When Disney+’s R.L. Stine adaptation Goosebumps debuted in October 2023, it was only a 10-episode limited series. But with its Season 2 renewal, the series has become a serialized anthology that tells a new story every season. Co-creators Rob Letterman (2015’s Goosebumps) and Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) return this season with Letterman and Hilary Winston (Community) serving as co-showrunners again.
While we won’t be following our characters from the previous, the second installment, subtitled Goosebumps: The Vanishing, follows another group of high-schoolers trying to solve a decades-old supernatural mystery.
To the tune of the Beastie Boys’ “Pass the Mic,” the series opens in 1994 Brooklyn, New York, with a group of teens — Matty (Christopher Paul Richards), Hannah (Eloise Payet), Sameer (Arjun Athalye), and Nicole (Kyra Tantao). As in every horror show, their boredom and curiosity have fatal consequences.
In honor of the traditional “senior dare,” they make an idiotic plan to spend the night in the allegedly haunted old fort by the water. Local lore claims it’s where the military conducted medical experiments on humans. Their spooky adventure ends as expected: all four vanish without a trace and are presumed dead.
In the present day, we meet Matty’s younger brother, Anthony Brewer (David Schwimmer), a divorced botanist now living in his childhood home. His kids, teenage twins Cece (Jayden Bartels) and Devin (Sam McCarthy) come to stay with him in the Gravesend neighborhood of Brooklyn for the summer. His only rule is to “stay out of the basement,” where he’s set up a lab filled with sensitive research and fragile equipment.
The twins reconnect with childhood friend and next-door neighbor Frankie (Galilea La Salvia) and meet charismatic delivery driver CJ (Elijah M. Cooper), post-juvie rebel Alex (Francesca Noel), and Frankie’s douchey college boyfriend Trey (Stony Blyden). Due to the series of strange happenings, they all get to know Alex’s mom Jen (Ana Ortiz), a police detective who went to school with the four kids who vanished in 1994.
Trying to impress his longtime crush Frankie, Devin stupidly follows in his uncle’s footsteps and goes into the tunnel on a dare. He makes it out alive but not unscathed and whatever latched onto him is the source of weird things happening in the community. Meanwhile, Anthony has his own bizarre encounter with equally disastrous outcomes.
While the scariness is kept tame for a YA audience, the special effects and creature creation by Peter Jackson’s Wētā FX produce some skin-crawling body horror. Anthony gets infected by the mystery spores, which grow into squirming tendrils protruding from his arm. The visuals are fantastically disgusting; a lot of goo pouring out of eyes, noses, and mouths, along with vicious vines trying to pull and suffocate whatever they can.
Like Season 1, it’s hard to connect with the characters right away. Since The Vanishing takes place during summer break, we don’t see the high school dynamics among the group. However, there’s still anxiety around the upcoming senior year, messy love triangles, fighting with parents, living under the pressure of high expectations, and getting into trouble on the regular.
David Schwimmer, best known for his tenure as Ross on Friends, does a great job juggling the show’s blend of comedy, drama, and horror. And when his character takes a darker turn, he delivers a chilling performance. One noticeable, comical aspect about Anthony and every character is that they frequently talk to themselves out loud, not even whispering.
The Vanishing adapts a number of Stine’s beloved books, including Stay Out of the Basement, The Haunted Car, Monster Blood, The Girl Who Cried Monster, The Ghost Next Door, and Welcome to Camp Nightmare. Each story is about a different type of supernatural threat (plant monsters, ghosts, blobs), but Winston and Co. still made everything work together in one mostly cohesive narrative.
In the first six episodes available for review, there’s one that stands out for its increase in suspense. Much of Episode 6, “The Girl Next Door,” sees the group looking for clues while watching a VHS tape recorded by the 1994 missing teens. The episode, filmed on a hand-held camera, owes the eeriness to its director and found footage extraordinaire Eduardo Sanchéz (The Blair Witch Project).
The show has an interesting mix of music genres, including Sabrina Carpenter, 21 Savage, St. Vincent, Thundercat, Childish Gambino, and more than one diegetic play of System of a Down’s 2001 nu-metal hit “Chop Suey!” Rap and hip-hop don’t always work in some scenes but the overall eclectic needle drops are appreciated.
Goosebumps: The Vanishing is a solid next chapter in the anthology series, delivering just as much mystery, creepy creatures, and coming-of-age angst. While fall would’ve been a more on-brand time for the release, or even summer when the series is set, The Vanishing still holds up as an entertaining binge for new and old Goosebumps fans alike.
All eight episodes of Goosebumps: The Vanishing premiere January 10, 2025, on Disney+ and Hulu.
