Every R. L. Stine Movie Ranked

Before kids got into Stephen King, Scholastic Book Fairs introduced them to the tween horror maestro: R.L. Stine. The author’s best known for his “Goosebumps” books, an anthology series where each book introduced a new horror for some intrepid young protagonist to confront. Werewolves, mud monsters, and Slappy the dummy, the last of whom Stine never understood the fanbase for, all gave us nightmares. But hey, at least we were reading!

“Goosebumps” is far from Stine’s only enterprise, as he’s also the visionary behind the “Fear Street” and “Mostly Ghostly” books, too. It should come as no surprise that many of his works have been adapted into films and TV shows over the years. Some you’ve undoubtedly heard of before while others will make you go, “Wait, that’s an R.L. Stine project?”

Consider it homework to expand your Stine repertoire, and in case you don’t have the time to watch all of them, we’ve ranked them all from worst to best, courtesy of a real “Goosebumps” fanatic from back in the day (and currently). Sadly, this list only focuses on movies, so there’s no room for the 1990s “Goosebumps” series, which is way scarier than you probably remember for a kids’ horror show. Rest assured, that show holds a special place in all of our rotting hearts. Here is every R.L. Stine movie ranked!

You’d be forgiven for never having heard of the “Mostly Ghostly” movies. They were largely kiddie fare, even moreso than “Goosebumps,” and “Mostly Ghostly: One Night in Doom House,” the third film in the trilogy, is the worst of the bunch. 

Max Doyle (Corey Fogelmanis) has to save his ghostly friends — Tara (Olivia Ryan Stern) and Nicky (Blake Michael) — from scoundrels who want to destroy the world using the ghosts and a magic jewel. The young cast is aided by Danny Trejo playing the villainous Mr. Morgo, while Jamie Kennedy shows up as a ghost-hunting reality TV star. 

It’s ultimately harmless, but there’s absolutely no bite to it. The ’90s “Goosebumps” show was made for kids, too, but that could at least throw a decent jump scare at you. Here, things are spooky but never terrifying. Granted, it’s made for kids, but it feels like kids and their parents would probably prefer to watch something like “Hocus Pocus,” which at least has more entertaining characters. There’s a reason it went straight to DVD. 

In 2008, the first in the “Mostly Ghost” film series came out on DVD and later on the Disney Channel. While it introduces Max (played here by Sterling Beaumon) and his ghostly companions and adversaries, it also shows there was never much hope in this franchise to begin with. 

Adapting a “Goosebumps” book into a 24-minute episode allows each one to focus on all killer, no filler. We get right into the meat of the story, play around with whatever plot devices are present, and then get out of there. The “Mostly Ghostly” movies take the opposite approach by taking premises that might work as part of a single episode and stretch them out into over 90 minutes. With this film, that entails Max using his new ghost friends to help him win over his crush, Traci (Ali Lohan), while foiling the plot of a far more sinister ghost, Phears (Brian Stepanek). 

As for the film’s humor, just take a gander at the subtitle, “Who Let the Ghosts Out?” A 2008 movie parodying the title of a 2000 song doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence the filmmakers have their fingers on the pulse of what today’s kids are into. 

It took six years for the next “Mostly Ghostly” to arrive in the form of “Have You Met My Ghoulfriend?” Phears (Charlie Hewson) is back and ready to wreak chaos once more, leaving it up to Max (Ryan Ochoa) to stop him. As you can probably tell by this point, many of the characters remain the same across the “Mostly Ghostly” films, but they’re recast because they need to stay around the same age. 

“Have You Met My Ghoulfriend?” is something of an improvement over the first just because Bella Thorne as Max’s new love interest, Cammie, offers a better performance. However, many of the same criticisms to the others apply here, where neither the scares nor the laughs land as well as they should, even accounting for it being a children’s film. 

“Have You Met My Ghoulfriend?” is probably best known for featuring Joan Rivers’ final film role as Max’s grandmother. She died two days after it came out on DVD.

Spooky carnivals are R.L. Stine’s bread and butter, and his 2012 book, “The Cabinet of Souls,” got the film treatment in 2015. The story follows a group of friends, led by Beth (Dove Cameron), who stumble upon a, well, cabinet of souls overseen by Dr. Hysteria (Andrew Kavadas) and Lilith (Katherine McNamara). She soon discovers they’re taking kids’ souls in the town and turning them into monsters, and it’s up to Beth to stop them. 

“Cabinet of Souls” is already a step-up from other Stine movies because the actors just understand what kind of film this is. In particular, McNamara understands the assignment and brings a certain whimsy to her nefarious character. It may not come as much of a surprise seeing as she also had a part in Stine’s “The Haunting Hour” TV series. 

