Let's Talk About GOOSEBUMPS' Scariest Episode 

Thoughts on Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark?! Any other shows scare you as a kid... or even now?

Every kid in elementary school thought they were badass for getting a goosebumps book in 4th grade lol

The moment when she realized she couldn’t get that mask off in the mirror along with the sound queue always gave me chills. They sure don’t make em like this anymore.

If u didn’t watch goosebumps as a kid u seriously missed out and I feel for you

The actress who played Carly Beth won an award for her performance. Hell yeah!

In my opinion, dated visual effects makes things far more creepier and terrifying.

An episode of Goosebumps that freaked me out as a kid was the one where a boy gets a time altering remote, messes around with it and in the end he gets trapped in a dark blank space between time and cant get out because the remotes batteries died, and the remotes creator knows he's trapped and just leaves him there.

when carly beth (?) says "those aren't my eyes... where are my eyes?" that part always makes me feel sick. imagine lookin in the mirror, looking yourself in the eyes, and seeing _someone else's_ :_|

The scene where Carly Beth was tricked into eating worms was supposed to have fake rubber worms, but the actress insisted on using real ones. Talk about hardcore. They shot that scene 12 times.

The theme song still gives me this unbridled sense of childhood excitement and I LOVE it.

Goosebumps and are you afraid of the dark made me extra scared because of how surreal they all seemed. They were fever dreams, like nothing existed outside of the story. The world felt barebones, like being alone in a crowd.

the haunted mask was THE episode that has stuck w me since i was a kid holy shit

There is nothing like coming home from elementary school on a Wednesday the week before Halloween and watching CartoonNetwork to find a Goosebumps marathon.

The actress who played Carly Beth carried that entire episode. She really went above and beyond with her character and she was still a child. This was the first goosebumps episode I ever saw and The scene where she tears apart the duck costume really struck me. It was the exact moment where I went “what the hell am I getting into” it was next level emotional.

Slappy Was Always The Scariest Thing From Goosebumps To Me.

the scientist dad that makes a plant clone that feeds off of him, barely keeping him alive and trapping him in the basement and his kids almost die in the process of figuring everything out and saving him,,, that book haunted me. or the wax museum choose your own adventure book

"The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight" still horrifies me... Being in a cornfield alone and scarecrows is just- Nope.

The episode where the family goes to the amusement park was pretty scary in my opinion.

Tbh the scariest thing in goosebumps was intro when the letter transforms that dog. My friend had a dog similar and never trusted that perro

The scariest was definitely the one where there’s the dad with the plant clone in the basement

Reminds me of the clown movie called... Clown, where the dude gets a clown costume that won't come off and turns him into a killer. This show was made way before that movie, it might have taken some inspiration from this episode. Unfortunately that wasn't a very good movie, but it was memorable!

The Haunted Mask was a staple of my childhood, as well. Not only is it the scariest, darkest, most grounded Goosebumps episode, but it's leagues above the other episodes in every single way. The performances are surprisingly powerful, the story is very well thought out, the themes are very compelling, and there is a high level of craftsmanship/quality.

STOP I literally will not wear a rubber mask to this day because that episode

girl the scariest one to me was when the girl realised she was the ghost and not her friend that shit was so scary and such a plot twist at the time (also does anyone know the episodes name??)

The one that haunted me most was the one where this girl got replaced by a life sized doll version of herself. The dolls consciousness took her body. That whole thing freaked me out for some reason

I collected these books as a kid. Such nostalgia.

When Carly Beth's yelling that it's grown into the back of her head and she can't take it off, that tiny muffle through the rubber of the mask made it soo scary for me as a kid cuz in rubber masks it gets so hot you cant breathe..

The one where the kid has the coocoo clock that time travels and he travels back in time and erases himself from ever existing is the scariest for me

i remember watching the one where at the end of the episode they say they’re going to a dangerous planet called earth, biggest plot twist i’ve ever seen.

