The cast of Goosebumps commented on how things might play out after the shocking Season 1 cliffhanger, what else they might want to see in a potential Season 2, and working with the villainous puppet Slappy.
This article contains spoilers for the season finale of Goosebumps.
The final episode of the streaming show’s freshman run saw the lead characters quickly learn the truth that Slappy is back, and his soul is now in a human’s body named Kanduu.
The evil sorcerer's plan? Sacrifice a large portion of the town to release unknown horrors into the world, which Kanduu believes could end wars around the world.
While he’s stopped, Isaiah is fatally wounded. But, before slipping off into death’s embrace, Margot reads a forbidden spell to reverse the damage done to her childhood friend.
The Goosebumps Cast Talks About That Cliffhanger, Slappy, and Season 2
In an exclusive interview with The Direct’s Russ Milheim, Goosebumps’ Isa Briones (Margot) and Ana Yi Puig (Isabella) talked about that big cliffhanger at the end of Season's finale and what they’d want to see going forward.
In the final moments of the Goosebumps finale, Margot chooses to read a spell from Kanduu’s spell book to save Isaiah’s life. But how exactly will that work out for her?
Briones simply asked, “Has it ever worked out well?:”
“I mean, has it ever worked out well, Russ? Has it? No, I think it's... like we already kind of touched on, it's obviously not a great idea. I think objectively, not a great idea to read out of a haunted book that an evil man has been using to try and end the world basically. But again, it's out of something in her, out of the good in her, but also out of selfishness. And we can all relate to that. We've all had moments where we've given into something that we want so bad even if and just forget all the consequences and do that.”
Margot’s decision “opens up a can of worms,” says the actress, adding Kanduu’s big plan, in general, could lead to “a lot of fun and scary spook stuff:”
“It really opens up a can of worms. But I think what's also very cool about the storyline with Kanduu and wanting to release these horrors that leaves it open for all the, however many 'Goosebumps' books there are now. You can unleash so many demons just from this series. So I think it just really leaves it open for a lot of fun and scary spooky stuff.”
As for what Ana Yi Puig wants to see from Season 2, the actress would love to see the classic Goosebumps book Werewolf at Fever Swamp adapted and more “creates” and “practical makeup:”
“I feel like it would be 'Werewolf at Fever Swamp'. Like someone asked me that in another interview… I would love to do books that involve more practical monsters as well. And not just, you know, humans and curses, but yeah, werewolves, vampires, creatures. I love practical makeup. So I would love to CGI and do that, too.”
Puig went on to exclaim about how much she’d love to film in more beautiful locations, like the “incomparable” nature of Vancouver:
“You know, put me in the writer's room. If you did, I would say, please let us do junior year summer. And let me, like, just look at a summer camp or a lake and a dock, a forest. We had such an immense privilege being in the most beautiful place in the world. “We shot in Vancouver. And I mean, the nature is incomparable. You will never find locations like that anywhere else. It is just simply insane.”
While every other member of the young cast got to experience a classic Goosebumps tale come to life, Briones' Margot did not. Instead, she got the spotlight to navigate Harold Biddle’s haunted scrapbook.
But, if her character did get to experience an iconic Goosebumps tale, which would it be?
Briones first clarified that she had only read some of the “initial classics” before falling off when she was young:
“That's really interesting. I don't know. There's something—Because I haven't, I will say I haven't read all of the books because I read more of the first kind of initial classics, and then kind of fell off as I grew up. So I don't know all of them.”
The actress expressed how, “in [her] heart,” Margot “needs to become some sort of like witch or something:"
“In my heart. I'm like, Margot needs to become some sort of like witch or something. Or some sort of like, or even a vampire. Or I mean, honestly, 'Werewolf at Fever Swamp', that's another one. But honestly, I feel like that story belongs to someone else. But I really want Margo to be drunk with power.”
She elaborated it would be neat for Margot to get something with “a bit of transformation in character:”
“I feel like there's something there. I don't know if that's like a book because I haven't read all of them, the recent ones. But something where there's a bit of a transformation in character, not so much in appearance, I would also love an appearance change too.”
The choice by Margot to embrace a forbidden spell to save Isaiah is one the actress would love to see the character “experience the fallout of that:”
“We're all human. And we can all think we're good people, but then we make a decision that is maybe out of good, out of love. But it turns out bad or even evil, and I feel like that is such a good storyline that we kind of keep throughout the show. And I would love for Margo to really experience the fallout of that.”
Given Briones and Puig’s performances throughout the show, it's clear that the actors connected with their characters. But what was the moment they truly clicked with their onscreen counterparts?
According to Briones, the moment happened pretty early on. It was “when [she] first read the script:”
“I think for me, luckily, when I first read the script and the sides for the audition, it's of a rare thing to have this, but I read it, and I knew exactly who she was. I just kind of saw it, and I heard it. Like I heard her voice. I knew, which is very exciting. And she does feel fairly similar to me in a lot of ways.”
