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Writers’ Picks: Our Favorite “Goosebumps” Books

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When I think of my childhood, I think of going to the library every Saturday with my dad and checking out 2-3 Goosebumps books, inhaling them alll over the weekend and then doing it all again the next Saturday. It wasn’t long before I had finished the series that had so far been released and then moved on to Fear Street.

When I was a kid, there were Goosebumps books still coming out, then came the choose your own adventure style, then the television show. Goosebumps is synonymous with a child of the 90s and I’m not the only fan here at iHorror. I took the liberty of getting my fellow writers together to find out what their favorite books in the series where.

Whether you read this with the nostalgia of your 10-year-old self or you’re looking for present ideas for your kid/niece/nephew/grandkid/neighbor/secretly yourself or what have you, hopefully you will find this list helpful.

Goosebumps

Image courtesy of the Goosebumps Wikia

Say Cheese and Die! was published in 1992 and was the 4th book in the original series. It follows a young boy named Greg and his friends who discover a mysterious camera. As they take pictures, weird occurrences begin to happen causing harm to the people around him. Could the camera be haunted? It was followed up with a second book later on called Say Cheese and Die – Again! and also had a TV episode starring Ryan Gosling.

I love Say Cheese and Die! because it’s always been one that stuck out to me just like the rest of the classics. Plus there’s so many legends surfacing around camera’s taking souls as well as the phrase “a picture says 1000s words.” Well, what if that picture shows foresees your untimely death? I just love that idea behind this and it will always be a favorite of mine!

-Tori Danielle

Goosebumps

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

One Day at Horrorland has always been the one story and episode of the TV series that really stuck with me as a child. The idea of a theme park dedicated entirely to horror was so much fun to read about, and terrible accidents aside, I would have loved to be able to experience something of the like. One Day at Horrorland will always be my favorite goosebumps story, and served as the beginning to my love for the horror genre.”

-Justin Eckert

Goosebumps

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

I’ve always been sucker for werewolves, so The Werewolf of Fever Swamp was always my favorite Goosebumps book. The story is simple enough – a kid moves to a new house that happens to be right next to a swamp, and he soon suspects that there is a werewolf in said swamp. It has all of the trappings of the typical Goosebumps books – the childlike innocence, the red herrings, the cliffhanger chapters – but it also has a werewolf! It also helps that the Fever Swamp Wolf was easily the coolest monster that found its way into the Goosebumps movie. Like many of R.L Stine’s books, it also ends with a Shyamalanian twist that, read through adult eyes, is pretty pandering, but to a kid, it was jaw dropping. One of those “no way!” moments from my adolescence.

-James Jay Edwards

Goosebumps

Image courtesy of JBowmanCantSleep

Alongside The Haunted Mask, and One Day at Horrorland, one of the Goosebumps books I adore the most is one that it seems a lot of people have forgotten: The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight. If memory serves correctly, The Scarecrow was the 20th book in the initial Goosebumps series the dark and ominous paperback cover of a menacing looking scarecrow in a corn field was enough to catch my attention. The story itself is something that I can envision as an actual horror movie, which makes it that much more amazeballs. There’s just something so terrifying about a scarecrow coming to life that is beyond unsettling. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Tales from the Crypt, and the Children of the Corn series have touched on it, and for a children’s series of books like Goosebumps making a successfully scary enough story out of it, is a feat not a whole lot of authors have under their belt. Plus it makes me hungry for chocolate chip pancakes.

-Patti Pauley

Goosebumps

Image courtesy of Overdue Review

Growing up, the Goosebumps book that terrified me the most was The Haunted Mask (book 11 in the original series). It follows easily bullied and scaredy-cat Carly Beth that just once wants to scare the kids that are mean to her. She stumbles upon a Halloween shop and goes for the most grotesque mask in the she can find. After putting it on, she realizes she can’t get it off but begins to like the power of fear the mask instills.

This one was scary as a book but was kicked up a notch when the show made a two part episode about it. I could relate to being bullied and wanting to stand up for myself. You felt the fear build in Carly Beth as she realized she couldn’t take it off and saw the change in her behavior once the mask started to take over. The second Haunted Mask book didn’t pack the same punch that this one did. It was a perfect story of finding out what truly matters.

