From the moment The Haunted Mask hit TV screens one chilly October afternoon in 1995, Goosebumps fans the world over knew that a movie was only a matter of time.
Those were the days of Goosebumps bedding sets, green and purple wrist watches bathed in cobwebs and time spent begging parents for the $8.95 (plus $2 shipping and handling) so that one might join the hallowed, card-carrying ranks of the Official Goosebumps Fan Club. Bookmobiles everywhere overflowed with copies of Night of the Living Dummy II and The Barking Ghost and the silver screen was ripe for the kind of wicked playfulness and fiendish glee that only R.L. Stine could deliver.
But adolescent aficionados of the spooky and the strange never saw their dream of a 90s big screen Goosebumps adventure realized. Monster kids grew into horror loving adults before Slappy and his gang of sinister monstrosities escaped the pages of R.L. Stine’s spine-chilling publications and invaded movie theaters. Rather than adapting one book or villain, the film moved to transplant the essence of the entire series to the screen, crafting an eerily silly celebration of all the terrors hiding within the confines of Stine’s hair-raising prose.
Twenty years passed between the self-titled series’ premiere and the release of Goosebumps (2015) but it would only take another three to see its follow up. Rather than a direct sequel, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween (2018) offered a new entry in the world of the first. While the original film attempted to capture the spirit of the franchise as a whole, Goosebumps 2 played like a self-aware adaptation of a single book that might be contained within it. The first brought the world of Goosebumps to life and the second, under the guidance of director Ari Sandel and screenwriter Rob Lieber, would do the same to every horror friendly kid’s favorite holiday: Halloween.
Like the first film, the story follows a group of kids in small town suburbia. Madison Iseman plays Sarah, a teenager on the cusp of college, desperate to write the perfect essay that will help her gain admittance to Columbia University and allow her to escape mundanity. Jeremy Ray Taylor plays her brother Sonny while Caleel Harris plays his best friend Sam, two boys who call themselves the Junk Bros. Spending their free time avoiding bullies and cleaning out old estates in the hopes of finding something valuable, it’s they who accidentally unleash the evil that nearly swallows their unsuspecting community.
In the midst of clearing out a decrepit, abandoned manor, Sonny and Sam discover a hidden compartment containing an old chest housing a locked manuscript. Once unlocked, the two find Slappy, an aged ventriloquist dummy carrying a small card with strange words that Sonny promptly reads aloud. As a result, it’s no surprise when Slappy comes to life in subsequent scenes, punishing the boys’ bullies, helping them with laundry and even doing their homework.
Rather than a rehash of the first, Slappy enters the film as an unknown entity, successfully convincing his two compatriots that he’s friend not foe, perhaps even family. His progression to evil mastermind is more subtle and manipulative, harkening back to the Night of the Living Dummy books as opposed to his immediate emergence as public enemy number one in the original movie. The change allows for Slappy to commit the unique brand of cruel, devilish pranks that he’s so known for on the page, like knocking Sarah’s cheating boyfriend off a ladder and altering Sonny’s science project so that it causes a fire at the school.
The story progresses like one imagines the unreleased Goosebumps novella Sonny and Sam uncovered in the old house might have read, bathing every frame in the orange and purple glow of Halloween imagery. Unlike the first, these are characters somewhat unfamiliar with the world of R.L. Stine and are therefore less capable of navigating it or even perceiving the rising threat. As a result, the film commits to farcical preposterousness, ensuring that the dime-store décor and stereotypical October iconography is equal parts spooky and silly.
Leaning ever further into the foreboding fun, the film is populated with hilarious performances from beloved character actors. Wendi McLendon-Covey plays Kathy, Sarah and Sonny’s overworked mother, and Chris Parnell is Walter, the hapless local pharmacy manager who has a crush on Kathy. Both bring their grounded yet hysterical characters to lovable life, providing outlandish amusements against the monstrous backdrop of the freakish and strange. Rounding out the core cast is Ken Jeong as Mr. Chu, Kathy’s Halloween obsessed neighbor, whose house looks like it was plucked from a late 90s Halloween TV special, complete with an enormous balloon spider. Jeong’s infectious energy and inherent hilarity only further adds to the comic sensibilities of the film’s kinetic events.
Once Slappy reveals himself and the kids discover the truth about R.L. Stine’s creations, the movie begins to resemble the first more closely. However, rather than trod out the familiar creatures from R.L. Stine’s arsenal, Goosebumps 2 opts to homage and create anew. While Will Blake as the titular creature from The Werewolf of Fever Swamp and the white, hairy beast from The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena do make their terrifyingly triumphant return, the bulk of the things that come alive under Slappy’s projected magic by way of the abandoned Tesla Tower in town are not all found amongst the prickly pages of Goosebumps’ many books.
