Hulu's 'Goosebumps' review: Less slime, more soap
As a '90s kid who grew up in Australian suburbia with little else to do but learn swear words from Jagged Little Pill and develop a slightly macabre mind, I was obsessed with Goosebumps. R.L. Stine's horror series for courageous children kept me up at night, from the horrors of Camp Jellyjam to all that Monster Blood. I used to dare myself to watch Deborah Forte's 1995 TV series, mainly relying on my much braver sister to regale me with the nightmares of each episode as I lurked outside the room.
Hulu's own version of Goosebumps, developed by The Muppets' Nicholas Stoller and Detective Pikachu's Rob Letterman, takes a more serious, soapy, PG Riverdale-meets-Stranger Things tone toward Stine's revered YA horror catalogue.
The series is nothing like the beloved '90s series or the 2015 Jack Black movie, both of which managed to capture the gleefully gross, silly, over-the-top, chaotic YA horror of R.L. Stine's books. Remember, this is a series that included titles, many with exclamation points, such as Say Cheese and Die!, It Came From Beneath the Sink!, I Live in Your Basement!, Don't Go to Sleep! — you get it! Instead, the series focuses on family drama and teen mystery investigation elements, and while the series takes a little time to trudge through its teen soap tropes, once the slime hits around episode 3, Goosebumps actually gets going.
What is Goosebumps about?
Set in small-town Port Lawrence, Goosebumps follows a group of five teens (as always): Margot (Isa Briones), James (Miles McKenna), Isaiah (Zack Morris), Isabella (Ana Yi Puig), and Lucas (Will Price), who find themselves unpleasantly haunted by things they encounter while throwing an ill-advised Halloween party in someone's haunted house. Each weird occurrence is pulled straight from a Goosebumps book, with each episode corresponding to one of Stine's most popular stories: Say Cheese and Die!, The Haunted Mask, The Cuckoo Clock Of Doom, Go Eat Worms!, and more.
All the strange happenings are linked to the ghost of one Harold Biddle, a student who tragically died 30 years earlier — and their parents may know something about it. But Biddle's not content to remain in his doomed basement, instead possessing the new owner of his house to do his Biddling, wearing English teacher Nathan Bratt (Justin Long, who looks like he had a ball) like a suit. But despite possessing an educator, sending burning demons across a football field, and suddenly turning up in most mirrors, Biddle doesn't quite feel like the Victor Creel threat he could be. But as in Stranger Things, there's always more to the story…
Goosebumps takes a little while to rev up.
In the series' first few episodes, Goosebumps ticks almost every box of both the small-town soap and the mystery genre, for better or worse: A big, scout-attended game that'll mean a scholarship or not for the quarterback, but first, he needs to ace that history test. The will-they-won't-they best friendship of teen neighbours. The parents-getting-separated storyline. The bullied AV club outcast getting her own. Parents keeping more possibly murderous secrets than an affair from their kids — but also, there's an affair.
The first few episodes take themselves so seriously it feels like the horror elements may not channel the Goosebumps energy some of us came for. Adaptations of nostalgic YA horror don't have to be ridiculous; Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Christopher Pike's The Midnight Club was a terrifying but deeply moving meditation on mortality. But Stine's series was always the type best channelled by a theatrical, torch-lit face at sleepovers — high scares, mega gross-out factor, limited family drama.
However, there's a moment at the end of episode 3 in which the series finally becomes Goosebumps-worthy, thanks to an explosion of slime, then worm vomit — and then things actually get interesting. By episode 4, the script is significantly tighter, funnier, and smarter, especially in one exchange among the group describing the beige, normcore aura of one of their dads. The core mystery gets more intriguing. The following episodes are a fun mystery connecting the past and present, and introducing more than a few familiar faces from Stine's books.
Goosebumps could use more time in the '90s (but maybe that's just me).
Are we done with the defiant and reigning trend of '80s and '90s nostalgia in our TV and movies, especially with horror? Netflix's Fear Street trilogy begins in 1994 and has all the '90s slasher references you could ask for. Yellowjackets made a meal of its '90s setting. Stranger Things practically convinced people it invented the '80s.
Goosebumps had the perfect opportunity to seize upon the '80s and '90s obsession still rampaging through our screens by setting itself mostly during the era. The '90s was the decade in which the books were released and a prime era for the writers to really have some fun with the costuming, dialogue, and set design. But while the narrative does enjoy a few 1990s Radiohead-peppered flashback sequences, with Biddle's death occurring in 1993, there's not enough of it.
Overall, Hulu's Goosebumps takes a while to get a foothold with its more serious, soapy treatment of killer cameras, haunted masks, and whatnot, but once it gets there, the core mystery and the script make it an enjoyable series for the spooky season.
How to watch: Goosebumps is streaming on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ in the UK. Episodes 1 to 5 are out Oct. 13, then one episode per week after that.
Shannon Connellan is Mashable's UK Editor based in London, formerly Mashable's Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives in the Creel House. A Tomatometer-approved critic, Shannon writes about entertainment, tech, social good, science, culture, and Australian horror.
