Whatever happened to scary kids movies?

Anyone who grew up in the 1990s undoubtedly lost hours of sleep thanks to the Goosebumps franchise. R.L. Stine’s book series wasn’t first-rate literature, but it served as a kind of horror gateway drug, and for many of us, it was an early introduction to the joys of being scared. The television adaptation was just as spooky, airing on Fox Kids from 1995 to 1998. Think of it as a kid-friendly The Twilight Zone. Here was another half-hour horror anthology in which the twists were the best part, and though it might appear silly in retrospect, it was downright terrifying at the right age. Take a look back at the opening title sequence and imagine yourself as a 7-year-old child, hiding under a blanket fort in your bedroom illuminated only by the glowing TV screen, as you worry the monsters might climb out of the television set at any moment. That is a truly magical feeling. 

Last year, Columbia Pictures brought Goosebumps back to screens with a big-budget film released in October. This was a perfect opportunity to give children everywhere a fright just in time for the Halloween season. With so many characters and storylines to mine from the source material, it sounded like a great idea. I went into the movie not exactly expecting it to be tailored to adult audiences, but instead hoping to appreciate a new story that would shock a new generation. I waited, and waited, and waited, and the scares never happened.

Instead, any passionate Goosebumps fans were shocked to learn that this was not actually a horror film. It was an action-adventure-comedy whose tone was closer to The Avengers than to the original novels or television series. Every character thinks they're hysterical and delivers Joss Whedon-esque quips, none of which are particularly memorable. Comedic actors Jillian Bell, Timothy Simons and Ken Marino are brought on board for painfully unfunny subplots, and minutes at a time are devoted to scenes reminiscent of particularly cringey Saturday Night Live sketches. Goosebumps contained approximately zero humor up until this point (intentional humor, at least), and now comedy seemed to be the primary focus. Whose bright idea was that?

When the monsters are finally introduced 30 minutes in, there really is no attempt to make them into a threatening presence. A Yeti shows up first, which should lead into a set piece that has all the children in the theater cowering in fear. Right? Instead, the creature's entrance is nothing more than an unimpressive visual effects show. The Yeti climbs out of a book, Danny Elfman's music swells, and immediately there’s a gag where it accidentally hits itself in the face with a ceiling lamp. God forbid anyone in the audience feels scared for even a moment. It then growls a bit, jumps out the window and runs away. The gang has to track down the Yeti, and that’s basically the structure of the entire rest of the film: Monsters run around, destroy expensive items, our lead characters run and then the credits roll. 

But the tone is all wrong, and it’s inconceivable that even one person would lose sleep after a viewing of this new Goosebumps. The Yeti has the same dramatic weight as a horde of generic aliens in a typical summer blockbuster, which is to say none at all. Very rarely does the picture slow down to build up any tension like the TV series would. If anything, young viewers will spend the majority of the runtime smiling at the dumb jokes instead of covering their eyes. 

What kind of a Goosebumps movie is this? Is instilling a sense of dread in kids not literally the entire purpose of Goosebumps? It’s never been about the monsters, even though this reboot treats them all with such reverence. After all, just about every one of them is a ripoff of something from a much better horror movie. Even Slappy, the most iconic Goosebumps character of all, is handled poorly in this film. A talking dummy is only creepy if we first get to know it as a regular dummy. We see it lie still for so long that its sudden awakening is unsettling. Here, we’re introduced to Slappy as an animate being, so because this is the norm, he's about as scary as Pinocchio from Shrek. He doesn't do much either, besides teleporting around and laughing a bit. Who cares? During Slappy's first appearance, one of the kids leans over to another and says, “Oh my god, he’s so creepy!” No moment in 2015 serves as a better example of telling rather than showing.

So what went wrong? Was this reboot always imagined as an action-adventure that strayed radically from the tone of its source material? Or did some studio executive find that there is no longer a market for horror stories aimed at kids? Most disturbingly of all, is that hypothetical executive right? 

Think about it. In prior decades, there were always plenty of horror movies appropriate for or specifically aimed at children that introduced many to the genre. There were Gremlins, Monster Squad, Poltergeist, Ernest Scared Stupid, Hocus Pocus, The Addams Family and Beetlejuice, to name just a few. Where are all of our modern equivalents? The rare entries left exist in animation, like in the admittedly terrifying Coraline or the occasionally eerie ParaNorman and Frankenweenie. But the live-action family-friendly scary movie appears to be extinct. PG horror has completely disappeared, and the PG-13 rating is used exclusively for adult movies that just happen to not have much blood or sex in them (Insidious, The Ring). Something like Joe Dante's The Hole (2009) is extraordinarily uncommon. 

And it’s not that comedy can’t be present in order to qualify as a kids horror movie. Ghostbusters is without a doubt a comedy, but what child didn’t have the pants scared off them by the opening library sequence or the Sigourney Weaver armchair scene? Goosebumps could have taken a similar approach, mixing comedy with chills, but it actively chose to avoid anything that might make the audience feel even slightly uneasy. No child who saw Goosebumps last year will grow up with memories about how much it freaked them out. They probably won't even remember it at all. 

This phenomenon isn’t exclusive to film, either. Remember Courage the Cowardly Dog? Are You Afraid of the Dark? Aaahh!! Real Monsters? In 2016, nobody's attempting anything like this. Nickelodeon experimented with something similar in 2013 with Deadtime Stories, a live-action horror anthology, but that lasted a mere 11 episodes before fading away into obscurity. Other than that, there's not much out there. The closest that comes to mind is Gravity Falls on Disney XD, but as with Goosebumps, none of the horror is treated very seriously. It’s a comedy that happens to feature a few monsters here and there; its primary goal is to make us laugh.

The argument could be made that this is an issue in the world of literature, too. Remember those horrifying Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark illustrations infamous for giving millions nightmares? Yeah, those are all out of print now, and the current editions contain new, completely watered-down artwork. We wouldn't want to scare kids in a book of scary stories, right?

How is this generation supposed to be introduced to horror if the industry has zero interest in producing anything for them? There’s something magical about being spooked at the point in your life when monsters could conceivably be real, yet we’re depriving children of that wonderful experience by catering the genre exclusively to adults. Horror is simply too much fun to exclude everyone under 17, and it’s about time someone brings this sub-genre of scary family movies back to theaters. Goosebumps wasted that opportunity, but it’s not too late for someone else to give it a shot. Get cracking, Hollywood.