By R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books were everywhere when I was a kid. If you’ve never read them, you may at least remember the Saturday morning show on Fox during the 90s. Darren Lemke (Jack the Giant Killer, Shrek Forever After) has been hired to adapt Goosebumps for the big screen. No word on the story he’ll do, but my guess is he’ll pick a single book or maybe jam two or three books together.
I was never a fan of Goosebumps. Instead I was hooked on another children’s horror series: the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark trilogy by Alvin Schwartz. A collection of folktales, urban legends, and true events, these were legitimately creepy books that have stuck with me for years. A lot of that has to do with the eerie illustrations by Stephen Gammell. Sadly, reprints of the three Scary Stories books no longer have have any of the brilliant Gammell art.
I would love to see some kind of adaptation or anthology film based on these works of Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell. Part of it is nostalgia, sure, but another part of it is a belief that kids could use scares that don’t pull punches or treat them like babies. Children are resilient, and if a kid loves to be scared like I did when I was young, that kid would love a Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark movie way more than a stupid, cootie-filled Goosebumps movie.
[Via /Film]