The Ending Of 2023's Goosebumps Explained
Readers beware, you're in for a scare! Namely, spoilers
"Goosebumps" is the brand name of the highly successful series of children's horror books written by R.L. Stine, which debuted in 1992. Over the course of 60 entries and multiple spin-offs, the books eventually went on to sell millions of copies worldwide. The "Goosebumps" books themselves are an anthology of spooky stories — usually with some sort of supernatural bent — which include plots about evil dummies, haunted cameras, and magical green blood. The series' distinct covers — painted by artist Tim Jacobus — are arguably even more iconic than the stories themselves.
"Goosebumps" has also been adapted into other mediums multiple times. The first adaptation was an anthology TV series that ran for four seasons on Fox Kids from 1995 to 1998. Afterward, there was a big-budget feature film released in 2015 starring Jack Black, where Black played a pompous fictionalized version of author R.L. Stine.
Then, after the disappointing critical and commercial failure of the 2018 sequel "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween," "Goosebumps" has been brought back to television (or at least streaming) with a new, rebooted series on Disney+. However, instead of being an anthology like the books and the '90s TV series, the 2023 reboot follows a core group of teens in a serialized story that loosely adapts disparate "Goosebumps" tales into a single continuity.
It's also grittier, more gruesome, and more thematically resonant than previous adaptations — through the magic of metaphor, the show addresses generational trauma, the potentially corrosive nature of desire, and the existential realities of war.
What you need to remember about the plot of Goosebumps
The 2023 "Goosebumps" reboot opens up with a prologue set in the early '90s, which is around the time when R.L. Stine's book series first debuted with "Welcome to Dead House" in 1992. Here we see the troubled teen Harold Biddle (Ben Cockell) menaced by some off-screen threat in his home, which eventually leads to him tragically burning to death.
We then cut to the modern day, where we meet our Gen Z protagonists: Isaiah (Zack Morris), the popular high school quarterback; Margot (Isa Briones), his bookish neighbor and secret crush; James (Miles McKenna), Isaiah's sardonic best friend; Lucas (Will Price), the resident town screw up; and the put-upon overachiever Isabella (Ana Yi Puig). There's also a new high school English teacher moving into their sleepy town named Mr. Bratt (Justin Long), a failed writer who inherits the house where Harold was killed. Bratt is then possessed by the vengeful ghost of Harold to do his bidding.
The teens themselves are also menaced by Harold's ghost in a variety of ways: Isaiah witnesses terrible possible futures from Harold's haunted camera, Isabella becomes a literal monster by wearing a mask Harold made before his death, and Lucas gets chased by a giant monster made up of Harold's pet worms. It's eventually revealed that Harold is being manipulated by the iconic evil sentient dummy, Slappy — a "Goosebumps" mainstay.
What happened at the end of Goosebumps?
It's eventually discovered that the evil dummy Slappy has manipulated Harold into believing the parents of the show's teenage main characters killed him in the '90s, back when they were the teens in town. The present-day teens and their parents work together to stop Slappy, seemingly for good, by throwing him off a cliff. However, months later, a desperate Mr. Bratt seeks Slappy out to help him find an ending for his floundering horror novel. This leads to Bratt uttering an incantation that releases the spirit of the sorcerer trapped inside Slappy's body — Kanduu (Chris Geere, who also voices Slappy).
Turns out Kanduu's plan is to magically turn the entire town into dummy-human hybrids who will sacrifice themselves in a burning pyre and bring about a new age of monsters. The teens work together with Mr. Bratt to defeat Kanduu and send him down into hell. However, tragically, Isaiah is killed protecting Margot from one last desperate attack by Kanduu.
The finale ends at the hospital, with Margot confessing her love to Isaiah, and using the book of spells she took from Kanduu to resurrect him. Meanwhile, Mr. Bratt — feeling guilty that his rediscovering Slappy led to Isaiah's (temporary) death — runs to a bathroom to wash his face ... only to see Kanduu's smirking reflection in the mirror when he looks up.
Overcoming generational trauma
A major theme of the 2023 "Goosebumps" reboot series on Disney+ is overcoming generational trauma and confronting the sins of the past. The show begins in 1993, when Harold Biddle meets his untimely demise in a surprisingly brutal house fire. He then becomes a vengeful spirit with his ghostly visage covered in charred and burning flesh. Harold is then convinced, mostly by the prodding of the evil doll Slappy, that his former group of high school friends were behind his death. Thus, he enacts plans to punish his former friends — who are all now grown adults — by terrorizing their teen children.