The straight-to-video film is at least enjoyable to watch. It feels like the kind of thing you could turn on for your kids, and they’d actually enjoy it rather than stare at the screen because it’s just something to watch. 

R.L. Stine’s 2000 book, “Zombie Town,” got adapted into a feature film in 2023, and there’s something of an old-school charm in the way it tackles the zombie genre. Mike (Marlon Kazadi) shows his crush Amy (Madi Monroe) an old zombie movie, which unleashes a magic that turns the entire town into zombies. The pair then have to track down the movie’s director, Len Carver (played by the very game Dan Aykroyd) to find a way to turn everyone back. 

It’s a fun twist on the zombie genre, as these members of the undead suck out souls rather than gnaw at limbs (to keep it kid-friendly, naturally). Plus, Aykroyd is joined in the cast by Chevy Chase, and the two use their comedic talents well to flesh out some of the more over-the-top moments. If there’s anything holding “Zombie Town” back, it’s that it gets a little too convoluted for its own good. Trying to explain the magic that turns everyone into zombies is complicated enough, where adults may find themselves searching for some “Ending Explained” articles to parse out everything. 

“Zombie Town” is far from one of the best zombie movies ever. But it does its job of entertaining kids well, even if it fumbles here and there. 

“When Good Ghouls Go Bad” works as well as it does primarily thanks to a bravado performance from Christopher Lloyd as Uncle Fred Walker. He loves Halloween in a town that hasn’t celebrated it since a young boy died in a freak accident and warned them against ever celebrating, lest they incur his wrath. This doesn’t sit well with young Danny (Joe Pichler), who tries to get the festivities going again with Fred until the latter dies in a freak pumpkin accident. But don’t worry; Lloyd returns as a zombie, which is just as delightful to see. 

“When Good Ghouls Go Bad” is basically “Footloose” but with Halloween, and it has a surprising amount of depth for something that aired on Fox Family in the early 2000s. The film doesn’t shy away from concepts of death, even if Fred’s demise is a bit humorous. But there’s one line that basically summarizes R.L. Stine’s entire ethos: “If you don’t get to survive being scared as a kid, how are you ever going to survive being scared as an adult?”

The comedic bits work well, and it’s actually pretty scary when it wants to be. It doesn’t deserve to be relegated to forgotten made-for-TV fare, so if you can dig it up somewhere, it’s worth the watch. 

2015’s “Goosebumps” is a delightful romp, while the sequel, 2018’s “Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween,” is simply more of the same. It follows completely different protagonists who unleash Slappy and a host of other monsters to cause havoc in their town. It’s pretty much the same outline as the first film with Slappy getting far more screentime. 

There’s nothing wrong with more Slappy, but it feels like a missed opportunity. Even if you wanted to do another monster extravaganza, there are other beasts and monsters to pull from other “Goosebumps” books that deserve as much of the spotlight as Slappy. Jack Black also returns to reprise his role of R.L. Stine but in a far more limited capacity. Sadly, it comes off like they couldn’t afford Black for another go-round, rather than being what’s best for the story. 

None of this is to say the seques isn’t without its charms. As /Film’s review for “Goosebumps 2” put it: “There’s potential there — the cast is great, the Slappy storyline is appealingly ‘Little Shop of Horrors’-esque, and some of the goings-on get genuinely creepy — but ‘Goosebumps 2’ is a sophomore slump.” For anyone who hasn’t read many “Goosebumps” books, watching the two theatrically-released films may make it seem like it’s the Slappy show and little else. 

Following the ’90s “Goosebumps” series, a new R.L. Stine show materialized called “The Haunting Hour.” It was also an anthology show with slightly aged-up storylines, and it resulted in the straight-to-video film, “The Haunting Hour: Don’t Think About It.” Goth girl Cassie (Emily Osment) reads from an old book that summons a horrific entity known as The Evil Thing, which kidnaps her brother, and she has to save him. 

The Evil Thing is hands-down the star of the show here. It’s a two-headed beast where one head drinks blood and the other eats flesh, which is already a pretty gruesome sight. But it’s a practical effect helmed by Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero, who worked on “Army of Darkness.” It’s the kind of monster who would feel right at home in an R-rated horror flick, but instead, it’s being used here, which is downright awesome. 

Osment also delivers a fantastic performance, and Tobin Bell — who plays John Kramer throughout the “Saw” franchise timeline – also pops up here to lend some gravitas to the proceedings. “Don’t Think About It” is scarier than it has any right to be, even if it does feature some gratuitous Papa John’s product placement. Whatever you’re thinking it is, it’s even more in-your-face than that.

