Horror fans are excited to learn about the inspiration behind R.L. Stine's Fear Street horror trilogy, as the Netflix movies have been total hits. With one movie set in 1994, another at a summer camp in 1978, and the final film focusing on Sarah Fier being accused of witchcraft in 1666, it's no wonder that lovers of horror are so invested.
Just like people want to know how Goosebumps became a TV show, horror fans want to know what R.L. Stine thinks of the movies based on his work that have become so popular this summer. Let's take a look.
What R.L. Stine Thinks
There was one main challenge to filming Goosebumps, and it's always interesting when writers and producers share the problems that they run into. But when it comes to Fear Street, the whole process sounds very smooth.
When asked how Fear Street became a Netflix trilogy, R.L. Stine told The Guardian, "The way all films get made, pretty much – they come to you and say: 'We’d like to make a film.'"
Stine continued that the moveis are "faithful to the feeling of the books," so it definitely sounds like the prolific author is happy with the adaptation, and he has a great, positive attitude about it.
Stine said in the same interview that Fear Street parts one, two, and three are going to scare people more than Goosebumps: "Nobody ever dies in Goosebumps, and a lot of people die in Fear Street. I killed off a lot of teenagers. And the films are scarier than the books."
Stine explained to The Guardian, "It’s only been 30 years since Fear Street, so it didn’t take them so long. It’s always fun to see what other authors do with my work: they made up a 300-year history, going all the way back to colonial times. But it’s faithful to the feeling of the books, which are about a cursed place inside a very normal town."
R.L. Stine's Career
R.L. Stine shared that he was the editor of a humor magazine when he went to college at Ohio State. In an interview with The Verge, he said that he didn't attend classes because he was so invested in and passionate about what he was doing. He made enough money from the magazine that he headed to New York City and he said, "Actually, I thought, at the time, if you wanted to be a writer, you had to live in New York. You had no choice. Right?"
When thinking about Goosebumps and Fear Street, horror fans can tell that the latter has violence and the former doesn't, as Fear Street involves the 1978 Camp Nightwing massacre and audiences see characters dying in pretty horrible and gruesome ways. Stine told The Verge that when he thinks about the debate about violence in pop culture, "I just think that kids, people don't give kids credit enough to know they're smart enough to know the difference between real violence and real danger and fictional danger."
In an interview with NPR, Stine shared how he began writing Fear Street, and it's a really great, fun story.
Stine said that he went to lunch with his friend who was an editor and she had argued with a teenage horror writer. He joked, "Who will remain nameless. Christopher Pike." Stine recalled that his friend told him, "I'm not working with him again. I'll bet you could write good horror. Go home and write a novel for teenagers. Call it Blind Date."
Stine continued, "She even gave me the title. It's embarrassing! It wasn't my idea."
Fans of R.L. Stine's have been thrilled to watch the three Fear Street movies, even though they aren't based on any one book and are a more loose adaptation. Gillian Jacobs told Comicbook.com, "I can't tell you how many R.L. Stine books I read growing up. It was so much fun. Leigh [Janiak], who wrote and directed three films back to back, truly the undertaking, they're still in post-production on them. She did an incredible job. The cast on that is so great. And it was really, really fun and I think that people are gonna love them. And as a childhood R.L. Stine fan, I was so excited to be a part of them," according to Cinemablend.com.
Stine has penned more than 100 Fear Street books, which is amazing to think about, and it sounds like the Netflix adaptaiton has been really successful.
It's great to hear that R.L. Stine thinks that Netflix's Fear Street trilogy is a good adaptation, and fans of his work can definitely agree.