This is, of course, pretty similar to the backstory of Wes Craven's iconic supernatural slasher flick "A Nightmare on Elm Street," where Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) — another evil vengeful spirit with burnt skin — comes back to the present to enact revenge on his killers' children. However, while Harold tries to kill the teens as well, he's much less successful than Freddy.
While it's true the parents didn't kill Harold directly, they did sneak into Harold's house to take Slappy away, and their actions led to Harold getting scared and accidentally burning down his house with a knocked-over candle. So, when the teens in the present find out the truth of their parents' past, they convince their parents to confront Harold's ghost and seek forgiveness, which he eventually grants once he realizes the truth.
Desire as a corrupting force
Like many classic horror anthologies before it — from EC Comics to "The Twilight Zone" — the Disney+ "Goosebumps" reboot series often tests its characters by tempting them with something they deeply desire which inevitably leads to horrific consequences — in other words, there's a figurative monkey's paw directing the course of events.
These include Isabella feeling invisible and mistreated by her fellow classmates, so that when she serendipitously finds a creepy mask created by Harold, it lets her become more desirable and get back at those who wronged her. However, the mask also starts turning her into a literal monster, as well. Then there's James, whose desire to be liked means he often doesn't act like himself in order to fit in. Unfortunately, after bumping into a magical cuckoo clock, James' need to be liked leads to him reliving a particular moment over and over again (à la "Groundhog Day") to get with a boy he likes. Unfortunately, this time loop produces evil "dupes" — or clones — of himself that kidnap him and his friends.
There's also Mr. Bratt's need for his writing to be validated, which causes him to resurrect Slappy to help him finish his novel. Obviously, that plan goes badly. The finale even shows that characters succumbing to their desires is what allows Kanduu to turn his victims into enslaved dummy-human hybrids. In fact, the first season finishes with Margot using magic spells to resurrect a recently killed Isaiah; according to the rules of horror storytelling, that can only lead to disaster.
Horror tropes as metaphors for common teen anxieties
"Goosebumps" continues the time-honored tradition of using horror as a metaphor in the spirit of "Carrie" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" commenting on puberty and conformity, respectively. In the case of "Goosebumps," the horror often simply amplifies common teen anxieties.
For instance, there's Isaiah's intense fear and anxiety about his future. This is exacerbated by the fact that his family struggles financially, and they are relying on him doing well in football to get a free-ride scholarship since he seems to have no prospects otherwise. When he discovers the haunted camera in Harold's house during the ill-fated Halloween party in the episode "Say Cheese and Die!" it shows him the worst possible version of the future — and eventually leads to him breaking his arm and potentially losing his chance at a sports scholarship. Often when people are dealing with anxieties – especially teens with elevated emotions – they succumb to worst-case scenario thinking, and Harold's evil camera is a metaphorical horror version of that phenomenon.
There's also Margot, who is dealing with her parents' separation poorly by avoiding it and pretending it's not happening. At one point, she's so determined to go back to the past that she willingly traps herself in a magical book to travel back to the '90s where she can metaphorically and literally focus on the past instead of moving on with the future.
Emotional catharsis as cure for evil
Like a lot of horror movies and shows of recent years, the "Disney+" iteration of "Goosebumps" also deals extensively with trauma, using the supernatural to metaphorically externalize it. Similar to how the monster in "The Babadook" represents grief, so too do many of the threats in "Goosebumps" represent something deeper than simply "worm monster" or "haunted camera."
For instance, Lucas begins with a desire to do death-defying stunts like his deceased father. At one point, he eats worms he found at Harold's home (don't ask), which allows him to become superhumanly indestructible. Unfortunately, the worms start to take over his body from the inside, as well, rotting away more and more of his humanity. Luckily, before Lucas can perform the stunt that killed his dad, his mom Nora (Rachael Harris) eventually tells Lucas his father committed suicide, and that his death wasn't an accident. This revelation lets Lucas emotionally break down and cry — finally accepting the truth — and freeing his body of the evil worms (which later become a giant worm monster).
Furthermore, Isabella — who feels unloved and unappreciated — finds herself unable to escape the clutches of the haunted mask that turns her into a literal troll. That is, until her brother Alan (Ian Ho) tells her how much he loves and appreciates her. She then breaks down, realizing her animosity is misplaced since she is loved, which allows her to finally peel off the mask for good.