The floating masks terrified me as a kid for years. They kept showing it in my daycare, and I guess the rest of the kids weren't as scared as me. I slept right next to a window, and I would always start imagining the masks floating towards me in the dark from outside. I had this strange idea that closing the curtains would keep them from getting in, but if I ever peeked, they would all be waiting right outside the window, staring in and waiting to get me

I love how Goosebumps has almost always (if not always) had ambiguous endings. I never really noticed it as a child, but it started to really freak me out when I did start to notice it.

Does anyone remember the one book where the boy has an annoying sister and he accidentally starts going backward in time to where he’s a baby and just in time he resets the time but since there’s no 1989 on the clock or whatever he used he then never had a kid sister? Man those books were my JAM.

6:30, the producer was my professor, love him. He’s the guy that pitched for goosebumps to be live actions rather than cartoon 👌

I remember having nightmares with the floating heads and other statues coming alive. Now it looks kind of goofy but back in the 2000’s as a kid that episode was satan’s work.

When I was little the episode where Slappy turns people into dummies made me fear my stuffed animals

I had this episode on VHS back in the 90s as a kid, I had nightmares of the floating heads, join us carly Beth...... sooo fucking creepy.

This was the first episode of Goosebumps that I ever saw as a kid. I remember I saw it on an old, damaged VHS tape. Squinting to try and see through the static added something to the terror of this episode for me.

As a kid I felt that the second one was scarier because the idea of being forced to grow old and die in an instant terrified me. My fav Goosebumps was always Let's Get Invisible.

I saw this last Halloween for the first time in years and was taken off guard by how good it was. The series was cheap and goofy as hell, obviously, but this one is a genuinely creepy story that kids might actually internalize something positive from. I hope I get the chance to expose my own kids to it.

The goosebumps books were better than the show imo. The feeling of turning the page and reading how the characters have so much hope, but we know that they should just abandon it all. Such a good series!

Does anybody remember the Goosebumps “I want my mommy marathon” they would air on Cartoon Network every Halloween?

This theme song is such a bop. I used to watch all of these on tv.

Scariest episode was the one where they got sucked into the miniature town. That one stuck with me to this day plus it was a few episodes long.

The Haunted Mask and Werewolf of Fever Swamp were terrifying as a kid

Did anyone else get this randomly recommended to them?

I didn’t know hER FACE STATUE MOVED HOLY HELL

I personally found the second mask episode scarier. Mostly because I've suffered from asthma all my life, and as a child seeing the boy struggle to breathe because the mask was ageing him really struck a chord with me. The wheezing and the raspy voice was terrifying to me. But this episode was still better than the second one, and certainly in regards to storytelling.

I feel stupid the one who scared me the most was actually the sponge one :(

I’m still haunted by a goosebumps called Three Wishes, if I remember correctly. It’s the same old be careful what you wish for story, but at the end her bully gets the three wishes and her first one is asking for the main character to “just fly away already”, based on the nickname her bully gave her. I don’t remember exactly what the nickname was, but it was based on a bird. The main character transforms into a bird and narrates as if in a trance, leaving behind the family and friends she had only just learned to appreciate after she fought to take back her three wishes. That always stuck with me, even after almost ten years.

Honestly man, you are one of the few people who could compare Goosebumps to Breaking Bad and not make me laugh my ass off.

I thought that ‘welcome to dead house’ was one of the scariest episodes. Especially that scene where it’s raining at night, and the lady with the umbrella is standing over the girls bed in her room. That still scares me

The haunting hour is actually very interesting because no episode topped this. For some reason, this episode just hold a pocket of nostalgia and classic horror everyone was looking for.

The Werewolf episode creeped me out as a kid

Fun fact! As a young actor, Ryan Gosling played in the Goosebumps episode "Say Cheese and Die".

