Poll of the Day > I watched Goosebumps TV series last night first time since childhood

(+) Yeah! (+)

Oh the nostalgia

Something that popped to mind though...why do these kids shows like Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of The Dark have better writing than most regular R/PG-13 rated horror films? Despite these kids horror shows having bad acting and restricted to get away with only G rating stuff, it's kinda weird.

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Completely forgot this was on Netflix. Been meaning to check it out and see how it holds up after all these years.

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AYAOTD's campfire shit was generally lousy and took away time that could have gone to the episodes, although the framing occasionally worked for atmosphere and jump scares, as well making the narration feel more organic. The quality of the show itself varied greatly at times, where some episodes were on par with more popular, adult horror series, but you also had a lot of crap.

Goosebumps often wasn't as good as AYAOTD, but it was also geared towards a younger audience and was trying to adapt books. And given the nature of the original series, very few Goosebumps books ended badly for the protagonists, which meant that the stakes always felt lower. By contrast, things often turned out badly for the kids in AYAOTD stories even if most episodes had happy endings.

Ferarri619 posted...

why do these kids shows like Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of The Dark have better writing than most regular R/PG-13 rated horror films

They really don't, although the episodes can better than people expect. Although if you're comparing them to unrated shit quality films (where they didn't bother with the MPAA because they never went to theaters and, in many cases, never went to DVD), those usually don't have professional writers, actors, etc.

There are a lot of decent children's series and many of the people involved in adult horror were involved in those shows, including child actors who graduated to adult horror. Of course, the big downside to children's horror is often the hamfisted attempts to use them as morality tales (which AYAOTD sometimes did, but Goosebumps generally avoided) and occasional silliness.

On the adult side, while Tales from the Crypt is probably the most famous horror anthology, Monsters always struck me as being the best.

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Zeus posted...

On the adult side, while Tales from the Crypt

I remember the animated kids version of that....maybe I should check that again too.

I also remember Bordello of Blood, and I only watched that as a teenager to hypnox to the brothel scene, lmao

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The cartoon was a mixed bag, partly because I think they did a revamp. Although i saw a few episodes more recently, it's been so long since I've seen the entire run of Tales from the Cryptkeeper that I can't really say too much about it.

The movies were... ehhh... Demon Knight was a slog, Bordello of Blood was campy fun, and the third one -- which I don't think had much connection at all -- was just terrible.

The live-action show had its moments, but some episodes were just stupid, it relied too heavily on gimmicked-up twists at times, and the episode naming conventions were often terrible (with the exception of a few that were right on the nose, like "The Assassin" and "Maniac at Large" -- Maniac was also one of the better episodes, and actually I loved "The Assassin" as well)

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