The horrific effects of war
One interesting reveal in the "Goosebumps" finale is Slappy's — or, rather, Kanduu's — surprising motivation in becoming a villain — his struggles with the existential realities of war. Before he takes on the mantle of "Kanduu," he's just a regular British soldier fighting in World War I who is nearly killed in battle (in a shockingly brutal and bloody scene). Before dying, though, he falls into an ancient underground temple near the battlefield. There, he finds a stone mural full of disturbing statues and inscriptions on the wall of an ancient language. He reads an inscription that heals his wounds and grants him magical powers ... but he also finds a particular stone mural that shows him how to unleash monsters on the mortal plane.
Essentially, Kanduu wants to send monsters in the world to force humanity to band against a common threat — which is pretty similar to the twist ending of the immensely influential Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons graphic novel "Watchmen," (which itself might have borrowed from "The Architects of Fear," an episode from the original version of the horror anthology series "The Outer Limits").
However, while monologuing to the teens, Kanduu claims he's doing this because, without monsters to fight, humans become monsters themselves (citing his experience fighting in WWI). However, Margot rightfully challenges him, stating he actually just wants to pettily enact revenge on the world that forced him to endure that hardship.
Who is going to date next season?
While the Disney+ "Goosebumps" reboot is ostensibly a horror series, its characters are also all teenagers, meaning that with their hormones running high and further exacerbated by the heightened stakes of the supernatural shenanigans surrounding them, awkward romances are bound to happen. Case in point, the bookish Margot surprisingly gets together with the sweet doofus Lucas after they bond over their respective parents' affair (and also killing a giant worm monster together). However, once it becomes clear they have different life trajectories — Margot might move to the bustling city life of Seattle, while Lucas wants to stay in their hometown and run his mom's shop — they eventually break up. Afterward, Isaiah finally confesses his love to Margot, which she unfortunately doesn't reciprocate until he seemingly dies.
But what about next season? What relationships do we think are in the cards? Well, there's the foreshadowing of Isabella and Isaiah potentially hooking up. Isabella even begins the series by trolling Isaiah's girlfriend at the time — Allison (Rhinnan Payne) — and it's greatly implied she did that due to having a crush on him. This is even before James basically confirms the crush later by telling Isabella not to worry about Margot in the episode "You Can't Scare Me."
Furthermore, Lucas could turn out to be bisexual and end up hooking up with James. It's not impossible and would be interesting to explore more complex queer relationships in a mainstream show on Disney.
What the Season 1 ending could mean for the Goosebumps franchise
So, to recap, at the end of the first season of the Disney+ "Goosebumps" reboot, Kanduu is thoroughly defeated, and the town is saved from his murderous ritual. But when Mr. Bratt looks into the bathroom mirror, he sees none other than Kanduu himself smiling evilly back at him. (This moment might feel very familiar to anyone who remembers the final scene of "Twin Peaks" Season 2.)
So, what does this all mean? Well, for one, it means that Kanduu will almost certainly return for the second season in some capacity. Did Bratt's deal with him mean Bratt could become possessed again? Furthermore, will the "age of monsters" that Kanduu wanted to unleash upon the world happen another way? There were a lot of spells and rituals inscribed in that temple. Could Kanduu — with the unwilling help of Bratt in some capacity — hatch up another supernatural scheme for his goal? Only time will tell.
Another possible explanation for the ending
It seems that the most likely plotline for a second season of the "Goosebumps" reboot would be Kanduu coming back, possessing Mr. Bratt (or controlling him in some way), and hatching another scheme to unleash monsters on humanity again. However, that seems a bit by-the-numbers and repetitive, doesn't it?
So, what if ... Margot — the de-facto point-of-view character of the series — becomes the new big bad, corrupted by Kanduu's book of spells? Even better, Kanduu could play a role sort of like Magneto in 2002's "X2: X-Men United" where Mr. Bratt and the teens have to work together to stop Margot with the help of Kanduu in an uneasy alliance. Maybe he claims to know how to save her from the book and herself, before his inevitable betrayal (or redemption).
This could add a lot of emotional weight to the proceedings, as Margot's the beating heart of the group — to see her corrupted would be more tragic than Kanduu's more straightforward evil villain in the first season. It would also give the goal more complications — in this scenario, they're not just trying to defeat Margot; they would be trying to save her as well. It would also be interesting to see how the magical resurrection affects Isaiah in the long run, and if the climax will involve Margot having to say goodbye to him for real.