuses on an object that Biddle had in his basement. It correlates to the title, and each object affects the life of the character who chose it. Teenagers are a complex group and struggle between not disappointing their parents and becoming an individual. The teens in this series all have secret desires and fears, which are reflected in each story based on the objects they find. Through the haunting character of Biddle, Letterman breaks down his characters and redesigns them. Some become more confident, others are humbled, and some process their pain differently. Letterman and Stoller use the sins of the past to haunt the future for these teenagers, and once the story unravels in episode four, it becomes a layered, well-crafted mystery. It is the perfect blend of the book series by R. L. Stine, the original anthology television series, and the new age of comedy horror. The beauty of the original book series is that it can be reworked for a new generation, but the foundation Stine built will be present in all other works.