Goosebumps’ New Story Repeated The Same Trick That Hurt Season 1’s Ending

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Goosebumps (2023) and Goosebumps: The Vanishing

Although Goosebumps: The Vanishing’s ending is more self-contained than the finale of its predecessor, the show still keeps a frustrating anthology trend alive. 2023’s Goosebumps reboot was a fun blend of teen drama and horror comedy that saw a group of teenagers battle against supernatural forces in the small town of Port Lawrence. Goosebumps season 1’s finale left the show’s hero in critical condition in a hospital after an encounter with the villain of the series, and this cliffhanger was left unresolved. However, Goosebumps: The Vanishing didn’t pick up where season 1 left off.

Instead, Goosebumps: The Vanishing’s cast of characters was entirely new, and the show focused on a separate, unrelated story. Goosebumps: The Vanishing followed the botanist Anthony Brewer, whose older brother mysteriously vanished in Fort Jerome 30 years before the series began. As Anthony looked after his teenage twins Devin and Cece over the summer, the pair befriended local teens Frankie, Alex, CJ, and Trey, and accidentally ended up unearthing the conspiracy behind their uncle’s unexplained disappearance. This plot had no connection to Goosebumps season 1, except for one frustrating trend shared by both shows.

Goosebumps: The Vanishing Ends On A Cliffhanger, Just Like Season 1

Trey’s Fate In Goosebumps: The Vanishing’s Ending Proves Its Story Isn’t Over

Like season 1, Goosebumps: The Vanishing’s ending features an unresolved cliffhanger. After the alien spaceship containing Anthony’s brother leaves, the teens are safe and Anthony finally understands the truth behind his brother’s disappearance. However, Trey pukes up gray alien goo in Goosebumps: The Vanishing’s last shot, meaning that the story isn’t entirely over yet. Thanks to the anthology format of the Goosebumps series, it is unclear if either of the stories featured in seasons 1 or 2 will be brought back or resolved, or if the show’s future outings will once again reset the clock and focus on new characters.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, executive producers Rob Letterman and Hilary Winston said that they discussed the idea of “One character as a crossover who could come back and do different things.” However, the pair don’t clarify whether the stories featured in seasons 1 and 2 of the series will ever be fully resolved by future outings. Goosebumps seems to follow the approach taken by earlier anthology shows like American Horror Story and Slasher, wherein each season introduces a new set of characters. However, these earlier shows have two separate approaches to recurring characters.

How Goosebumps’ Anthology Format Hurt Season 1’s Story

Goosebumps Added An Unnecessary Twist To Season 1’s Ending

In Slasher, characters do not reappear from season to season. In American Horror Story, the seasons all take place in the same fictional universe and characters often appear in more than one season’s story. As such, it is impossible to tell if Goosebumps season 1’s story will ever be properly finished, since this wouldn’t necessarily require another entire season set in Port Lawrence. Since all the Goosebumps seasons are based on RL Stine’s books, a future outing could feature some characters from season 1 and clarify their fate while still mostly focusing on new characters having new adventures.

Goosebumps season 1’s ending badly derailed an otherwise strong debut season, leaving the plot feeling frustratingly unfinished. To make matters worse, episode 8 of the series would have made for a fairly satisfying ending. At that stage, the ghost causing the season’s events had been appeased and Slappy, the evil ventriloquist’s dummy that caused the ghost’s downfall during his life, had been destroyed. However, episodes 9 and 10 revived Slappy, gave him a new master, and involved an entirely superfluous second climax where the magician possessing the doll was defeated. The storyline mostly existed to set up the cliffhanger ending.

Why Goosebumps’ Cliffhanger Endings Make Sense (To An Extent)

RL Stine’s Goosebumps Novels Featured Similar Twist Endings

To be fair to the series, it does make sense for a Goosebumps adaptation to indulge in some cliffhanger endings. It is a longstanding tradition for horror stories to end with some lingering detail that proves that evil has not necessarily been defeated for good. In this regard, Goosebumps: The Vanishing’s ending isn’t all that different from Stine’s classic Goosebumps novels Camp Nightmare or The Werewolf of Fever Swamp, both of which end with the unsettling implication that the story is only just beginning.

On a more practical note, these ambiguous endings also leave the door open for Goosebumps to either return to the story for an entire season, or to pull off future crossovers in later outings. Individual characters from Goosebumps season 1 or Goosebumps: The Vanishing could appear in later seasons and explain the aftermath of their stories, or the show could provide a full-blown sequel to either of these outings in the future. However, this justification does not stop Goosebumps: The Vanishing’s ending from feeling somewhat frustrating.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Release Date

October 13, 2023

Cast

David Schwimmer
, Jayden Bartels
, Francesca Noel
, Galilea La Salvia
, Elijah M. Cooper
, Ana Ortiz
, Zack Morris
, Justin Long
, Ana Yi Puig
, Miles McKenna
, Will Price
, Isa Briones
, Rachael Harris
, Rob Huebel

Creator(s)

Rob Letterman
, Nicholas Stoller

Seasons

2

Story By

R.L. Stine

Writers

Nicholas Stoller
, Rob Letterman
, Kevin Murphy

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