Must-See Goosebumps Stories Perfect for Hulu’s Next Spooky Season!

by

Summary

  • Hulu’s Goosebumps series masterfully weaves anthology stories for a fun, schlocky horror experience fans love.
  • Promising signs for a new season of Goosebumps series as material still left to adapt from iconic horror stories.
  • Great Goosebumps stories like “Piano Lessons Can Be Murder” would be perfect for a new season in a running order.

Hulu’s Goosebumps series has skillfully combined the individual tales into a unified storyline in a remarkable way. By maintaining the right balance between enjoyable, campy horror that aligns with the original tone of the schoolbook series and avoiding an overly serious or mature approach, it has become a huge favorite among long-time fans.

The television show “Goosebumps: The Vanishing” has shown that the concept still holds potential even after some of the series’ most popular titles like “Night of the Living Dummy” and “The Haunted Mask.” Although a second season hasn’t been officially announced yet, there are encouraging signs. With a wealth of material from the long-running horror series left to explore, any prospective showrunners might want to take a look at these top-notch Goosebumps stories that could be adapted for a new television series.

1. Piano Lessons Can Be Murder

Sleight Of Hand

  • Series: Goosebumps (Original Series)
  • Series Number: 13
  • Publisher: Scholastic

In essence, we’ll arrange these tales in a potential sequence for a fresh season of eerie events, and “Piano Lessons Can Be Murder” could make an excellent opener. This chilling horror narrative commences as the main character settles into a new community.

After discovering an old piano in the house, he decides to learn piano by enrolling in lessons with a local teacher named Dr. Shreek. As the classes progress, Dr. Shreek shows an unusual interest in the student’s hands, and it becomes clear that this seemingly innocent learning experience is actually a cover for sinister genetic and robotic experiments. With a clever twist revealing the true antagonist, the setup provides ample opportunity for further experimentation and potential mishaps.

2. Egg Monsters From Mars

Don’t Trust The Science

  • Series: Goosebumps (Original Series)
  • Series Number: 42
  • Publisher: Scholastic

As the main character gathers an unusual egg during a community egg search, he pays little attention to it until it starts cracking open and revealing a gooey, globular creature. He then decides to bring this alien creature to his nearby research facility for examination. There, the head scientist discloses that these are Martian Egg Monsters.

The researcher tells the child that isolation is necessary for him next, and locks him up along with some creatures in a chilly chamber. However, when the beasts attack the researcher, he manages to flee and come back later with assistance. Upon his return, he finds the lab deserted and the beasts missing.

3. Why I’m Afraid Of Bees

Bodyswap Horror

  • Series: Goosebumps (Original Series)
  • Series Number: 17
  • Publisher: Scholastic

The opening scene finds our character answering an advertisement seeking “an escape from one’s daily existence.” Curious, he reaches out to the enigmatic organization upon receiving a callback, as someone has expressed interest in trading lives with him temporarily.

In this scenario, when an experiment backfires, he unintentionally finds himself living as a bee, while the intended recipient of his body undergoes a successful transformation into him. Eager to return to his original form, he discovers that the occupant of his body is content with their new life and instead attempts to usurp him.

4. Attack Of The Jack-O’-Lanterns

Trick Or Treat

  • Series: Goosebumps (Original Series)
  • Series Number: 48
  • Publisher: Scholastic

Among the options you’ve provided,

“Attack of the Jack-O’-Lanterns,” although requiring some adjustments for the larger storyline, remains a timeless horror narrative with visually striking practical effects that would work perfectly in a TV series. On Halloween night, a duo of siblings adorn themselves with spooky pumpkin masks and misguide their companions during trick-or-treating.

They persistently make the group continue trick-or-treating indefinitely and plan to transform them into perpetual pumpkin heads using matching masks. In the original tale, it is disclosed that the pair are shape-shifting extraterrestrials, but other beings could serve the same purpose. This offers an intriguing chance for a midseason plot twist as friends unexpectedly turn into adversaries.

5. The Scarecrow Walks At Midnight

Lurking In The Cornfields

  • Series: Goosebumps (Original Series)
  • Series Number: 20
  • Publisher: Scholastic

A potential rephrasing could be: “One more chilling antagonist that might necessitate some tweaks but would seamlessly follow the previous narrative, is ‘The Scarecrow Walks At Midnight.’ As the title suggests, this tale unfolds on a farm where scarecrows turn into living entities during the night due to an ancient tome.

In this tale, a number of scarecrows startle a farmhouse during the darkness of one evening, creating a chance for an escalation in the storyline as it marks the initial assault on the primary group of characters. With the movie “Egg Monsters from Mars” providing a basis for their vulnerability to temperature changes, the narrative can be resolved if the heroes are able to survive the night.

6. The Beast From The East

Deadly Games

  • Series: Goosebumps (Original Series)
  • Series Number: 41
  • Publisher: Scholastic

Here’s where the crew embarks on a quest to discover the origin of the peculiar occurrences happening in the surrounding woodlands. As they wander off course in an unusual part of the forest, they stumble upon a group of creatures that reside there. Among them is one identified as “The Beast from the Eastern Wilds“.

In this forest, the animals clarify that it serves as a playfield for a game resembling tag, where the one carrying a specific name at dusk falls prey to the surviving winners. As the game unfolds and its complexities multiply, the group finds themselves ensnared in its frenzy, frantically avoiding being chosen when the clock ticks down.

7. Calling All Creeps

Accidental Commander

  • Series: Goosebumps (Original Series)
  • Series Number: 50
  • Publisher: Scholastic

As a devoted admirer, I’d like to rephrase the original title, “Calling All Creeps,” from my perspective:

“I, an avid follower, found myself in quite the extraordinary situation when I posted an ad, possibly online these days instead of in a local paper, with the intriguing heading “Reach out to the Unusual Suspects.” Little did I know that my seemingly innocuous call would attract a band of reptilian entities, camouflaging themselves among ordinary townsfolk.

They misinterpret his message as a battle cry and try to gather support, positioning him as their leader in a scheme to transform the entire town into something sinister. At this juncture, the truth behind the situation plaguing the town is unveiled, providing context for the escalating events leading up to the climactic conclusion, reminiscent of Halloween night.

8. Attack Of The Mutant

Stranger Than Fiction

  • Series: Goosebumps (Original Series)
  • Series Number: 25
  • Publisher: Scholastic

In “Attack of the Mutant,” the protagonists discover that the notorious comic book antagonist, the “Masked Shifter,” is indeed genuine and resides on the town’s outskirts in a concealed structure. When they eventually visit to face this adversary, he retaliates against them with his formidable shapeshifting abilities.

In the tale, it’s unveiled that one of his trusted companions is actually the hidden identity of the Masked Mutant. This twist ties up loose ends nicely, providing a climactic showdown with the primary shape-shifting antagonist, the revelation of which was foreshadowed by the publisher in a self-referential comment during the first season’s run, and culminating in a final face-off.

Read More

2025-02-20 15:37