‘Goosebumps’ Executive Producers Talk Series’ ‘Nostalgia Factor,’ Easter Eggs, and ‘Subverting Expectations’ (Exclusive)

Disney+ is gearing up for an October filled with frights with the upcoming premiere of its new Goosebumps series, based on R.L. Stine’s beloved line of novels. Stine’s work first appeared on TV via the mega-popular Goosebumps anthology series that ran for four seasons between 1995 and 1998, and later on the big screen in the 2015 and 2018 Jack Black-starring movies Goosebumps and Goosebumps 2. Now, three decades after Stine first put pen to paper and brought children’s nightmares to life, his works are once again getting the small-screen adaptation treatment and introducing a new generation to family-friendly horror.

“Although the books were written for a younger audience, they don’t pander to younger readers – R.L. Stine used grounded tension, suspense and scares of a Stephen King novel, but mixed it with humor. They’re scary books that are also funny,” Goosebumps executive producers Pavun Shetty and Conor Welch told PopCulture.com. “We wanted to embrace the spirit of this but also take it to a whole new level by subverting expectations. This series ages these stories up, so they’re sophisticated enough for adult Goosebumps fans to watch on their own, while still being accessible to a younger audience that’s discovering Goosebumps for the first time.”

Premiering on Disney+ and Hulu on Friday, Oct. 13, the new series centers around a group of high schoolers as they investigate the death of Harold Biddle, a teen who died 30 years ago, as well as their new English teacher, Justin Long’s Mr. Nathan Bratt, who moves to the old Biddle house. Although the series anchors itself around an ongoing plot, Shetty and Welch said “adults who grew up with Goosebumps will recognize plenty of things from their favorite books in this series. And a lot of these Goosebumps fans are now parents themselves and are introducing the books to their kids… We have some nostalgic moments (with some incredible music cues from the ’90s), but we also set the show in the present so younger generations can relate.”

As teens James (Miles McKenna), Margot (Isa Briones), Isaiah (Zack Morris), Isabella (Ana Yi Puig) and Lucas (Will Price) find themselves plunged into the mystery surrounding Biddle’s death, they are exposed to the horrors of Stine’s novels. And while the new series may appeal to a “cross-generational fan base,” there’s no denying that the world Stine’s creations are brought to life in the 2023 series are vastly different than the world they were first established in. But according to Shetty and Welch, the move from the 20th to the 21st century, and all of the technological advancements that come with it, don’t change the base of fear.

“Ghosts, monsters, paranormal activity, talking ventriloquist dummies – creepy things that only exist in our nightmares are timelessly scary! And using the element of surprise will always be a fun way to create jump scares,” they said. “While the technology that kids have today looks very different from what kids had in the 90s, we’ve found that a lot of the things that scared us back then still scare us today.”

Throughout the series, viewers are introduced to several of Stine’s most well-known horrors, including the mask from The Haunted Mask, the Evil Camera from Say Cheese and Die!, the time-warping clock in The Cuckoo Clock of Doom, the worms from Go Eat Worms, Slappy from Night of the Living Dummy. Shetty and Welch, who said they “wanted to amp up the scares a little more than the original book series,” shared they were “lucky to have access to” have access to the complete Goosebumps library, which “played with all sorts of horror genres – paranormal, monsters, psychological thriller.” In choosing which of Stine’s creations to bring to the screen, they said the show “starts with some of the most popular books and then we picked a couple other stories with different horror tropes to give a sort of horror mosaic,” adding that “there will be plenty of Easter eggs for fans of the books.”

But more than just Stine’s creations, the young cast in Goosebumps find themselves dealing with fears that anyone, young or old, can relate to: “Fears like loneliness, failure, self-worth, intimacy and disappointment are worries that people of all ages can relate to.” The show’s executive producers said they “tried to find the humanity in our characters’ fears and insecurities and have these manifest in a way that speaks to a wide audience.”

While the new Goosebumps amps “up the scares a little more than the original book series,” in true Goosebumps fashion, it balances those scares with plenty of humor. As Shetty, Welch, and the rest of the Goosebumps team undertook the task of developing the series, they said they “tonally thought of it like Freaks and Geeks meets Scream. We wanted it to have grounded humor mixed with real scares, with all the trials and tribulations that teens go through today. And high school is inherently awkward and funny – there’s a reason ‘high school comedy’ is a genre!”

Goosebumps premieres with a five-episode drop simultaneously on Disney+ and Hulu on Friday, Oct. 13. The 10-episode series will then air episodes weekly on Fridays.