Goosebumps: The Vanishing Cast Talk Iconic Monsters, Horror Screams, and Funniest On Set Moments
In the latest chapter of the thrilling anthology, Goosebumps: The Vanishing finds twins Devin and Cece Brewer and their friends uncovering dark secrets tied to teenagers who mysteriously vanished in 1994. Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado spoke with the cast about iconic Goosebumps monsters and books, horror screams, and the funniest moments on set.
Goosebumps: The Vanishing pulls inspiration from a range of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books including Stay Out of The Basement, The Haunted Car, Monster Blood, The Girl Who Cried Monster, The Ghost Next Door, and Welcome to Camp Nightmare. Elijah M. Cooper called Stay Out of The Basement “the most fun” book to explore because it really “pushes forward the story.” It sets the stage for the Brewer twins who are coming to Gravesend, Brooklyn to stay with their divorced dad — a former botany professor doing some kooky basement experiments — for the summer. “Everything in the basement definitely serves as a catalyst for this new season so getting to read that and seeing all the Easter eggs that are put into the season is really great,” Galilea La Salvia told me.
“It starts in the series where we don’t really know the tragic past that has affected the whole family. Anthony in particular who lost his older brother back in ‘94, but when these guys go on their adventure, they start to unravel a mystery that we then realize is connected to that tragic mystery of the past,” explained David Schwimmer. “He's definitely an overprotective parent because of that and I'm sure was quite annoying to these guys. Being a parent myself now of a teenager, I don't think you ever stop worrying about your kids. In the series now that was magnified tenfold because the stuff they were getting into was really frightening.”
The season features tons of supernatural and sci-fi elements, which allowed the cast to dive into “really cool” effects. “All the stuff that we got to see, even just behind the scenes stuff with all of that, was really cool and interesting working on a show like this,” shared Ana Ortiz, teasing a storyline with The Haunted Car. “I've never had the opportunity to do green screen and see stunts and stuff like that. The car stuff was pretty out there.”
“[With] TV, you shoot maybe four or five-ish pages a day, at least. There would be stuff here that took up a third or two thirds of a page that we shot for 12 hours,” Sam McCarthy explained about the challenge of shooting stunts. “It's fun, but it's also like, oh my God, this is a lot of work.”
While horror is meant to thrill and chill audiences, it’s usually pretty funny watching it all come together on set. “The ending obviously was ridiculous, but, to the car point, it's really ridiculous because we have all these men who are like standing on the car levies. They're jumping up and down, like these grown ass men with these beards. I'm watching them and I'm like that was really fun,” shared Francesca Noel, with Ortiz adding: “[The stunt people] are so dedicated that it was actually quite scary, just them. Props to stunt folks because they really — literally and figuratively — throw themselves into it, so that was easy for me to be scared and have those jumps.”
“I got to do a scene with this guy in this full prosthetic monster suit and I just felt so bad ‘cause he looked so uncomfortable,” laughed La Salvia. “He was just like walking to crafty and just waddling a little bit. I was like I'm just very glad that I wasn't the one in the costume. […] It was also covered in slimy goop and stuff.”
Another challenge is acting when there’s no one there. “Sometimes we had to react to monsters that were just like, ‘Imagine it guys. Just imagine that this huge creature is placed right in front of you,’ said La Salvia. “I got to do like two horror gut wrenching screams, which I feel like that's been on my bucket list. I would scream into a pillow at my house just to practice because you don't let out a gut-wrenching scream every day so that was that's how I prepared.”
“I put myself in the place of like having a panic attack,” explained Noel. “I guess that sounds really terrible, but it gets your body hyperventilating and raising your soft palette and making your body tense.
With so many iconic Goosebumps monsters in the 32 years of the franchise, the cast shared the villains they’d love to go up against. “Slappy comes to mind. He's so small. What I would do [is] I would punt him across the room,” said Noel, with McCarthy even sharing that his mother is an audiobook narrator who narrated the original Night of the Living Dummy book. Talk about a built in Goosebumps legacy!
“The question is if we would survive because I don't think that we would,” said La Salvia. “Even the monsters that we had to face in the series, I was like I don't know how these characters are getting through this because I would be dead.”