"And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

Ryan: ghost beach Captions: go speech Me, a pleb: G o s b i t c h

One episode I found scary when I was a kid was the gnomes one.the fact that they could come alive creeped me out

So first the Scooby Doo movie reboot of the 90s and now Goosebumps?!? Why are you massaging my nostalgia??!! I love you!!!!!!

the episode is as ambiguous as his accent

Next to Slappy, the Mask BOOK was the scariest shit as a kid. Made me love horror novels as an adult

Every aspect of this episode is better than the entire 3 hours of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

What yall know about the werewolf of fever swamp tho Even though there's nothing too visually or conceptually terrifying about that episode, something about the atmosphere that it creates between the filming location, music, sound effects, lighting, etc. stuck with me as much or more than the haunted masks or the living dummies which I think are easily the other top 2

This is one of the best episodes, but the scariest for me was the living dummy :( terrified my childhood

My favorite episode was welcome to dead house. But the headless ghost scared me worse than haunted mask. The story of the ice cream addicted kid falling down a Gulley and the maid being unable to tell what was his crushed head and ice cream made me unable to sleep for weeks as a kid.

I was a HUGE Goosebumps fan when I was young and the Haunted Mask was the ultimate terror for me. I used to lie awake at night, picturing the mask floating through the air, up and down the stairs outside my room. This went on every night for years! I'm glad to see I'm not alone in my trauma. lol

I always thought "Welcome to Dead House" was one of the scariest episodes. When the kids are in the midst of discovering whats up they stumble upon some of the townspeople meeting up in the woods, then one of the kids steps on a twig and the mass jerks their heads up looking at them, I near shit myself back in the day lmao.

i think say cheese and die again is the scariest episode of goosebumps because i remember that episode only so vividly and omfg i shat my pants when i was little

my favorite episode of goosebumps was always the one where they go their dads horror ride and then they get lost in this weird city where there dad makes all the horror characters and they find out they’re robots

Guys, the reason Karen’s don’t like wearing masks is because of this episode

i was terrified as a kid to even look at GSB, i’m still terrified to this day, mostly because of the intro. there’s something nostalgic about it, i’m not scared about anything but THIS has a place in my heart and kinda scares me. especially Slappy, id throw hands with him

"A wading pool is too deep for you, Chuck." *completely roasted*

My mom used to watch the old Goosebumps show, and when it was on one day she asked if I wanted to watch it with her. Of course I'd been terrified just *looking* at the covers of the books, and kept yelling no, even though she insisted it wasn't all that scary and the show was meant for kids. ...Now I'm pretty glad I made that decision. I'm not only a wuss, but that shit would have traumatized me. My mom was not at fault for trying to get me to watch it, however! She (and the rest of her family) was always fond of horror films and scary stuff, and had no idea I hadn't inherited that little "horror-lover" gene until a few years later.

Cry of the cat was by far the scariest episode for me as a kid. Even looking at it now, it still freaks me out.

horrorland made me realize i couldn’t trust anyone. no matter how nice, how cool.

Definitely the most memorable episode.

Imma cry Everytime I hear that moral, it always makes me appreciate myself a little more. Always so hard on yourself, when yourself is the only "you" there is.

I always thought that the cuckoo clock episode was the scariest one. Imagine being trapped in reverse time, slowly losing all your functional abilities as you de-age while the date you were born looms closer and you'll presumably just stop existing. It definitely effected me when I was a kid lol

They're just floating there, menecingly!!!

Oh man, I completely forgot about this episode. I must've blocked it out of my memory.

I had a nightmare about the sponge one when I was 8 and I was terrified. One day at horror land was pretty good too. But the episode were the kids get old by eating prunes is my all time favorite. It’s called “An Old Story” I think.

i love that he brought up the tall man scene from "It Follows" that scene is a masterclass in suspense for one of the best reveals I've seen

I like how personal the video is, It also got me wondering if as kids we could explore and understand certain ideas in a more powerful way through mild horror like Goosebumps. It's not traumatizing but its got some teeth, and when something gets under your skin you're going to start wondering why. I'd love to contribute to the children's horror genre someday.

