The first season of the teen supernatural horror Goosebumps has ended on Disney+. Its plot is based on the eponymous and hugely popular series of books by Robert Laurence Stein, known as the Stephen King of children’s literature. In this review, we will tell you what the authors of the series offer to the target audience and whether it will be relevant for adult viewers as well.
The year is 1993, a small American town surrounded by a forest mysteriously shrouded in fog. The camera zooms over the lake, and it seems as if stars are about to glide across the water to line up nicely around the proud Paramount sign. But instead, a gloomy teenager, Harold Biddle, appears in the frame, clearly a Cobain-esque teenager. Some strange miracles are happening in the house where he lives. These mysterious events lead to a tragic accident.
Thirty years later, the audience is presented with modern young people, the main characters of the series. Strange things start happening to them, too, so the students will have to join forces to resist a supernatural evil. Later it turns out that it is connected to the past of their parents, who may have something to do with Biddle’s death. This situation is further complicated by the arrival of a new literature teacher, Mr. Brett.
This is not the first time that cinema has turned to R.L. Stine’s children’s horror stories. From 1995 to ’98, the Canadian-produced Goosebumps anthology series ran for 4 seasons. The project successfully conveyed the spirit of the books and rightfully gained cult status. There were also Hollywood movie adaptations: in 2015, the feature film Goosebumps was released, starring Jack Black as Stein, and three years later, the sequel Forsvundet til Halloween appeared.
For example, there’s a storyline about a girl who can’t decide whether she’s closer to a strange loner (his name is Lucas) or a local soccer star whose father is obsessed with his son’s sporting future. One Tree Hill, if you recall, also had something similar, only it involved basketball instead of football.
The authors, including the director of the 2015 Hollywood adaptation, Rob Letterman, are trying to maneuver between these two directions. But up to a certain point, they do not give a clear preference to any of them, which is definitely not good.
The situation improves after the season’s equator, when the Goosebumps’ trademark ventriloquist, Slappy, literally appears on stage. At that point, the story takes a more frightening turn (given that it is still a “children’s horror”), gains a more solid scale, and generally looks more interesting.
The local young characters are not able to stay in the memory either. If there was a magnetic chemistry between the teenagers in the relatively recent film adaptation of «It», you won’t find it here by daylight. What can we say about the stylized gothic wonder called Wednesday: against the backdrop of Jenna Ortega’s adventures and her outstanding performance, the characters of Goosebumps look particularly faded.
Of course, the TV series is designed primarily for a teenage audience, so adults play a purely supporting role. Among them, the only one who stands out is 45-year-old Justin Long, a regular in comedies and horror films (eepers Creepers, Tusk, Barbarian), who could easily be confused with a schoolboy. And he doesn’t seem to realize whether he’s supposed to play a goofball with Johnny English-like tendencies, or even the Terminator or the new Stephen King.
As a result, Goosebumps cannot be called a complete failure, but it is also hard to get rid of the feeling that the creators could have squeezed much more out of Stein’s books (perhaps they were saving their energy for potential future seasons). As a one-time adventure for teenagers, it may still be possible. As a project that could claim to be something more – definitely not.
Verdict
Goosebumps (2023) is unlikely to be suitable for adult audiences, and it’s not certain that schoolchildren will like it. And next to teen hits like Wednesday, the series will feel extremely insecure. At the same time, the project can be given a chance for the sake of joint family leisure.
