Shadyside is getting even more terrifying! Three new Fear Street movies are in the works. R.L. Stine told us himself. He’s the mastermind behind Fear Street and Goosebumps. We spoke with him before the Disney+ premiere of Goosebumps: The Vanishing (Jan. 10) to get the scoop on his projects and how Goosebumps keeps horror fresh.
A Return to Shadyside
The new Fear Street movies follow the Netflix 2021 trilogy and the already completed 4th movie The Prom Queen which is coming out in 2025. Stine’s young adult horror series started in 1989 with The New Girl and by 2010 had sold over 80 million copies and over 100 spinoff titles since 2014.
Fear Street books and movies blend supernatural horror with slasher elements. They’re different from Goosebumps in that they’re targeted towards older audiences with darker themes and scarier scares. But they prove Stine can reach a wide range of readers and viewers.
Fear Street is for teens and young adults but Goosebumps is middle-grade horror, Stine’s favorite audience. “That’s the best audience in the world, the 7-to-11 age group,” Stine says. “They want to read you, they want to buy things, they want to know you. They’re incredible. Then they turn 12, they discover sex, they have to be cool, and they’re gone.”
Despite this humorous comment, the Disney+ Goosebumps show has proven it can reach beyond its core audience. The first season of the show which debuted in 2023 broke into Nielsen’s Top 10 streaming ratings in its second week—a rare feat for a Disney+ property outside of Marvel or Star Wars.
Elevating the Horror in The Vanishing
Stine has seen only two episodes of The Vanishing, the second season of Disney+’s Goosebumps, but he’s liking how the show walks the line between being true to the books and growing up. “It’s the surprises, for one thing—the shocks,” he says. “When I write a Goosebumps book, the twists and the shocks are my most important thing. The show gets that unpredictability just right.”
He quotes a line from the 2015 Goosebumps movie where Jack Black, as Stine, says: “Every story has a beginning, a middle and a twist.” For Stine, that’s the secret to both his books and their adaptations.
New Fear Street movies are in the works and Goosebumps is pushing boundaries. Stine’s horror chops are still sharp. Whatever the formula—twists and shocks or fun and fright—he’s got us.