*RL STINE* Goosebumps horror for kids *RL STINE* Haunted Hour Horror for pre teens *Stephen King* Just run

That description of some threat approaching the camera directly is so accurate. It creeps me out so much as well. I think it's because you feel more in the perspective of the person who is being pursued. Something coming for you and it's not stopping. What would that threat look like if they turned to look at it? It triggers the intense urge to run even if I'm just the audience.

The scariest one for me was night of the living dummy. That creepy face on the book always scared me in the library. What made it worse is that slappy, no matter how he was destroyed, would come back.

Carly Beth also had a role in are you afraid of the dark.

I would love to see more analysis of this show (or really any old Kids shows.) children's media rarely gets looked at with the same kind of critical eye as more mature fare. There seems to be a prevalent idea that kids will watch anything, so entertainment for them doesn't have to be high quality. But I would argue that a child's willingness to watch anything is precisely why they need to be given high quality art. what we love as children will inform what we love the rest of our lives. Therefore, we should expose our kids to art that is well crafted and worth loving.

For me one of the scariest goosebumps episodes is the one of the haunted clack, where the main character wishes his little sister was never born....and it comes true...it made me go hug my sisters

Things that are scary for me is just overall strange and off, it doesn’t make sense, it may not be scary at all... but it’s just strange, weird, off, and you don’t know it’s purpose

Fun fact I met and got a pic with RL Stine 😭

The funny thing about goosebumps is the one thing that fucked me up as a kid wasn't even a traditionally scary episode. It was the one where the kids dare this other kid into a haunted house and it ends with him basically making a deal with the ghosts that if they let him go they can have the others. The look on their faces when the ghosts inform them that the kid they came in to find left them...shudders I think that stuck with me (even if the rest of the plot I cant quite remember) because I realised that people can be truly cold AF. It made me shiver and paranoid for ages...wondering if anyone I know would make that deal. I know the kids he sold out weren't his friends (maybe dicks/bullies. Like I said vague on the plot) but it kept me up at night wondering what happened after. The missing kids posters. The town wide panic. Grieving parents. Assemblies at school. Vigils...and of course how he could sleep at night. Live his life. Keep his secret. Again *shudders Dunno but to me that's the most effed up thing goosebumps did.

Your channel is amazing! You’ve unlocked so many memories from my childhood with this video! About to binge your channel 😋

The haunted mask just serves to remind us that the true monster is humanity. At first glance you'd probably be distracted by the grotesqueness of the mask to see that the feelings that motivate the mask are pure human. The mask exploits Carly Beth's anger and her resentment, two essentially human qualities. Not emotions we display as our best qualities, the mask simply allows Carly Beth's to express her previously impeded, unvoiced feelings, thus she embraces the shadow aspect of her personality, and once the mask is overcome, she has reached a sort of self actualization, the ability to acknowledge her less appealing traits, and embrace her humanity, all of her humanity.

I don't remember too much of the show (besides this episode and the one where it turns out the camp is just a training camp to send the kid to the real Earth), but the book that always scared me the most was Welcome to Dead House. The way that they just barely get out and it's implied that everything is just going to happen again is great

The Haunted Mask really gets me emotional every time. It's hard to see how much suffering Carly Beth goes through and how she starts to hate herself, how her despair led her to the mask. This sweet, innocent girl completely lost herself in her grief and anger and became this sadistic demonic creature. Chuck and Steve might've thought they were having fun but they really caused a lot of emotional torment for Carly Beth. People die nowadays over this stuff. That's why it's so very important to be kind to each other.

Slappy the dummy always scared me when I was young

Anyone else feel like the mask looks like the Green Goblin

12:45 “...and naturally, this happens...” That’s exactly when my Bluetooth earbuds said “battery low.” Couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. 😂😂

Any goosebumps remakes or adaptions should be done only with practical effects, it's what made the show so freaky.

LOVED this in depth look at Goosebumps. Great job!