Goosebumps

Plot synopsis:
Zach Cooper and his mother Gale move to the town of Madison, Delaware. While settling in, Zach meets his new neighbor Hannah and her overprotective father "Mr. Shivers." Zach and Hannah become quick friends, but Mr. Shivers warns Zach to stay on his side of the fence. At Madison High School where Gale works as the vice-principal, Zach befriends Champ, a socially awkward student. Later that evening, Hannah comes to Zach and takes him to an abandoned amusement park out in the woods where they watch the sun set together on top of the Ferris wheel. When they get back home, Mr. Shivers appears and again warns Zach to stay away from them or something bad would happen.
The next night, Zach hears Mr. Shivers and Hannah arguing, followed by Hannah screaming and something crashing. Zach calls the police, but Mr. Shivers assures the officers that the noise came from his television. Fearing Hannah is in danger, Zach tricks Mr. Shivers into going to the police station for further questioning and breaks into his house with Champ's help. The two find a shelf containing many Goosebumps manuscripts, all of which are locked. Frustrated by Champ's curiosity, Zach unlocks one of the books. When Hannah discovers them, Zach drops the book, releasing the Abominable Snowman of Pasadena. They pursue the Abominable Snowman to an ice skating rink, where Mr. Shivers appears and imprisons it back into the book.
On the way home, Mr. Shivers reveals that he is Goosebumps author R.L. Stine. He created the stories as a child to terrorize the people that made fun of him, but the monsters came to life and became uncontrollable, so he trapped them in the manuscripts. Returning to the house, they find Slappy from "Night of the Living Dummy" (who was freed after the Abominable Snowman knocked over his book) waiting for them. Angry at being imprisoned, Slappy burns his own manuscript and flees with the others in the Haunted Car (after releasing it from its book) after unlocking the book "Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes". They are attacked by the living lawn gnomes. When Stine and the kids try to smash them, each of the gnomes reform, making them realize that they can only run away.
Slappy releases several monsters, letting them rampage under his command. Zach suggests Stine to write a new book that will trap every monster, but he can only do it with his special typewriter which is at the high school. On the way there, Brent Green from "My Best Friend is Invisible" and the giant praying mantis from "A Shocker on Shock Street" attack Stine's car, so they are forced into hiding. Will Blake from "The Werewolf of Fever Swamp" pursues them into an abandoned supermarket, only to be run over by Zach's aunt Lorraine in the parking lot.
As they cut through the cemetery, Zach notices that Hannah glows blue in the moonlight, revealing her not to be an actual teenage girl. They are then chased by the Graveyard Ghouls from "Attack of The Graveyard Ghouls," but manage to escape. When they arrive at the school which is having a school dance, Zach privately questions Stine about Hannah. Stine reveals that she is a Goosebumps character (from "The Ghost Next Door") he created to cope with his loneliness, of which she is seemingly unaware. Stine finds the typewriter and starts writing a new story based on the events around them, while Zach, Hannah, and Champ lead the students at the dance in fending off all the released monsters that are storming the building. Champ manages to get his crush to kiss him, after he saves her from Will Blake when Davidson abandons her. Slappy confronts Stine and breaks his fingers with the typewriter case before the story is finished.
Stine, Zach, Champ and Hannah use one school bus to trick the monsters, and ride another one to go to the abandoned amusement park. There, Slappy lets out the big pink blob from "The Blob that Ate Everyone." Stine hands the book and typewriter to Zach, and distracts the blob by allowing it to devour him. Zach finishes the story on top of the ferris wheel which is then attacked by the praying mantis and it rolls down toward where the bus is parked. They get out alive, but Zach is reluctant to open the book because Hannah will also be sucked inside it. Revealing she knew the truth about herself all along, Hannah opens the book, sucking all the other monsters into it. The blob spits Stine out as it is sucked in. Stine is then attacked by an enraged Slappy, but he manages to kick him into the vortex. Zach tries to hold on to Hannah as the book attempts to suck her in, but she accepts her fate and bids farewell to Zach with a kiss before she is also sucked in.
Sometime later, Stine has started working as Zach's English teacher and is in a relationship with Lorraine. After class, Zach asks Stine if he misses Hannah. Stine says she will always be in their minds and hearts, and then points down the hallway where to Zach's surprise and delight, Hannah is standing. Stine reveals to Zach that he wrote her back into reality with another book. Hannah and Zach kiss and leave school together while Stine burns Hannah's manuscript, making her permanently real. As Stine prepares to leave Madison High School, he sees the typewriter typing by itself inside its display case. To Stine's horror, Brent Green has evaded imprisonment and begins writing a new story titled "The Invisible Boy's Revenge."

