I’m too old for Goosebumps; the children’s horror series targets the next generation down. While I can appreciate anything that gives kids nightmares, I’ve always wondered if these books, most of which take their premises and twists from other films or TV shows, actually got that many kids into horror. I don’t know that I’ve met a horror fan who cites Goosebumps as an influence.
The series is being turned into a movie for Columbia (an anthology picture, perhaps?), and producer Neil Mortiz has found his writers: middlebrow experts Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. These are the guys behind Ed Wood, but they also write the kind of faux-prestige picture that gets on my nerves, like Man on the Moon or The People vs Larry Flynt (which isn’t bad, but is totally the kind of middle of the road biopic Larry Flynt didn’t deserve). In case those credits don’t do it for you, they also created the Problem Child series, which I believe is still a suspect in the death of John Ritter.
Goosebumps isn’t the duo’s first foray into horror – they wrote 1408, which I still haven’t seen for reasons that escape me. And does Agent Cody Banks fit in this genre?
Did you grow up on Goosebumps and have turned into a serious horror fan? Was this series your version of Tales From the Crypt? Tell me about it on our message board.