In new coming-of-age horror shows, the scares are rooted in everyday life
Many coming-of-age stories are reminders that being a teenager is a terrifying time.
Is your crush going to notice you today? (Do you even want them to?) How long until your classmates forget about the time you accidentally called your math teacher “mom”? Is your future really going to be decided by how you score on one test? Do people talk about how your hobbies are weird or — even worse — boring?
Adolescence can be a fraught time when these everyday dilemmas feel like the end of the world, which makes it a gold mine for stories that blend these metaphorical monsters with supernatural ones. Just look at shows from “Stranger
Things” to “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
Timed to America’s favorite spooky season, two new teen-led horror shows launched earlier this month: DreamWorks’ New Orleansset animated series ” Fright Krewe,” first season available now on Hulu and Peacock, and “Goosebumps,” a new adaptation of R.L. Stine’s popular book series, streaming on Hulu and Disney+. New “Goosebumps” episodes land Fridays.
Developed by Rob Letterman, who directed the 2015 ” Goosebumps ” film, and Nicholas Stoller (“Bros,” “The Muppets”), the new series follows a group of teens (Zack Morris, Isa Briones, Miles McKenna, Ana Yi Puig and Will Price) who start experiencing supernatural happenings after a Halloween party. It turns out the house they secretly borrowed to throw said party — now owned by their new teacher (Justin Long) — is haunted and they get wrapped up in a town mystery.
“The kids in the show are dealing with super-crazy things like haunted cameras and giant worms, but, actually, the scariest thing is being a high schooler today,” said Pavun Shetty, an executive producer on “Goosebumps.” “Their teacher might be possessed by a ghost, but that’s not as horrifying as getting rejected when you ask someone out.”
According to Shetty, who grew up reading the books and watching the ’90s TV series, the goal with the new “Goosebumps” was to create an “elevated take” on the iconic stories, which involved slightly aging up the sensibilities, compared to previous incarnations, in order to broaden the scope and appeal of the show. Stine’s popular books are aimed toward a tween audience, although, as Shetty points out, part of their draw is that they don’t pander or talk down to kids.
Executive producer Conor Welch, who describes “Goosebumps” as “the first book series that made reading feel fun as opposed to a task or chore,” notes that “a hallmark of the book series is that it is both actually scary and actually funny at the same time.”
“We talked a lot about the idea that laughs and scares often have a very