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Horrific Foundations: Goosebumps

Another slice of media that profoundly influenced my tastes in fiction and horror and even reading itself is the Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine. Nowadays I’m a little old for the Jack Black movie and I have a feeling that back in the day I was a bit late to the Goosebumps party (but I haven’t checked the dates yet).

This feeling is mainly because I never got the Goosebumps books new and instead I was drip fed the series from whatever my mum could find from charity shops. This has created a confusing patchwork of memories where there are a few I remember vividly and a lot more that I never read at all due to being unable to find them. I’m also fairly certain that the ones I read were largely from the later less loved period of the range.

The three things that you’re immediately hit with when reading Goosebumps is that they’re very American, very 90s and very simplistic. Consuming American culture as a British (and indeed any other nationality) kid is something we all have to acclimatise to fairly early. The experience of the kids in these books were very similar to me but also in many ways it was obviously not my world or experience being portrayed.

I have long thought that the 90s will be looked back on as a golden age for America in terms of military, economy and culture and these cosy books with their small town kid worries and problems reflect this well. Like all golden ages though this one is just an illusion and if you scratch away the veneer the grim reality can be found beneath. This is true both in the books and when looking at the historical idea that the 90s were a golden age for anyone except rich white Americans.

The plotting in these books is functional if predictable. The mysterious object of the week is used and abused by some random kid with often quite scary results. The prose is sparse and workmanlike but that’s all that’s needed here. Also despite all the grown up horror I read now I’m certain I bee never felt more anxious and on edge than I did reading these which is high praise.

The Goosebumps books are a well known gateway for children of a certain age into the joys of horror and they have an enduring -not quite timeless - appeal that has kept them going. I have been vague in regards to specific details here as I may review individual entries at some point.

For the time being though I will mention that the ones that I read and remember well include: Be Careful What You Wish For and The Cuckoo Clock of Doom from the original series alongside Cry of the Cat from the later books. I read a lot more than that but these are the ones that stick in my mind.

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Horrific Foundations: Scooby-Doo

I have always believed that as a child the media you consume forms your tastes, opinions and thinking in a very specific way. When examining what could possibly cultivate an intense love of horror the Scooby-Doo cartoon franchise is not something that you would immediately suspect.

When I was a kid in the very first years of this century my family couldn’t afford the necessary tv channel package to get access to the newer Scooby-Doo cartoon so I was stuck with Saturday Morning reruns of the original show from decades earlier. Even though I probably didn’t fully realise just how old the cartoons were, watching them alongside the slightly more slick visuals of everything else I was watching gave Scooby-Doo a kind of ethereal quality that was far removed from everything else.

This intangible strange mood that the series gave off along with the - frankly blizzard - monster and creature designs fascinated me and led to an obsession with the show throughout early childhood. Combining this eerie tone with the 70s hippie vibe and the idea that each monster of the week would turn out to be some weirdo bloke in a suit really is a stroke of genius and the whole mish mash of ideas makes the show something really unique.

I imagine Scooby-Doo has been a gateway into loving the horror/weird genre for many kids over the years and despite the dodgy live action movies I retain a real fondness for the show. Here’s hoping it continues to evolve and entice more generations into the genre I love.