She also pointed to the show’s fifth episode, specifically a conversation between Margo and Lucas, that she connected with:
“But I do think there's something about in episode five, 'Reader Beware,' when Margo and Lucas are walking to Jamie's house, and she's just kind of talking about everything she's going through with her mom, and she's also found out that her father is not with her mom anymore and is with Nora, and her just kind of piecing through that information and kind of venting getting it out, and feeling all the feelings of anger but also confusion and blaming herself.”
“It just felt so human,” Briones reminisced, and “very real for [her]:”
“But then also being kind of picked up by this person being like it's okay to not be okay, it's okay to be sad, and it's okay to feel all these feelings. It just felt so human and something that I think we all go through, and that felt very, very real for me."
For Puig, the moment was more explosive: “popping the first [James] dupe”—which in green goop everywhere:
“I think the moment where I definitely felt like Isabel and I merged was popping the first [James] dupe. Also, reading it, I was like, Yeah, I get this, and this makes sense. It's the Gryffindor in her. It just clicked.”
The Direct couldn't help but ask what that “dupe soup” was made from, to which the actress revealed it was like “the putty you make in school:”
“Practically... It is essentially--so the makeup department actually didn't create this goop. The dupe soup was made by FX. And it is essentially like, Do you know the putty you make in school? It's a little bit like that. But I think it has... it's like a syrup [or] glycerin-y type... And it's very thick and sticky. And they ended up fixing it. Thank the Lord.”
Turns out, the first attempt at making the green goop took “the first layer of [her] skin completely off:”
“But like the first time that I did it, the first layer of my skin completely off, like getting [it] off was just like when you have a really bad sunburn, and you can just peel. It's like, it was horrible, but looked great, super fun. And yeah, it's just like literal Nickelodeon slime, like what I imagined that is.”
During their tenure on the show, both Briones and Puig got to work with the iconic terrifying ventriloquist doll named Slappy.
On working with the small terror, Briones shared how “there’s so much logistically that goes into” making Slappy a reality:
“It's such a big process of--because there's so much logistically that goes into that. Because obviously, you have the dummy. And then you have someone off-screen moving the dummy, someone off-screen speaking the words. And I think at the time, we didn't even know who Kanduu was yet. He wasn't even cast. And so we didn't even know what he sounded like. We were just kind of going blind with it at that point.”
“It’s a freaky-looking doll,” the actress confirmed, one that disturbed her the moment she saw it for the first time:
“But it's a freaky-looking doll. Like it's pretty, pretty messed up. The first time I walked into the makeup trailer and, I just like saw his head just sitting on like a stick. I was like, 'Oh, God, get me out of here.' It's disturbing. And so to see it, especially in episode eight when we're on the cliff trying to convince Harold Biddle not to hurt Isaiah, and you have Slappy there. The person puppeteering was hidden behind a rock. So you are fully looking at this puppet moving on its own.”
Briones felt like she was really in a “horror movie” akin to something like “Chucky:”
“And that in itself is just so crazy because it feels like you are really in that horror movie. You are in Chucky, anything like that. But obviously, it's a classic character like Slappy. So, it was very cool because it felt very real. Yeah, ya know.”
Puig added that for her, Slappy “doesn’t look like a toy:”
“The worst part is his size. I'm not freaked, dolls. I'm not freaked out by dolls like--throw Chucky at me, like the Annabelle girl, sure. But the scary part about Slappy is that he's a small person. He doesn't look like a toy to me.”
She affectionately described working with Slappy as “just engaging with another small human who just is horribly evil:”
“When you see the doll in person, It looks like someone's sitting up, and that is the creepiest part, is that you are just engaging with another small human who just is horribly evil. That is scarier to me than if he looked just disgusting. You know what I mean?”
The full interview can be seen in full below:
What Will Be the Fallout of Margot's Spell From Kanduu's Book?
Isa Briones is probably right on the money when she shared how she doesn't think things are going to work out great following Margot’s use of Kanduu’s forbidden spell book.
While Isaiah will be alive and breathing, who knows what consequences might arise from it.
Briones’ idea of Margot getting a little power-hungry, likely due to some supernatural influence, could be a really fun direction for the character. While there’s not much Witch lore in Goosebumps, like the actress desires, the show proved it isn’t afraid to chart its own path.
As for a potential Season 2, it’s hard to see a future where Slappy’s plan doesn’t at least partially come to fruition. After all, bringing an unknown about of horrors and monsters into the world seems like the perfect approach for any Goosebumps adaptation.
It could easily lead to fans seeing classics such as Werewolf at Fever Swamp, Monster Blood, or Be Careful What You Wish For translated onto the screen. Plus, there will be plenty of opportunities to insert some of those practical creatures that Ana Yi Puig would love to see.
