It’s been a scary month for originals on Disney and Hulu. Amid the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes—not to mention Disney’s dispute with Spectrum—the presumably haunted Mouse House cut back on original shows, gutting Hulu of The Great and How I Met Your Father, and Disney+ of unaired but reportedly completed Spiderwick Chronicles series. However, with Hulu’s “Huluween,” Freeform’s “31 Nights Of Halloween,” and Disney+’s obnoxiously-titled “Hallowstream” on the horizon, the company has to have some family-friendly horror offerings for subscribers. As such, Disney’s bringing R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps back to life.
Set to premiere on Hulu, Disney+, and Freeform in October, this new Goosebumps will follow an original story that borrows from five of Stine’s most memorable books: Say Cheese And Die!, The Haunted Mask, The Cuckoo Clock Of Doom, Go Eat Worms!, and Night Of The Living Dummy. At least this means Slappy finally got some work for the first time since 2015’s Goosebumps movie. However, the series will largely follow a group of high schoolers as they investigate the death of fellow teen Harold Biddle. Horror ensues. Thankfully, Justin Long and Rachael Harris will be around to provide some much-needed comedic relief to the terrifying proceedings.
Of course, this isn’t the first Goosebumps television series. Something only 90s kids will understand is that there was a kids’ horror anthology series based on Stine’s most famous work that premiered in 1995. All five books referenced by the new series were individual episodes in the original.
Announced in April 2020, the new 10-episode Goosebumps series will debut on Friday, October 13, with a five-episode premiere on Hulu and Disney+ and a two-episode premiere for Disney’s secondary customers on Freeform. New episodes will drop weekly on Hulu and Disney+, but cable is only getting the first two episodes. Paying $100 a month for cable and only getting two episodes? What a fright!