Tags: paranormal, psychedelic, horror, good versus evil

Review:
When I was a kid my all time favourite show was the Goosebumps TV show and of course the books as well.
My favourite character was Slappy the living dummy.I'm now 16 and I must say that the show is not at all scary to me anymore as I've watched many far more shocking things since the Goosebumps days.
My favourite episodes and books are still Welcome to Dead House, The Haunted Mask, Ghost Beach, The Ghost Next Door, Night of the living Dummy 2 and A Night in Terror Tower.I would overall give RL Stines Goosebumps 10/10 stars as a good young person's creepy show.
There are also movies that came out that are based on the old Goosebumps books we all loved to read.
I remember taping episodes to watch, later after school.Looking back on it now, I can see flaws in the stories and don't really find it as mystifying as I used to.
Although, I will always get nostalgic when watching it and that will always make me recommend this show to kids, and even people my age (17-18) for a good, light watch.My favorite episodes will always be the Night Of The Living Dummy ones, for a good reason.
My generation was being delighted by the works of R.L. Stine and his magnificent book series "Goosebumps." Between 1992 and 1995 I myself read some great ones like "Monster Blood," and it's two sequels, "Say Cheese and Die," "Ghost Bead," "Deep Trouble," and the greatest one of them all "The Haunted Mask." So obviously in 1995 when FOX Kids premiered this show I watched it.
I thought, "Old foreign show, may check it out." I hadn't read the books when I was little, so I didn't know what to expect.
Goosebumps, I had read some of the books and when I saw the TV show, I fell in love with the series.
"Goosebumps" the television show was based on R.L Stine's popular horror stories for kids.
I clearly remember sitting down and watching it with my sister 'cause we were both fans of the show and of the books (my personal favourite is the "Monster Blood" stories).
The show wasn't entirely scary (though it may scare very young children), it was rather cheesy actually, but in a good way.
We taped some of the episodes (and actually have one of the episodes on video); I remember watching 'em all the time, but I have no idea were they are now.In short, "Goosebumps" the show was a very faithful adaption to the stories and a whole lot of fun to watch.
Great Semi-Horror Fun. Goosebumps was a very interesting piece of horror, in the sense that it was not scary for adults or teens but still pretty scary for 5-12-year-olds.
It was pretty scary for kids and it would be equivalent to showing a 10-year-old The Hills Have Eyes.
I really enjoyed Goosebumps since I was in primary school and I remember once I went to a family friend's house and I saw one of the Goosebumps stories Legend of The Lost Legend but I didn't read it because I was so little at the time, I also remember my cousins had borrowed some from the library and one of them is Piano Lessons Can Be Murder which was my personal favorite along with Say Cheese and Die, The TV Show was not that scary at all I liked some of the episodes, when I first found out Goosebumps was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada I was surprised because the books were written in America but then I realized that it wasn't that bad, also does anyone know the schools and streets some of the episodes were filmed at?.
When I was little in the years 1994 through 1998, I watched this show every single Friday afternoon and Saturday morning on the Fox Kids Network.Slappy the living dummy was always and always will be my favorite character.
They are terrifying yet G-rated enough to entertain little kids without giving them nightmares.The Special Effects of this show -- the lighting, the makeup, the mechanical creatures -- were beyond realistic and very high-budget for a kid's show.If you are looking for a great show that's cool for kids and enjoyable for adults to watch as well, check out GOOSEBUMPS on DVD.R.L.Stine is one of the best horror writers to ever walk this planet!!!
Back in the early to mid-'90s, I (and much of the rest of America's youth) loved R.L. Stine's "Goosebumps" series, which were as popular as Harry Potter in their day.
Even when I was a kid I never found them all that scary (and when they got to "Series 2000", they took a huge nosedive very quickly), but they're entertaining enough and worth reading.
The older eps of the show, like "The Haunted Mask", "Night of the Living Dummy II", "It Came From Beneath The Sink", "Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes", "The Werewolf of Fever Swamp", etc., varied slightly from the book they were based on, but in general were very faithful to the stories.
But definitely read the books, at least #1-35, if you like these kind of stories.Seven stars..
My 8 year-old, however, loves it.The stories are basically Twilight Zone episodes, with more ghosts and monsters.
For several years during the 1990s, R.L. Stine wrote and published many books in his "Goosebumps" series.
I used to like to read some of these books, when I was around ten years old, and eventually, I discovered this "Goosebumps" TV show, which I enjoyed watching for a while.