-D.D. Crowley

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Another Creepy Spider Movie Hits Shudder This Month

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Good spider films are a theme this year. First, we had Sting and then there was Infested. The former is still in theaters and the latter is coming to Shudder starting April 26.

Infested has been getting some good reviews. People are saying that it’s not only a great creature feature but also a social commentary on racism in France.

According to IMDb: Writer/director Sébastien Vanicek was looking for ideas around the discrimination faced by black and Arab-looking people in France, and that led him to spiders, which are rarely welcome in homes; whenever they’re spotted, they’re swatted. As everyone in the story (people and spiders) is treated like vermin by society, the title came to him naturally.

Shudder has become the gold standard for streaming horror content. Since 2016, the service has been offering fans an expansive library of genre movies. in 2017, they began to stream exclusive content.

Since then Shudder has become a powerhouse in the film festival circuit, buying distribution rights to movies, or just producing some of their own. Just like Netflix, they give a film a short theatrical run before adding it to their library exclusively for subscribers.

Late Night With the Devil is a great example. It was released theatrically on March 22 and will begin streaming on the platform starting April 19.

While not getting the same buzz as Late Night, Infested is a festival favorite and many have said if you suffer from arachnophobia, you might want to take heed before watching it.

Infested

According to the synopsis, our main character, Kalib is turning 30 and dealing with some family issues. “He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.”

The film will be available to watch on Shudder starting April 26.

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Part Concert, Part Horror Movie M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Trap’ Trailer Released

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In true Shyamalan form, he sets his film Trap inside a social situation where we aren’t sure what is going on. Hopefully, there is a twist at the end. Furthermore, we hope it’s better than the one in his divisive 2021 movie Old.

The trailer seemingly gives away a lot, but, as in the past, you can’t rely on his trailers because they are often red herrings and you are being gaslit to think a certain way. For instance, his movie Knock at the Cabin was completely different than what the trailer implied and if you hadn’t read the book on which the film is based it was still like going in blind.

The plot for Trap is being dubbed an “experience” and we aren’t quite sure what that means. If we were to guess based on the trailer, it’s a concert movie wrapped around a horror mystery. There are original songs performed by Saleka, who plays Lady Raven, a kind of Taylor Swift/Lady Gaga hybrid. They have even set up a Lady Raven website to further the illusion.

Here is the fresh trailer:

According to the synopsis, a father takes his daughter to one of Lady Raven’s jam-packed concerts, “where they realize they’re at the center of a dark and sinister event.”

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Trap stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills and Allison Pill. The film is produced by Ashwin Rajan, Marc Bienstock and M. Night Shyamalan. The executive producer is Steven Schneider.

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Woman Brings Corpse Into Bank To Sign Loan Papers

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Warning: This is a disturbing story.

You have to be pretty desperate for money to do what this Brazilian woman did at the bank to get a loan. She wheeled in a fresh corpse to endorse the contract and she seemingly thought the bank employees wouldn’t notice. They did.

This weird and disturbing story comes via ScreenGeek an entertainment digital publication. They write that a woman identified as Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes pushed a man she identified as her uncle into the bank pleading with him to sign loan papers for $3,400. 

If you’re squeamish or easily triggered, be aware that the video captured of the situation is disturbing. 

Latin America’s largest commercial network, TV Globo, reported on the crime, and according to ScreenGeek this is what Nunes says in Portuguese during the attempted transaction. 

“Uncle, are you paying attention? You must sign [the loan contract]. If you don’t sign, there’s no way, as I cannot sign on your behalf!”

She then adds: “Sign so you can spare me further headaches; I can’t bear it any longer.” 

At first we thought this might be a hoax, but according to Brazilian police, the uncle, 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga had passed away earlier that day.

 “She attempted to feign his signature for the loan. He entered the bank already deceased,” Police Chief Fábio Luiz said in an interview with TV Globo. “Our priority is to continue investigating to identify other family members and gather more information regarding this loan.”

If convicted Nunes could be facing jail time on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and desecration of a corpse.

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