Countless horror fans are often born after stumbling upon a scary movie they weren’t supposed to watch as a child. It’s a rite of passage that I can very much attest to. But at the same time, the genre can provide written and visual gateways for younger viewers that may have that same curiosity but aren’t quite ready to dive headfirst into the harder stuff. For some, it’s “Gremlins.” For others, it’s “Coraline.” But for an entire generation of ’90s children, there was nothing like picking up a “Goosebumps” book.
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The long-running children’s novel series from author R.L. Stine often made an impression before the reader even flipped through its pages on account of Tim Jacobus’ stunning cover art. Inside were stories of kids coming across all sorts of creepy happenings imagined by Stine, be it a haunted mask, monster blood, or a cursed ventriloquist dummy. “Goosebumps” didn’t have the hardest time making the transition from page to screen either, as most children of the ’90s likely have fond nostalgic memories of watching the TV show adaptation on Fox Kids.
It wasn’t until the 2010s that Stine’s creation made the leap to the big screen with 2015’s “Goosebumps,” which takes more of a “Jumanji” turn, followed by 2018’s “Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween.” There’s also the “Goosebumps” streaming series on Disney+ and Hulu, which retains its source material’s anthology format — only, rather than telling a new story with every episode, each season offers its own overarching narrative to provide a more serialized viewing experience.
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The larger “Goosebumps” franchise could have looked very different though. Indeed, before the ’90s television adaptation hit the airwaves, horror legend George A. Romero turned in an outline for the best “Goosebumps” movie never made.
Romero wanted to adapt the Goosebumps book Welcome to Dead House for the big screen
In 1995, Romero was courted by Kevin Bannerman, the Vice President of 20th Century Fox’s family film division, to adapt “Goosebumps” for the big screen. Out of all the titles the “Night of the Living Dead” filmmaker was sent, he appeared to zero in on the first book in Stine’s series, “Welcome to Dead House.” Although the project never ended up happening, Romero did, in fact, pen an incredible 124-page outline. And while it may be difficult to imagine the godfather of the zombie movie making a more family-friendly feature at first, the material seems ripe for his sensibilities when you take a closer look.
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Thanks to an extensive research project conducted by Bloody Disgusting, we now have an idea of what Romero’s “Welcome to the Dead House” movie adaptation would have looked like. The story follows the members of the Benson family as a mysterious figure attempts to convince them to purchase a Victorian home in the town of Dark Falls. The Benson children, Josh and Amanda, quickly start to notice strange occurrences throughout the house, like chimney bricks moving around and winking windows. It also turns out that Dark Falls is a pretty darkly idiosyncratic place itself, complete with strange neighbors who never seem to leave their homes, citizens that have an aversion to water, and an underground tunnel system that correlates with everyone’s houses — including the Bensons’ new home.
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Through a peculiar series of circumstances, it’s revealed that the Benson family are the only living people in Dark Falls. All of the town’s other citizens, including the children, are all figures of the living dead who, at one time, lived in the Benson house. The spirit of town founder Foster DeVries lives within the home, slowly draining them and everyone else of their life force once a year. The climax sees the family trying to escape with their lives before they become part of the same vicious cycle that took so many lives before them.
Welcome to Dead House was eventually adapted for television
It’s a real shame Romero never got to expand upon his outline because it’s an incredible read that presents a thrilling mystery that likely would have enthralled and scared younger audiences in equal measure. It probably would have been one of those cases where the many changes made to the source material would have gone over well with “Goosebumps” aficionados, too.
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For book purists who want a more faithful adaptation of “Welcome to Dead House,” look no further than the two-parter produced for the ’90s television show. Rather than being sold to the Bensons, in this version the eponymous house is inherited by the family’s patriarch from a dead great uncle that he never even knew about. Similarly, the Dark Falls locals, while kind, present an off-putting aura that makes the Bensons’ new environment feel extra unsettling.
Ultimately, the Benson children discover a terrible secret when they happen upon a cemetery in which all of the gravestones feature the names of the townsfolk. Unlike Romero’s treatment, which reveals that there’s a central figure responsible for everyone’s death in the “Dead House,” the threat in the original story is more of a Dark Falls group effort. Specifically, a factory incident unleashed a deadly gas that turned all the locals all into walking undead ghouls, but not explicitly zombies. Every year, one person has to be killed in order to sustain their living dead existence … and this year, the Bensons are up.
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All four seasons of the original “Goosebumps” series are currently streaming on Peacock.