I eventually went off both the books and the TV series (late in 1997, when I was eleven years old), but I can't deny the fact that I was once a fan.There's not much to say about the plot of this show.
Basically, all I can say about it is that the programme was an adaptation "Goosebumps" book series, so the episodes were horror stories for kids.For a while, R.L. Stine would pump out "Goosebumps" books very quickly, so quickly not all of the stories could have been that focused.
Well, the books and the show definitely deserve some credit for how many kids they entertained back in the day, but I believe that "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" was a superior show..
I can't wait to see the "Night of the Living Dummy" episodes again and I'm looking forward to seeing "One Day at Horrorland" (apparent precursor to the Escape From Horrorland CD-ROM game) for the first time.
My favorite episodes were: "One Day at Horrorland", "Piano Lessons Can Be Murder", "The Ghost Next Door", and "A Night in Terror Tower"."Goosebumps" really was a good series.
Read the books as a kid watched the tv show came back 20 odd years later still love it as an adult great kids horror series based on the books amazing show even for the kids or if you're an adult.
Then again when this was on the AIR I was watching shows like X-Files and Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine so compared to the production values of those big American shows what chance does a little cheap Canadian show made for kids have anyways.This show is very very very well done with great stories and episodes.
I haven't a clue if they make shows like this any more but honestly they could reboot this show for this decade and for this batch of kids and I believe it would be just as good but in HD.At the time of this review you can find this show on netflix.
Even though I like the show, the GOOSEBUMPS books are much better.
The books are almost always formula in this point too - but Stine was phenomenal in spicing the stories up by conjuring up different humorous dialogue, explanations for the evil, or details to make it seem impressive to a kid.
The fact that (with a few exceptions that ran 2 episodes), each story was limited to less than 30 minutes (the commercial breaks which accounted for the "less than" were surrounded by fade-outs of some new terror arising - which, even the youngest viewer realized after a few breaks, would be a false alarm when it resumed) rushed the plots of stories I laughed and fascinated over in book form, giving no time to absorb the scares, other than the phony ones resolved in 60 seconds while the camera dimmed and returned.
In the 3rd series, a large number of episodes were wasted not on books, but on short stories in his compilations Stories to Give You Goosebumps, which contained 10 boring stories (the one I tried and failed to read was the one never used to base TV scenes off of, but I'm sure the others were no better) which often provoked no fear even on the page - imagine how a screen adaption even weaker than their book basis would've been!
Ironically my favorite episode (along with a 3-part story I shouldn't mention; it wasn't based on a book) of which I've seen was one of these, "Click" - I doubt it was meant to be scary, but it did make me laugh expecting that the boy who exploited a space- and time-controlling remote could so easily be punished!
The dialogue is repetitive (every episode has at least one utterance of the line "I'm not crazy!"), just like the plots, which, by the end of the book and television series's run, just became ridiculous.
I am a 29 year old, I have grown up on movies Like The Exorcist, Friday The 13th, Halloween but nothing I have ever seen compares to GOOSEBUMPS.
It's hard to believe that this series is on so early and that kids can buy the videos, they should be NC-17 for Goosebumps is far to scary for children.
Ever since I started watching this series I have been to afraid to turn off my lights, I mean this show is to intence for anyone to take, believe me the first time I saw tat living dummy I almost banged my head off the roof as I jumps from fright, I just can't watch this show anymore, I fear it will give me a heart attack one day or my roommate will walk in one day and just find me dead on the floor from fright.
As a loyal Goosebumps fan, I must say that this show is good, but no offence R.L., But this show isn't as scary as the books.
Some of the stories have stupid summaries like in the night of the living dummy series.
I read 3-4 of the books as a kid and I was never scared the least bit.
So I thought that the show would be a little bit scarier, perhaps..However the show that ran on TV was bad with preteens doing awful acting, lame special effects and cheesy plots.I have no idea why some people like this show, I thought it was awful even as a kid.I guess if you are 6 years old you might be slightly scared by goosebumps books, but if you are above that then you will really start noticing the awful writing of the author, and the fact that goosebumps tends to become really boring once you realize that they are not the slightest bit scary.Labelling these books are horror books is very misleading, they are adventure books for kids, with awful writing and cheesy plots, and the show is just as bad..
Earlier, I had no idea about Goosebumps except that it's scary and a show based on horror kids novels.
But now and after watching various episodes, I finally discovered how stupid a show Goosebumps is.
There's a lot more shows like it now but back then there weren't many good "scary" shows for kids and this was one of the better shows that there were.
