Everyday life is scary in two new horror shows
‘Goosebumps’ and ‘Fright Krewe,’ aimed at young audiences, explore how spooky it is just being a kid.
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 Sony Pictures Television’s “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 similar cadence and rhythm to them,” said Welch. “It’s setup, setup, surprise. That surprise in a joke is a punchline, and that surprise in a scare is a jump scare or something that unexpectedly catches you off guard.”
Rather than a direct, anthologized adaptation, the new series pulls inspiration from a number of Stine’s most popular books — including “Say Cheese and Die!,” “The Haunted Mask,” “The Cuckoo Clock of Doom,” “Go Eat Worms!” and “Night of the Living Dummy” — for an original, serialized narrative. Shetty and Welsh assured that not only is the show Stine-approved, but the author was also involved from the earliest stages of development, including reading the scripts.
Each of the first five episodes of the series focuses on a different core teen character dealing with individual supernatural challenges that they accidentally helped unleash. The producers explain that each of these challenges are “really linked to who they are as a person.”
“The specific totems that these kids find in the haunted house that are from the books really prey on their insecurities,” said Shetty. “So there’s a little bit of a lesson involved there.”
Similarly, “Fright Krewe” also features a group of teens having to deal with an evil supernatural entity they accidentally unleashed into the world. And the animated series leans into each teen’s individual personalities and insecurities in its own unique way.
Created by horror maestro Eli Roth and author James Frey, the series was developed in part because they noticed a dearth of gateway horror for kids outside of beloved classics like “Beetlejuice.”
“It feels like there’s a real void if you want your kids to become scary movie fans,” said Roth, an executive producer on the series. “You can’t go from zero to ‘Hostel.’ You need those in-between steps.”
“Fright Krewe” follows a group of high school classmates (voiced by Sydney Mikayla, Grace Lu, Terrence Little Gardenhigh, Chester Rushing and Tim Johnson Jr.) who are initially anything but friends. A mishap during detention results in them accidentally releasing an evil demon, gaining special powers and discovering that all of the supernatural creatures from their local legends are not only real but are among their neighbors.
In the story inspired by and respectful of its New Orleans setting, the teens are each bestowed individual powers by five different voodoo spirits known as Loa. And, as showrunners Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco explain, “there’s a reason all the Loa chose who they chose.”
“What we wanted to do was take whatever that character’s journey was … and [their] Loa relationship would help them grow,” said Lewis. “That thing that either they needed to work on, or already had a proclivity towards, the Loa relationship … helps them” bring it out.
Stanley, for instance, is a good-natured jock lacking confidence academically who is chosen by Ayizan, a Loa associated with knowledge. While Pat, the new kid who struggles to connect and make friends, is chosen by Papa Legba, a Loa linked to communication.
A hallmark of these coming-of-age horror shows is that the scares are not meant “to just traumatize them,” says Roth. But it’s not just a lack of violence or gore that sets horror for teen and tween audiences apart from the more adult variety.
“There’s so many great messages and life lessons that you can shoehorn into scary” stories, said Roth. “All the things that kids suddenly have to start dealing with now that they’re older, when you put it in the context of a supernatural show, it really gives kids a healthy way to express those fears and it shows them that you can overcome these things.”
But beyond any aspirational themes and potential life lessons, the “Fright Krewe” creatives know the key to hooking audiences is a good story with characters that audiences can care about.
“Caring is the heart of fear,” said Lewis. “You’re not afraid if you don’t care. So we knew we wanted to make characters that our audience could connect to and relate to and want to spend time with.”
The series is the first gateway horror created by DreamWorks Animation, and Teri Weiss, the executive vice president of television development for the unit, says it shows how “animation can stretch into any genre of storytelling that we want it to.”
Weiss credits “Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous,” about teen campers trapped on a dinosaur island, for opening her eyes to how even young kids can be drawn to jump scares. And she points to streaming as something that has enabled more serialized storytelling in shows geared for younger audiences.
“I think it contributes to that sophisticated storytelling that kids absolutely want and can handle,” said Weiss. Plus, “there’s something really powerful about having kids at the center of a problem that needs solving.”