Viewer Begone – You're in for a Yawn!
This review is part of an ongoing series on reviewing things well after they're generally relevant or called for.
Growing up in the 1990s there were two types of kids: those who read R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps and that’s it, because I lied. Everyone read them. Since the series’ effective instant success in 1992, the nearly two hundred publications under the Goosebumps brand have gone on to sell over 350 million books worldwide. But it was after only three years (and thirty-five books) that Scholastic saw fit to cash in even more on the craze with an extension to the small screen – a lucrative move undeniably paved by another successful Canadian-made horror anthology kids show six years it’s senior, Nickelodeon’s critically and commercially acclaimed Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1990-1996).
Things have since gone downhill.
The Goosebumps television series premiered on Fox Kids in 1995 to substantial viewership (approximately 4 million more than that of the Breaking Bad series finale) and with brand awareness that effectively skirted Are You Afraid of the Dark? off the air as it ended a year later after seven seasons. Goosebumps however, taking up the torch lit by the fire of the Midnight Society, would go on to warrant only four, and when watching it today one does not really wonder why.
A test audience reacting to Goosebumps' production standards.
In it’s defense, the landscape of the film & television horror genre in the early 1990s was fertile but unsolid ground. While today the standard hallmarks of modern horror have been parsed to formula, the heft of the genre at the time was (thankfully) not as unified. The first half of the decade saw a number of sequels and remakes that as themselves derivative were not ripe for informing the televisual adaptation of scary books for kids. The early 90s’ most effective works – such as Misery (1990), Jacob’s Ladder (1990), and Silence of the Lambs (1991) – were similarly of no use as they operate largely on adult nuances that generally don’t translate to the serving of much less disturbing material to a younger audience. Other remnants of the era’s contribution are the essential crescendos of 1980’s splatter and the otherwise evolution of the genre into the realm of horror-comedy, that with such fan favorites as Braindead/Dead Alive (1992) and Army of Darkness (1992) were again understandably of little to no help with the realization of Goosebumps in living color.
The initially proposed recurring all-black cast of Goosebumps. (White people for scale.)
But even setting Are You Afraid of the Dark? aside, the horizon of contemporary eligible influences was not as void as an average viewing of Goosebumps would have you believe. Recent productions of the time – such as Candyman (1992), Tremors (1990), Arachnophobia (1990), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), The People Under the Stairs (1991), three of the six Child’s Play films ('88 - '91), and especially the preceding kinfolk Creepshow (1982) and HBO and CBS’s Tales From the Crypt and Darkside respectively along with their accompanying features ('83 - '96) – were all anywhere from considerably established to very well known. Just apparently not to the producers and directors of Goosebumps. The creepy conventions of any one of these (naturally scaled to levels appropriate for children) could and should have been employed in delivering the Goosebumps tales to television, but unfortunately this never once appears the case. It’s frankly baffling that with the series’ predilection with purporting that readers/viewers are in for at least one scare that nearly the entirety of the show’s four seasons are vacant of any earnest attempt in actually delivering on that promise.
Apparently every theater marquee within 4 miles of Goosebumps' creative crew at all times.
The vast majority of Goosebumps episodes “read” like they were produced in a vacuum; void of not only the aforementioned but of generally any audio/visual contribution to the horror genre. As a kid and part of the target demographic I picked up on this, and despite it’s affiliation to the books, of which I was a fan, I was forced to give the show my personal appraisal of “not good”. And things have not changed. That’s not to say that now having just recently watched every single episode that I regret doing so or did not enjoy the experience, however it should be noted that both novelty and nostalgia are the two most important aspects fueling nearly any fun had in re-watching the series today.
Any one of many popular 90's slime products are the perfect series companion.
There are of course exceptions to the rule, that is to say episodes both fairly good and even sensible to legitimate attempts at curating entries symbolic of everything the series should have been. Fortunately most of them are rather easy to find and identify, as generally speaking all the commonly popular two-parters (some occasionally found combined into one hour specials) are worth a watch. Additionally, the episode More Monster Blood (s02e16) – ironically original to the show – might stand as pound for pound the best in the series. This is probably due to the fact that in not being an adaptation it’s creators were free to mold the episode into an effective, budget-friendly, single-location story that played rather well, wherein allegiance to Stine’s source material in other episodes often clashed with either the budget and/or the crew’s razor thin work ethic resulting in some of arguably the best books translating to some of the worst episodes (e.g. A Shocker on Shock Street [s03e01] and One Day at HorrorLand [s03e08-09].)
A director and producer hash things out on the set of Goosebumps.
It’s very important to note however that my pardoning of in large the two-part episodes does NOT include the series’ original three-part Chillogy, which entirely unassociated with R.L. Stine in any way is without a doubt hands down the lowest, most embarrassing and insulting low point of the series. It’s first third, entitled Squeal of Fortune (s03e19), is honestly passable if for nothing else in being a moral parable wherein a greedy Caterina Scorsone is [SPOILER ALERT] turned into a pig by an evil doll named Karl for hiking up prices on diluted lemonade. Which is fine.
And to be fair also the most terrifying visage in all 74 episodes.
But both everything there and almost the entire show itself is thrown out the window in part two (entitled Strike Three… You’re Doomed [s03e20]) when Karl decides to hellaciously torment a boy for liking baseball. Assumedly all three episodes of the Chillogy were collectively produced on the same budget as any other one episode of Goosebumps, as Karl and the kid are almost literally the only people to appear here. Extras return for part three to play the other evil doll people of the benevolently-named titular town of the completely unforeboding Escape from Karlsville [s03e21], but the budget still visibly frays shoestring-thin as in attempt to wardrobe them as living figurines they’re merely draped in plastic wrap and given cheap masks that by comparison would win your worst post-season, dollar store bargain bin ensemble an award for best costume. In his final bout, Karl goes far out of his way to arrange turning the baseball boy’s innocent younger brother into a plastic patron of his miney tiny toy town for no other reason than – and I quote – “It’s a hobby”...“it passes the time.”
Okay. Sure, why not. I understand.
Unlike Stine’s subsequent television affiliations (the evanescent Nightmare Room [2001-2002] and most recently The Haunting Hour [2010-2014]) Goosebumps was not overly rife with actors of much notoriety then or today, but they’re there. Undoubtedly the biggest is Young Hercules (1998-1999) himself Ryan Gosling in Say Cheese and Die! (s01e15), alleged living mannequin Hayden Christensen in Night of the Living Dummy III (s02e24 & 25), and Batman himself Adam West as masked crime-fighter The Galloping Gazelle in Attack of the Mutant (s02e02). But my favorite familiar face would have to be late Cube (1997) veteran and The Red Green Show (1991 - 2006)’s Wayne Robson in Bride of the Living Dummy (s03e16). But for all it’s countless and occasionally recurring child actors I can only memorably attest to one instance of what one might caution to call an actual performance; one Brendan Fletcher in The Werewolf of Fever Swamp (s01e18), who good on him is still working today. Unfortunately, it’s at least on three counts of Rampage (2009) and it’s sequels for Uwe Boll, though in Fletcher’s defense… arguably Boll’s best films? Nevertheless, they’re at least credits to Fletcher’s tenacity, as even just the thought of being in the same vicinity of Boll’s ego gives me… you guessed it: GOOSEBUMPS!