A banshee, a variation on Frankenstein’s infamous bride, walking representations of some Day of the Dead Dolls, a bat-human hybrid and more stalk the streets of Wardenclyffe, New York. Some may cry foul at the inclusion of new creatures when there are so many to draw from in Stine’s cavernous canon, but it seems fitting that chatty pumpkins and a trio of flying green orbed faced witches would turn up given that this particular Goosebumps story had never been published. What better way to honor Stine’s legacy of tantalizing terrors than to expand it using the building blocks of the spookiest day of the year?
Of course, there are references to other books mixed into the chaos as well. The ogre mask that attaches itself to Parnell’s Walter turns him into a dead ringer for Steve in the old man mask in The Haunted Mask II and it’s impossible to see animated scarecrows and not think about the time of night that they walk. The towering Jack-‘O-Lantern monsters are right out of Attack of the Jack-‘O-Lanterns and there are at least a few lawn gnomes out and about. Even the stuffed cat toward the beginning of the movie evokes the cover art for the Goosebumps Series 2000 book Cry of the Cat and I could be convinced that the skeleton walking his skeleton dog are none other than Curly and Drool from the many covers of the Tales to Give You Goosebumps special edition series.
With impressive costume design from Salvador Perez and creature effects work from Matt Sprunger and his team, these creations come to life with an impressive blend of practical and computer generated effects. As the streets of Wardenclyffe are overrun with swooping ghosts, chattering skeletons and all manner of bloodthirsty beasties on Halloween night, the feeling of all encompassing All Hallow’s Eve atmosphere is overwhelming.
Ken Jeong’s Mr. Chu is the first to put the feeling of what the film is attempting to accomplish into words, announcing how spectacular it is to be in a real, live Goosebumps story. His energy and whimsy is infectious as always, providing the sort of goofy metatext that leads perfectly into the pumpkin, witch and skeleton costumes Sarah, Sonny and Sam put on to blend in to the hordes of living Halloween accoutrements, calling back to another Halloween season favorite Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982).
As in the first film, the manuscript holds the key to recapturing and incapacitating Stine’s devilish creations. After retrieving the magic book from their defeated bully and battling a battalion of malicious gummy bears, Sarah, Sonny and Sam head out to retrieve their kidnapped mother from Nikola Tesla’s long decommissioned tower. Production designer Rusty Smith built an impressive set for the abandoned structure. Composed of whirring contraptions and glowing displays, the awe inducing place is constructed practically from parts of old submarines, tanks and anything the team could get their hands on that might resemble the look of the abandoned laboratory.
The film climaxes with fun and impressive monster action, including Chris Parnell’s incredible ogre make-up and Wendi McLendon-Covey being turned into a dummy herself. Jack Black returns as R.L. Stine, interlocking the film with the first and providing the kind of comedic commentary and overly self-serious levity only Black can deliver— even producing another nod to his faux-adversary novelist Stephen King when Stine notices a red balloon floating idly by amidst the Halloween chaos and notes: “I knew it! I knew I came up with that first!”
Stine’s presence is wonderfully superfluous as the core cast faces Slappy and his minions before he arrives, taking out the building sized balloon spider and Slappy’s infernal machine before the world could meet its spooky fall-tinged demise all on their own. Still, the character’s fatherly advice to Sarah about writing what she knows leads well into a scene that occurs some months later. Finally accepted to Columbia, Sarah’s family embraces her success, despite the fear, uncertainty and emotional weight that accompanies her departure. As is the running theme across all of the Goosebumps series’ many iterations: growing up is scary but necessary, and will ultimately carry you to where you want to be if you let it.
I couldn’t have known that it would take another 20 years to see Goosebumps at my local cineplex as I sat down to watch The Haunted Mask with my friends one fateful October eve, but even if I had, I’m sure I would have been willing to wait. After all, to see R.L. Stine’s amazing horrors leap to larger than life size was a dream that all Goosebumps lovers shared and one that would undoubtedly be worth waiting for. When it finally came, I was able to show it to my own kids and help breathe new life into the fandom that had followed me for as long as I could remember. That’s when I found out about the sequel.
Traversing titles like Horrorland, Slappy’s Revenge and, more understandably, Slappy Halloween, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween emerged as a fun follow up inked in its predecessor’s stylistic font albeit in a slightly different corner of the Goosebumps sandbox. While some of the monsters and plot devices carry over from its predecessor, the sequel’s absurdist sense of humor and relentless commitment to embodying the essence of a Saturday afternoon televised Halloween special makes for the kind of fun, campy and sensationally spooky theatrical affair that kids like me dreamt about when they first watched Carly Beth don the Haunted Mask on Fox Kids in the mid-90s.
It may not achieve the heights of Goosebumps (2015) but it similarly captures the essence of one of R.L. Stine’s creepy creations distilled into 90 minutes, all the while funneling in the apple bobbing, trick-or-treating, costume clad mists of Halloween. A worthy successor and a perfect seasonal treat, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween is chock-full of more monster goodness than most and destined to become an annual favorite for any horror kid, grown up or otherwise, that’s in for a scare.
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