This new Goosebumps series combines the familiar scares from the books and older series with a new storyline aimed at an older audience. 

• Entertainment factor: ★★★★★
• Scare factor: ★★★☆☆
• Nostalgic factor: ★★★★★
• Original factor: ★★★★☆
• Suitable for kids: 12 years and up

This series of Goosebumps is based on the original tv series Goosebumps that ran from 1995 until 1998. The tv series in its turn was based on the book series by R.L. Stine. Both book series and tv series were created for middle-graders. With kids as the protagonists dealing with all sorts of scary and weird things from monsters, aliens, cursed objects and more, these were all great stories. 

Now it has been brought to life aimed at a slightly older audience from 12 years and up. Because it leans more into young adult themes and topics. But the original stories are woven through this new series in a fun way. It stars Zack Morris, Isa Briones, Miles McKenna, Ana Yi Puig, Will Price., Justin Long It was created by Rob Letterman, Nicholas Stoller.

It consists of 10 episodes (36-47min)

Plot

Thirty years ago in Port Lawrence five teenagers seemingly broke into a house in the middle of the night where Harold just has moved into with his parents. While they ran away holding a suitcase, the basement had caught on fire and exploded with Harold in it. 

Now the children of these teenagers go to the same high school. Isaiah is a popular football player. James is his best friend and almost the only queer in town, but has a rich mother. Margot is Isaiah’s neighbor and they have known each other forever. She is smart and a scholar. Lucas is a bit of a loose canon and struggles with the death of his father. And finally Isabella is a loner from the AV club and a secret internet troll. 

Meanwhile Nathan Bratt, the new school teacher, has inherited the Biddle house, where Harold died, as the only living relative. But before he moves in Allison, Isaiah’s girlfriend decides to throw a Halloween party at the Biddle House. When the party is in full  swing they are discovered and run away. But some of them have found something in the house, like an old polaroid camera, a mask, worms or have been in contact with an object in the house, like a cuckoo clock. 

This is the start of strange events that bring them together. It’s affecting the five teenagers and Bratt in a personal and dangerous way. What is happening now has everything to do with what their parents did 30 years ago. And underneath it all an old evil tries to break free. 

Continue reading below this announcement.

Short Review

While the old series has an anthology monster-of-the-week structure with every episode new characters that had to deal with new supernatural or strange things, now it’s all woven into one single storyline. With a bit of a nostalgic feel of that old structure, while the first episodes each deal with a different object and character.  

The first four episodes introduce the five teenagers, who have come in contact with a cursed object. Isaiah finds a polaroid camera but the pictures show not the picture taken, but a gruesome foreboding image. He sees himself at the football game badly hurt and he sees Margot choking to death. This brings them together. The camera originated from the book Say Cheese and Die!

Then the story shifts to Isabella, while her movements are intertwined with what already happened to Isaiah and Margot, expanding the story. She has found a mask and when she puts it on she feels free and brave. But the mask affects her and eventually turns her into a real troll, ready to kill Lucas for breaking her drone. Isaiah and Margot are just in time to stop her. The mask is featured in the book The Haunted Mask. 

Lucas has found worms inside the house and at night they crawl into his nose, eyes and ears, invading his body and making him invincible, and even more irresponsible, even trying a death defying leap with his bike. Margot and his mother Nora are in time to stop him. Nora, his mother is the only one of the parents who listens to them, and has seen Harold’s ghost wanting revenge. While the other parents are trying to keep it a secret and deny the whole thing. The worms come from the book Go Eat Worms!

What happened to James is a whole other story. He fell against the cuckoo clock and every time he left the house at the party, a copy went out into the world instead, while he got stuck inside and relived the whole night again. Stuck in a time loop, he finally manages to break free, only to be captured by his many duplicates and held captive in the old mine for a week. The cuckoo clock is from The Cuckoo Clock of Doom. 

All these separate events bring Isaiah, Margot, Isabella and Lucas and eventually James together. Then the story progresses into the discovery of Nathan Bratt being possessed by Harold. 

But Harold wasn’t just an evil ghost. He also was possessed, or under the influence of something else. Slappy. It’s such fun to put Slappy the ventriloquist dummy at the center of the season, while he is a very important character of the book series and has several stories of his own. Not only is he behind all of it, but we also learn more about Kanduu, the origin of Slappy. He had 12 books of his own as The Living Dummy Saga. And he also acted like a sort of Crypt Keeper for kids to open and close the story of the book with his own foreword and afterword in the Goosebumps Slappy World book series, in honor of the 20 years anniversary of Goosebumps. 

The series goes back to 1993 where the parents, Ben, Isaiah’s father, Nora, Lucas’ mother, Sarah, Margot’s mother, Victoria, Isabella’s mother and Eliza, James’ mother, became friends with Harold. We learn more about who Harold was and what happened. But we also learn about Harold’s ancestor, Ephraim Bratt who was a magician and came in contact with Slappy in the 1920s. And we even go back further to 1879 when a solider Rupert was brought back from the edge of death when he read an incantation. He met a doll maker, Mahar, also a an ancestor of Nathan Bratt, and used him to realize his sinister plans, but was stopped. 

It gives a very elaborate storyline about the history of Slappy and how it’s all connected with the present. While the stories of the books and old tv series was just revolving around the kids without any adult interference, this time the adults work together with their kids, although it’s ultimately the kids who stop him. This is a new trend, that was reinforced by Stranger Things. It was very eighties for kids to roam around which the adults knew nothing about. Now it’s all about bringing the generations together. 

The build up is very smart, creating that old nostalgic feel of the old series, while at the same time bringing the stories together into one big story arc with one big villain to vanquish. With young adult themes, like love and choices, their parents actions from the past and in the present, being an outcast, wanting to belong, craving attention and more, this series fits perfectly in the modern days and storytelling.  

The series is mainly focused on scary events, but there’s, also room for some playful comic relief. Also very funny is the cameo of R.L. Stine himself in a podcast Nathan is listening to about writing a story. Because although it could have been a good ending after episode eight, it’s not over yet. We have to learn more about Slappy’s origin story that expands the lore, which results in a great storyline. However what happens next to the five friends feels a bit overdone. It stretches the story where it shouldn’t have when they go to Seattle. While the end battle is a good one, with tricks and illusions, the real ending is kept ambiguous. It feels like a cliffhanger that asks for more in a second season. However this series is an anthology series and the second season deals with a whole new story with other characters. It’s a very common ending for R.L. Stine stories, they don’t always end well, some end dark and some hint that the evil isn’t gone at all.

Goosebumps season 1 is overall a great season that combines the nostalgic feel of the different stories of the books and old tv series with a new original storyline that speaks to the young adults. 

Read more about Goosebumps & R.L. Stine’s Universe:

• Goosebumps (2015) movie review
• Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween (2018) movie review
• R.L. Stine’s Pumpkinhead (2025) movie review
• The Haunting Hour: Don’t Think About It (2007) movie review
• R.L. Stine’s Monsterville: Cabinet of Souls (2015)

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