Now Streaming GOOSEBUMPS: THE VANISHING: Spooky Fun For Young Horror Families

Fraternal twins Devin and Cece have joined their single dad for the Summer. Cece is going to attend a Debate summer camp while Devin plans to pine after his longtime crush Frankie whilst avoiding the glares and threats of her jealous boyfriend. Their father, Anthony, will continue his own research in botanicals (legitimate research, you guys - yeesh) in his basement lab, where they are forbidden to go. No sooner have the twins settled in do they find themselves caught up in a story of four teenagers who mysteriously vanished in 1994 and how their family is connected to the incident that fateful night. Thirty years later the events threaten to repeat themselves. 

 

Goosebumps: The Vanishing is the latest season of the new anthology horror/teen drama series from the popular franchise built around a kid and teen friendly approach to familiar horror tropes. David Schwimmer and Ana Ortiz play childhood friends, Anthony and Jen, who are now parents to some of this tiny brood of teens. Jayden Bartels and Sam McCarthy play the twins Cece and Devion. Francesca Noel is Ortiz’s delinquent daughter, Alex. Elijah M. Cooper plays their friend CJ and Galilea La Salvia is the subject of Devin’s wishful longings, Frankie.

 

Relationships threatening to blossom among this circle of friends provides teenage drama to fill in the spaces between the spooky bits. Teenagers do love their drama and the ‘will they, won’t they get together’ story line between Devin and Frankie for instance should keep the dreamers interested. Early visual indicators also give a sign that there could be a queer element thrown in the mix as well, which was confirmed in later episodes. If that does not float your boat we might as well tell you now before you go online and smash your keyboards in ‘moral outrage’. 

 

Let us continue, and speak to horror parents whose kids are coming of age at this time. We understand that these Goosebumps series are aimed at tweens and teens, which is a pretty broad age range between 8 and 19 years old, by definition. Broad in the sense that what an eight year old finds scary is likely completely different than what a late teen finds scary. However, if your eight year-old is asking to watch Damien Leone’s popular trilogy (a trilogy, so far) of gorefests you are clearly doing parenting wrong, so wrong. 

 

The Goosebumps franchise has always served as gateway horror for younger viewers, featuring sinister characters, creepy creatures, and suspense, but on a milder level. While the novels and early television series targeted younger after-school audiences the newest series on Disney+ and Hulu goes after the pubscent ranks, hence the love triangle and queer romance subplots. Everybody wants to get with somebody. Mostly, everybody. 

 

Any Anarchists in our ranks who have a family have well indoctrinated their spawn in the ways of horror. Most of their stock are breaching this age range now and can go to the cinema on their own without adult supervision. As a childless adult I’m watching this as an objective reviewer and am guessing as to what you would deem appropriate for your own stock. I’ve got nephews within this target range, but I can’t say for certain that they’re interested in this kind of stuff - WHICH BREAKS MY GOSH DARNED HEART! So I do this for them! 

 

As a horror fan I admire what the franchise has accomplished over the years. In the series I appreciated the spectrum of tropes they’re using from episode to episode. We got the classics like a blob monster, carnivorous plants and body snatching, to name a few. The first episode opens with a rather startling scene involving… melting, shall we say? It is a litmus test for the younger viewers in the audience, it will not get much more demanding than that. 

 

Based off of the first six episodes that we were given to watch for this review it is safe to presume that Goosebumps: The Vanishing is a great series for young horror families to enjoy together. Out of its target audience the most who will gain anything from a series like this will be the Tweens. Whether your burgeoning late-teenager will allow themselves to like it in front of you is between you and them, but no one should be too cool to have some spooky fun once and a while. But seriously, the late teen audience this franchise is looking to stay connected to has likely already moved on to more intense fare, sneaking into higher rated horror films at the multiplex or slipping by parental guards on your streaming services. Great for kids. Good enough for teens that will give it a chance. 

 

There was enough looking into the mystery of the missing kids from 1994 and the discoveries that Anthony was making in his basement lab to keep things interesting. Other than some random jumps in the story where the writing team hopes you do not realize that certain characters could not possibly know plot points - because they were not there - things move along well enough. By the end of the sixth episode we were still interested in learning more about what caused the disappearance followed by the stakes that were raised by the end of that episode. Enough so that when the series has begun to air we are anticipating skipping to the end and seeing if it sticks the landing in the final two episodes. 

 

We are waiting for the shoe to drop on one of those relationships as well. We’re not interested in the drama of it. Gods forbid. Just, someone has cleaned up a bit too nicely after a run in with one of those carnivorous plants we mentioned earlier, and lived to tell the tale. Except for, you know, amnesia. 

 

Cursed amnesia, always getting in the way of plot development. 

 

Goosebumps: The Vanishing starts streaming on Disney+ January 10th, 2025.

 

(photo credit: Disney)