Good stories and acting for a kid show..
Off the top of my head, I remember the following episodes as being halfway decent: The Ghost Next Door, Night of the Living Dummy III, Werewolf Skin, and Stay Out of the Basement.Other notes of possible interest: 1) The casts are usually Canadian, and it's fun to hear them pronounce the word "house".
With a warning like that how could you expect not to be curious about Goosebumps."Goosebumps" is based by the book series of the same name by R.L.Stine and this is one of the few times when a show or movie based off a book does it right.
Goosebumps was a very popular book series in the 1990s and R.L.Stine was consider the Stephen King of Children Horror stories and looking back he manage to create a series that grab children's attention and inspire them to read more.
But it didn't stop me from watching Goosebumps the TV SeriesThe Intro to Goosebumps remains one of my favorites as it starts off with R.L.Stine walking in a black hat and black jacket and briefcase and a chilling piano theme that still holds up today as being creepy whoever wrote the music for the theme deserves a lot of points because it still a creative theme song even more.The episodes for Goosebumps were based off stories from the book series.
A good percent of the episodes follow the story line of the books.
Now that's something you don't expect in a series based off a children book.Goosebumps just takes what is already a horror theme story in it own right and made it very scary on TV also the theme song will get your attention to make you watch the show so give Goosebumps a shot but Beware You're In For A Scare..
The Goosebumps book/TV series were a big part of my childhood.
Goosebumps was definitely one of the better shows of the 90's.Unfortunately there were many flaws with the series.First of all, the acting.
I know that this doesn't count as an "effect", but the Canadian accents were almost as irritating as the acting.Lastly, the fact that a lot of the better books were never made into episodes.
Goosebumps definitely isn't what I'd call scary at this time of my life, but it still has its moments.Goosebumps has episodes ranging in length; some are two-part episodes and go more like watching movies.
The series began to go bad in the last couple of seasons though, with funny but lame episodes like An Old Story that really pointed out that the series was about to end.Goosebumps is a great show for kids, no question about it.
This is another great show from the 90's, Goosebumps is based on the brilliant books by R.L. Stine; each episode is a scary tale much like 'Are you afraid of the dark?' Some story lines were a little stupid like 'Are you afraid of the dark?' , yet some story lines were quite scary..I remember my cousin use to come over and watch with me on a Friday..How we laughed when I brought this up a couple of days ago...We're both 21 now...and can't believe we scared of the episode were the boy's aunt and uncle turn into werewolves.
And the episode with the dummy that's evil and tries to kill the three kids....
Great Horror Stories For Kids Six To 10!.
That's reasonably and simply stupid!This series ("Goosebumps") is for little kids...the others I mentioned are for older teens and adults.
STUPID!I had a girlfriend years ago whose little son watched this (and, read the books).
She told me that "It's monster stories for little kids."Then, years later, when my own Son began watching this, I took a particular interest and watched with him.YES!
The 90s was a time when kids entertainment reached its peak mixing the supernatural with drama and life threatening situations.Goosebumps came around after the enormous success of the books and soared to number one on the bill boards for children's entertainment lasting four seasons.While some of the details were changed for the stories it was often for the betterment of the episode like vampire breath that had a time travel angle that went nowhere or had no significant to the book unlike the kids finding a labyrinth of coffins in the basement in its place.Usually the plots could be repetitive with an unpopular kid who stumbles on to an old house, board game, mirror etc and get involved in a morality lesson about not cheating others, reading is fun and taking care of the environment.In away it modeled itself after the twilight zone with a creepy theme, lessons to be learned and even a host to introduce the show from time to time.Still it was the different mythologies they developed in a hip way and the characters involved that kept you watching to see if they would make it it not.The effects are dated in this day and age where a blue screen can take the place of a sock puppet or a grimy computer graphic that barely makes the cut above average.
Fast forward now and there is now a movie of this coming out this year starring Jack Black as R.L Sline so what better way to do but to review the TV series of Goosebumps.
Two episodes I remember to this day are The Haunted Mask and The Night Of The Living Dummy which both scared me as a kid(actually I seen The Haunted Mask the other day and it scared the crap out of me).
The Haunted Mask episode was also creepy as a young girl wanted to buy this really scary mask unaware that when she puts it on it would stick to her face and would be impossible to remove it,unless she can love herself more.Overall if you are a die hard fan of horror films than this show is just for you,but if you hate watching stuff that scare the living daylights out of you than stay away from it.Even the music was creepy like what you hear Danny Elfman play.