With Goosebumps set to hit theaters next week, 20th Century Fox is jumping on R.L. Stine’s other big horror series, Fear Street, and developing a movie based on the books. Seeing as Fear Street has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, it seems perfect to mine for a filmed project. But would a movie be the best?
The Goosebumps film is already about an author’s monsters coming to life in the real world, so repeating that, even if it’s just “a bunch of kids move to Fear Street, and there are ghosts and vampires everywhere†seems like a waste of more than 100 titles.
But as a television series, especially in today’s arena of anthology horror, like Scream Queens and American Horror Story, this particular run of books would be perfect for either a Twilight Zone take or an amalgam of different stories blended as a teen-horror soap-opera stew. Who would want to watch a series about possessed cheerleaders, tormented babysitters, boyfriends coming back from the dead, and sexy vampires? It’d be Buffy for a new generation.