Halloween is coming up, and Hulu and Disney+ are readying their audiences for spooky season with a new television edition of “Goosebumps.” The ten-episode comedy-horror show premiered on both streaming services Oct. 13.
“Forgetting Sarah Marshall” director Nicholas Stoller collaborated with “Monsters vs. Aliens” creator Rob Letterman to bring the new retelling of R.L. Stine’s classic young adult horror book series to life. The show is separate from the 1995 television adaptation and the 2015 film franchise.
The filmmakers used the method of serialized storytelling to create the new adaptation, or when a story is told in interconnected and sequential parts that are released weekly.
“Goosebumps” begins after a group of high schoolers’ Halloween party plans are foiled, and they are forced to find another venue. They settle for the abandoned Biddle House, said to have been haunted by its previous owners’ son, Harold Biddle.
Unconcerned about the possibility of a supernatural entity occupying the house, everyone thinks it is a perfect party setting. But when the party goes horribly awry, it sets off a chain of events that forever change the course of the kids’ lives.
I enjoyed the many aspects of the party elaborated on throughout each episode. Even insignificant characters were highlighted and incorporated into the main plot in ways that did not feel awkward or forced.
The cast featured well-known actors Justin Long and Rachael Harris, among newer faces Ana Yi Puig and Zack Morris, but everyone performed well in their roles. Most suspenseful young adult shows can get cheesy and be hard to watch because of clichés, but “Goosebumps” was successful in plot building, and the cliffhangers did exactly what they were supposed to.
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One of the more interesting parts of the show was its character relationships. Though simple at first, they get progressively more complicated as the series progressed. As for the horror-comedy genre, Stoller, and Letterman refreshingly balanced jokes and jump scares.
“Goosebumps” will continue to air weekly, with its seventh episode airing on Disney+ and Hulu this Friday, Oct. 27. A total of ten episodes will complete the season.