The 2015 American horror comedy Goosebumps was written and directed by Rob Letterman. The movie is based on the same-titled children's horror book series by R. L. Stine. After all of the monsters from the Goosebumps series escape from his books and cause havoc in the real world, a fictionalized Stine (Jack Black) joins forces with his teenage daughter (Odeya Rush) and their neighbor (Dylan Minnette) to save their neighborhood. The movie received generally favorable reviews from critics and received appreciation for its comedy and many allusions to the Goosebumps book series. It made $158 million against an $84 million budget.
Due to the popularity of the original film, Ari Sandel and Rob Lieber decided to make a stand-alone sequel, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, which was released in October 2018. However, this movie had a fresh cast and starred two young boys (Jeremy Ray Taylor and Caleel Harris), who, on Halloween night, mistakenly let loose the Goosebumps monsters in their town after cracking open an unpublished Goosebumps novel titled Haunted Halloween.
Black makes a brief appearance as R.L. Stine, although the main emphasis of the film is the children's journey. In a July 2022 interview with Yahoo News, the real-life Stine said, “There's still talk about more Goosebumps movies.” At the time of this writing, nothing official has been announced for a third film, but a live action series on Disney+ is on the way. While we wait for more news, here is a list of the best main characters from the Goosebumps films, ranked.
9 Gale Cooper
Gale Cooper, Zach's widowed mother, is portrayed by Amy Ryan in Goosebumps as the Vice Principal at Madison High School. She plays a crucial part in the movie because, after she starts to think the creatures are real, she tries her hardest to assist.
8 Sarah Quinn
Sarah Quinn, played by Madison Iseman, is one of the main characters in Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween. In the course of the movie, Sarah prepares an essay about terror in an effort to gain admission to Columbia University. Tyler Mitchell (Bryce Cass), her boyfriend, whom Sarah had planned to meet at the party, was instead seen kissing another girl. The team comes to the conclusion that Slappy is to blame for everything. Slappy is ultimately defeated by Sarah when she kicks him onto the tower's electrified coil, sending him flying into the air. Sarah eventually gets an email saying she got into Columbia University after writing about fear for her entrance essay.
7 Sonny Quinn & Sam Carter
Sonny Quinn and Sam Carter (Jeremy Ray Taylor and Caleel Harris, respectively) are seeking to launch a waste clean-up service and are contacted after school to clean up an abandoned house. They are the main characters of Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween. They discover a sealed manuscript within and being interested, they decide to open it, which summons Slappy the Dummy. By reciting the mystical words they had found in Slappy's pocket, they had unintentionally summoned him to life. Tommy Madigan, a bully, later steals the manuscript. They succeed in locating the text and save the day in the end. The reactor is overloaded by Sonny and Sam while Sarah battles Slappy.
6 Champ
Zach’s new friend, Champ (Ryan Lee), lends a comedic quality to the Goosebumps story. As someone who is not the smartest character, he gives the reactions that most people would in a scary situation, and the humor he brings lightens the storyline.
5 Zach Cooper
Zach Cooper, the Goosebumps film's main character, is portrayed by Dylan Minnette. In Zach's neighbor's home, Zach and Champ discover a bookcase containing a number of sealed manuscripts, each of which lists Goosebumps franchise entries. Zach unlocks The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena in response to Champ's intrigue, and the tale's eponymous monster emerges from it and escapes. They trace the Abominable Snowman with Hannah's assistance to a nearby ice rink, where Hannah's father shows up and imprisons it in the book. Unintentionally identifying himself as R. L. Stine, the author of the Goosebumps series, is Hannah's father. Zach and his friends go on a pursuit to get Slappy the Dummy from the Night of the Living Dummy series back inside his book after he escapes from it.
4 Hannah Stine
Hannah Stine, R.L. Stine's daughter is portrayed by Odeya Rush throughout the Goosebumps movie. The film’s first major revelation exposes that Hannah is really one of her father's creations, a real-life adaptation of a fictional character. Zach is informed by Stine that Hannah was intended to be a good, typical adolescent girl who would be his companion. Zach is saddened but decides to keep her true identity a secret because he is developing feelings for Hannah. But it turns out Hannah already knows as she confides to Zach near the conclusion of the movie, just before she sacrifices herself and is sucked back into a novel like the other creatures.
3 Mr. Chu
In Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, comedian Ken Jeong plays the outrageously comic character Mr. Chu. He plays a character who lives next door to the Quinns in Wardenclyffe, New York. He transforms his yard into an amusement park in the movie, complete with a huge inflatable tarantula, mummies, skeletons, and white cloth ghosts. On Halloween, Mr. Chu dresses up as Frankenstein and distributes candy to a queue of trick-or-treaters. Mr. Chu plays a crucial role in the plot by assisting Sarah, her brother, and Sam in hiding inside his home as Slappy transforms decorations and masks with Tesla Tower. He disguises them as monsters, so they can visit the Tower by walking through the streets undetected.
2 R.L. Stine
R.L. Stine is portrayed by Jack Black in both Goosebumps and Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween. His character is vital to the stories because, without him, the Goosebumps books would not exist. Stine created monsters, demons, ghosts, and ghouls that would scare anyone who mistreated him with the aid of his unique typewriter. Unfortunately, Stine's monsters eventually found a way to escape from his works because they became real to him. He was able to keep his monsters locked up by entangling them in their books. The most terrible of them all was Slappy the Dummy, a puppet replica of himself; the demon ventriloquist dummy had a serious Napoleon complex and understood what was in Stine's mind, tormenting him in his dreams. Sadly, after finishing a new Goosebumps book in Haunted Halloween, Slappy reappears and draws Stine into one of his own books.
1 Slappy the Dummy
The primary nemesis of the Goosebumps series is Slappy the Dummy. The words "Karru Marri Odonna Loma Molonu Karrano," which means "You and I are one now," are written on a piece of paper and may be discovered in Slappy's dress jacket pocket. When said aloud, the ventriloquist dummy comes to life. Slappy will attempt to use the person who brought him back to life as a slave after reviving. Slappy is the main enemy in both Goosebumps and Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, and without him, those movies would be quite different. Jack Black performed the voice for Slappy in the Goosebumps movie, and Avery Lee Jones and Jake McKinnon handled the puppeteering. Slappy is voiced by Mick Wingert in Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween and Avery Lee Jones is back to perform the puppeteering. The films left the storyline open revealing Slappy remained alive at the end of Haunted Halloween allowing for a possible return at some point. According to a 2020 Screen Rant article, no news of a third film has been announced.