Getting a proper “Goosebumps” movie was a long time coming for many R.L. Stine fans. There was even an attempt to make one in the ’90s directed by Tim Burton, but ultimately, we all had to wait until 2015 with Rob Letterman at the helm, and it didn’t disappoint. Jack Black plays a fictionalized R.L. Stine, who’s good at writing scary books because the monsters are real. When his creations run amok on the town, Stine teams up with his daughter Hannah (Odeya Rush), Zach (Dylan Minnette), and Champ (Ryan Lee) to set things right. 

The film’s the platonic ideal of what one could hope for out of a “Goosebumps” movie. All of Stine’s best monsters are here, from the Abominable Snowman of Pasadena to Fifi the vampire poodle in “Please Don’t Feed the Vampire!” Yes, Slappy’s here, too, but other monsters get their moments to shine. All of this is housed in a pleasing meta narrative about what these stories mean to people and how one goes about constructing a proper scary story. Stine humorously refers to the ever-needed “twist” throughout the film, setting up the movie as a whole and spotlighting its own twist toward the climax. 

It’s scary without being overwhelming and properly funny to delight anyone who’s never read a “Goosebumps” book before. But if you have, the movie features numerous references, paying homage to the books that entertained so many. 

Despite being mostly known for kid-friendly horror, it’s amusing that the best R.L. Stine movies are the goriest to date. Netflix released a trilogy of “Fear Street” films, based on Stine’s more teen-centric horror books, one week after the next in 2021, and it starts with a bang in “Fear Street Part One: 1994.” 

It’s a ’90s throwback about a group of teens living in the murder capital of the country. Maya Hawke plays the obligatory first kill in the film, and things only get more grotesque from there. Seriously, the bread slicer scene is something straight out of a “Terrifier.” It’s definitely the grossest kill in the trilogy, and /Film learned in an interview with director Leigh Janiak that it was inspired by her late-night shifts at Kmart. 

The film leans into its ’90s roots, and you can almost feel the influence of “Scream” dripping in every frame. But that’s not inherently a bad thing. The ’90s references and songs make for fun set dressing without ever feeling like the movie’s going out of its way to insert them there. Seeing as it’s “Part One,” the movie naturally has a lot to set up for the subsequent two installments. But it works as a thrilling slasher all on its own. 

If “Fear Street Part One” draws inspiration from “Scream,” then “Fear Street Part Two: 1978” is straight-up “Friday the 13th.” To learn more about the curse plaguing Shadyside, the protagonists from the first film hear about the 1978 Camp Nightwing massacre, where a killer slaughtered hordes of campers. It’s quite literally “Friday the 13th,” but it honestly does the set-up a lot better than some of the actual films in that franchise. 

“Part One” learned more into its meta nature with subtle commentary on the nature of horror films. “Part Two” is far more content giving audiences a straight-up slasher flick that doesn’t hold back on the bloodshed. It also features a very committed performance from Sadie Sink as Ziggy Berman, making her the second “Stranger Things” cast member to show up in this franchise, following Maya Hawke in the first. 

“Part Two” takes everything done well in the first film and amplifies them. The characters are more fleshed out, and there’s a more foreboding atmosphere. Perhaps its most impressive feat is that it’s a second chapter that effectively sets up the trilogy capper without getting too bogged down in mythology. It has scares first while lore comes second, which only amps up the anticipation for the final outing. 

The success of Netflix’s “Fear Street” trilogy all came down to whether it could stick the landing, and “Fear Street Part Three: 1666” does so and then some. The first half of the movie feels akin to 2015’s “The Witch,” with Deena (Kiana Madeira) seeing what actually happened to Sarah Fier back in 1666 that caused Shadyside to become cursed. The beginning’s more interested in atmospheric horror and instilling dread than outright scares, but never fear, the second half brings us back to 1994 to see Deena and friends try to end the curse for all, leading to a fun set piece back in the mall. 

Such disparate time periods and tones may seem like they wouldn’t work well together, but “Fear Street Part Three” manages to thread that needle and tie up all loose ends masterfully. Yes, there are still scares and gore, but “Part Three” excels and becomes the best R.L. Stine movie ever because of what it’s saying on the macro level. Everything Shadyside has experienced comes down to society’s need to find scapegoats, often within individuals representing disenfranchised communities. It’s relevant for 1666, 1994, and even today. With that in mind, the “Fear Street” trilogy remains one of the smarter horror franchises as of late that has more on its mind than just showing a masked killer pick off teenagers. 

The “Fear Street” trilogy goes to show how pervasive Stine’s influence is in horror. It’s not just entryways into the genre for little kids. There’s plenty for teenagers and adults to chew onto as well, and Stine absolutely deserves to be in conversations of greatest horror authors ever.