Summary
Hulu’sGoosebumpsseries has done asurprisingly excellent job of weaving together the anthology storiesinto a single cohesive narrative. Delivering on the fun, schlocky horror best befitting the scholastic book series' tone without feeling the need to go overly dark or adult, which has made them a real hit for long-time fans.
Goosebumps: The Vanishingproved there’s still life in the idea beyond some of the series' most heavy hitters, likeNight of the Living DummyandThe Haunted Mask. While a new season hasn’t been officially confirmed, the signs are promising. There’s still plenty of material from the long-running horror series to adapt, and for any showrunners looking for a place to start, consider thesegreat Goosebumps stories should be adapted into a new series.
1Piano Lessons Can Be Murder
Sleight Of Hand
With the caveat of taking a few liberties, these stories will be ranked in a possible running order, andPiano Lessons Can Be Murderwould be a great choice to kick off anew season of spooky happenings. The slow-burn horror tale starts with the protagonist moving to a new town.
After finding an old piano in the house, he signs up for piano lessons with a local tutor, Dr Shreek. As the lessons unfold, Shreek develops an unnatural obsession with his young student’s hands, and the situation reveals itself as a terrifying front for genetic and robotic experiments. With a bait-and-switch for the true villain, it’s an ideal setup for further experiments gone awry.
2Egg Monsters From Mars
Don’t Trust The Science
When the protagonist collects a strange egg from a local egg hunt, he thinks little of it until it begins to hatch into a yellow blob-like creature. He takes the creature to his local laboratory to find out what it is, where the chief scientist reveals an assortment ofEgg Monsters from Mars.
The scientist informs the boy that he must now be quarantined and seals him in a cold room alongside the creatures. When the creatures turn on the scientist, he manages to escape and return later with help, only to findthe lab empty and the creatures gone.
3Why I’m Afraid Of Bees
Bodyswap Horror
Why I’m Afraid of Beesbegins with the protagonist responding to an ad for ‘a vacation from your own life.’ He heads to the mysterious company after he is contacted back about somebody willing to switch places with him for a time.
When the experiment goes wrong, he ends up inside the body of a bee while the boy he intended to switch with is successfully transplanted into his body. He immediately wants to switch back, but his own body’s inhabitant prefers his new life and instead tries to supplant him.
4Attack Of The Jack-O'-Lanterns
Trick Or Treat
This one would probably need the most adapting to fit the larger narrative, butAttack of the Jack-O'-Lanternsis still a classic horror tale withstriking practical visuals that would lend themselves well to a TV series. On Halloween night, a pair of siblings don creepy pumpkin masks and lead their peers astray while trick or treating.
They try to force the group to trick or treat forever before attempting to turn them into pumpkin heads by fitting them with similar masks. In the original story, the duo are revealed to be shapeshifting aliens, but other creatures would work just as well. It’s a great opportunity for a midseason twist with friends becoming enemies.
5The Scarecrow Walks At Midnight
Lurking In The Cornfields
Another classic horror baddie that would require some adjustment but would easily make for a natural continuation of the previous story.The Scarecrow Walks At Midnightis exactly as it sounds, set on a farm where the scarecrows come alive at night thanks to an arcane book.
The story features several scarecrows terrifying a farmhouse one night, so it would serve as an opportunity to up the ante, thefirst blatant attack on the group of central characters. WithEgg Monsters from Marsestablishing the fragility of the creatures to temperature, the situation can be written away once the heroes survive the night.
6The Beast From The East
Deadly Games
This is the point in the series when the crew attempts to seek out the source of the strange goings-on in the nearby woodlands. When the group become lost in an abnormal section of the forest, they encounter a pack of beasts that dwell there. One of them is tagged and marked asThe Beast from the East.
The beasts explain that the forest is a proving ground for a game similar to tag. Whoever bears the moniker when the sun sets will be eaten by the remaining victors. The group become trapped in the frantic game and its expanding rules, desperately trying to make sure they are not ‘it’ when the time runs out.
7Calling All Creeps
Accidental Commander
In the originalCalling All Creeps, a boy gets more than he bargained for when putting out an ad in a local paper — or, more likely, on social media today — that reads “Calling All Creeps.” He is subsequently contacted by a group of lizard-like creatures who are hiding in the guise of ordinary humans about town.
They mistake his message as a call to arms and attempt to rally behind him as their commander in a plot to turn the rest of the town into creeps. This is the point at which the curtain is pulled back, acontinuation of what happened on Halloween night, revealing the true scale of the issue besieging the town before the epic finale.
8Attack Of The Mutant
Stranger Than Fiction
InAttack of the Mutant,the characters learn that a popular comic book villain, theMasked Mutant, is real and living on the outskirts of town in a cloaked building. When they eventually go to confront the villain, he attacks them using his shapeshifting powers.
The story features another bait-and-switch, with one of his close friends revealed as the realMasked Mutant. It’s the perfect conclusion, tracking down the lead shapeshifting villain, the late twist, as described by the publisher in a meta moment of the first season, and a final confrontation.
