The new season of Goosebumps, properly called The Vanishing, adapts the classic book Monster Blood—but changes its iconic look entirely.
The new episodes of Disney+’s anthology horror series follow an entirely new cast of characters in Brooklyn, New York. Here, audiences will be able to watch a plot unfold that weaves together elements from classic Goosebumps books Stay Out of the Basement, Monster Blood, The Haunted Car, Camp Nightmare, and more.
However, as Season 1 showed before, these well-known stories go through some major changes before making it onto the screen for a season-wide story.
The Direct's Russ Milheim spoke with Goosebumps: The Vanishing's executive producers, Rob Letterman and Hilary Winston, to talk about the changes made for Season 2 and how the show has evolved.
Why Goosebumps: The Vanishing Changed Monster Blood
There's a Couple of Reasons Why Monster Blood Wasn't It's Classic Green Color
- The Direct: "You guys adapted 'Monster Blood' this season, and I just wanted to ask: When you guys were designing it––You know, in the books, it does have a very classic green look. And this time around, it doesn't. You guys opted for kind of a darker it, has some like, yellow orange hues in there. What was the process behind making those changes to the classic look and making it feel unique to the season?"
Rob Letterman: I mean, there's a couple of things. In Season 1, we didn't have Monster Blood, but we had this kind of exploding goo that was colored similar to Monster Blood, and we just didn't want to do anything––we didn't want to repeat ourselves, first of all.
But you've seen the first six episodes; there's a unifying theme to the color of things in it that we had to keep consistent with all the monster storylines. And it'll make total sense when you get into Episode 7, which we're not going to spoil, but that'll answer everything for everyone. But we're also an aged-up show, and we wanted to give it a scarier, more intense, darker, grittier vibe.
- The Direct: "With the books that you did adapt in Season 2, which do you think was the hardest to get where you wanted it to be within the story? The ones that you could talk about, obviously."
Letterman: Look, 'Monster Blood' was challenging because, you know, we don't have a lot of time. And we aim very high in our show for production value and for all kinds of things, and that's some tricky stuff. And we leaned on Weta quite a bit for visual effects, for help. And that was just one of those incredible efforts.
People worked so hard to bring our show to life. I can't even tell you, like the amount of people--They just killed themselves for the show. It was amazing. The crew, everyone in post, because that was a whole nother round of work. It's really impressive to see it all come together when you know we're talking hundreds and hundreds of people putting their heart and soul into it.
How Goosebumps Season 2 Has Evolved From Season 1
"Let's Just Do Something Totally Crazy and Different."
- The Direct: "With Season 2, how have you guys taken what you accomplished with Season 1 and kind of evolved it with this new story?"
Hilary Winston: So I think that doing an anthology and starting off with new characters and new books felt so true to 'Goosebumps' and the world of 'Goosebumps' and so for us, it was really nice to be like, okay, let's just make a complete departure from Fort Lawrence. Like, what is as far away as we can get? Let's just do something totally crazy and different.
And it's for us, this was like outer borough Brooklyn. This was not the New York that everybody sees and thinks of. This is a totally different vibe. And we really love the idea where we had seen kind of like a more suburban experience in Season 1 of just what is like, kind of an urban, suburban experience, which is still the same idea of, our teams kind of off on their own with the time and ability to do different things.
But what if they can jump on a subway, you know? What if they can have the world at their fingertips? What are they able to do? And so that was kind of our jumping off point, of like, let's just make this a complete departure from Season 1.
Rob Letterman then commented on why they chose to do a seasonal anthology format for the series instead of an episodic anthology, where every episode is a different story:
Rob Letterman: Doing an anthology where each episode of its own story, like 'Black Mirror,' is a very tough sell. For us, doing Season 1, and this season as well, we want to be able to explore those characters and live with them over the course of multiple episodes.
Leaning Into Body Horror for Goosebumps: The Vanishing
"We Just Kind of Fell Down the Body Horror Rabbit Hole."
- The Direct: "I did notice, watching the episodes, that there's a lot more body horror in Season 2 than there is in Season 1. What was the what was the choice to kind of lean more into that aspect of the horror this time around?"
Rob Letterman: I don't know if it was a choice... I'm starting to just realize that there is, now that people ask us questions. It just never occurred [to me]. There's a big one, obviously, in Episode 2 with [David] Schwimmer that we planned and we love. But yeah, you're right. We just kind of fell down the body horror rabbit hole. I don't know why, but there is a lot of it.
Hilary Winston: We had a great special effects department who had done all the 'American Horror Story' and stuff. So we did have somebody available to us that could bring a lot of stuff to life. So that also helps when your creativity is set when you know that they can deliver, and so that was fun. And then also it just was different than Season 1. I think we just wanted to try different things. And that just felt like a different genre.
They're Favorite Dynamics to Play With In Season 2
Rob Letterman Is Happy to Put David Schwimmer Through the Paces
- The Direct: "Now, this new season introduces, obviously, a whole new cast of characters. I wanted to ask you guys, what were some of your favorite dynamics to play with?"
Rob Letterman: Okay, well, in retrospect, body horror... I think just working with [David] Schwimmer was awesome this time around. It was really, really fun. He really understood things at a, not just a great actor level, but he's directed before. He just brought a lot to it.
We put Justin Long through the paces last season, we do the same with him. It's really fun to watch. And the whole cast is great. They're very relatable and authentic people and it shows up in the characters. And what makes the show work for us is when you have grounded real characters in a supernatural horror situation. It's really fun, it's funny, it's extra scary, it's interesting. It's kind of a fresh thing. It's universal fears. It all comes together in a great way.
Hilary Winston: One of the things I really loved is, talking about just kind of dynamics that we had in Season 1 we also have in Season 2, is the different generations. And so in this season, when we're dealing with David Schwimmer's character and what happened to his brother and how that impacts him.
We have Anna Ortiz, and her character, and how the loss of her friends affected her. And then we see how that trickles down and how that affects a different generation, and that everybody needs to deal with everything to be able to move on. I think that is so relatable to people. I think that in a four-quadrant show, you need something to be able to work on a lot of different levels.
And I think that an adult watching this could really relate to that bad experience, and then we have that in Season 1. So it allows for lots of different people to be able to watch our show and get something different out of it. So I love writing to that stuff.
Goosebumps: The Vanishing is now streaming on Disney+.
