Lived It

Fear Month: We chat to R. L. Stine about his favourite horror film

Episode Summary

We’re kicking off Fear Month with a cracker to coincide with the weekly release of the Fear Street trilogy. Here, we chat to R. L. Stine (!!) about scaring multiple generations of kids, his own spooky childhood stories, and being a 90s icon. All in this episode with Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker.

Episode Notes

We’re kicking off Fear Month with a cracker to coincide with the weekly release of the Fear Street trilogy. Here, we chat to R. L. Stine (!!) about scaring multiple generations of kids, his own spooky childhood stories, and being a 90s icon. All in this episode with Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker.

Episode Transcription

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Our guest today on The Big Film Buffet has been scaring us for over 30 years. You know him as the author of the iconic book series. Goosebumps, and the Fear Street stories, which have just land on Netflix as a scary new film trilogy. Please welcome, one of my personal heroes, R.L. Stine.

R.L. Stine:

Thank you. Now, you're embarrassing me.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Between Goosebumps and Fear Street, does it delight you to know that you've probably scared an entire generation of people?

R.L. Stine:

A lot of generations. To you, I'm nostalgia, that it took a long time to get used to, being nostalgia. But now, I love it, of course.

Gen Fricker:

What is it like being a cultural touchstone?

R.L. Stine:

I had no one ever call me a touchstone before. I don't know. I don't know what that is. Someone today called me a talisman. I said, "Wait a minute. Wait, that's going too far." That's just saying you're old. That's all that's saying. No, I was luckier than I am all these years. Goosebumps, next month, starts its 30th year. Whoever heard of a book series lasting 30 years?

Gen Fricker:

It's incredible.

R.L. Stine:

And there've been over a hundred Fear Street. I just feel I'm so lucky, and lucky to get to scare generations.

Gen Fricker:

I mean, you have been scaring kids for as long as we've both been alive. I was reading about your childhood. You described yourself as a child as being very scared of things. What kind of things were you scared of?

R.L. Stine:

I was. It was a very terrible way to be a kid. I was very shy and very fearful. My family was very poor, and we lived on the edge of a very wealthy community, so I automatically felt like an outsider. But I was afraid of all kinds of things. I was afraid. I used to ride my bike around the neighbourhood in the evening, and then I would come home and it would be dark. I always thought something was lurking in the garage. Something or somebody was waiting in the garage. I used to take my bike, and just heave it into the garage, and go running into the house. That kind of fear, which is horrible. It's horrible when you're a kid. But later on, of course, when I was writing these scary books, that came in very handy. I could think back, and I could remember that feeling of being a kid, that feeling of panic. I think it helped me write the books.

Gen Fricker:

I was wondering about that living kind of on the corner of this kind of wealthy neighbourhood, but is that the kind of inspiration for the towns of Shadyside, and Sunnyvale, and Fear Street?

R.L. Stine:

I grew up in Ohio, in a very quiet suburb. I think Shadyside, when I pictured it, I pictured my old neighbourhood. In the books, Shadyside is this normal suburban town of wealthier people, less wealthy people. And there's one street, one cursed place in this normal town called Fear Street. I always wondered, why didn't people move to Happy Street? Why did they stay there?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

As a young reader, something that I have to credit you with instilling in me is being drawn to horror and things that are frightening and scary that are balanced with humour. What do you think is key about balancing horror and humour in creating horror aimed at young audiences?

R.L. Stine:

Well, I never planned to be a scary guy. It never was my idea. I was always funny. I did a humour magazine for kids called Bananas for 10 years, and I wrote maybe a hundred joke books. So, when I started doing these scary books, I don't really want to terrify kids. So, if a scene starts to get too intense, I throw in something funny, something funny at the end, something that shocks you at the end of every single chapter. And then you say, "Oh, I have to read one more chapter. I have to read one more chapter." It's a cheap gimmick. A lot of authors thinks its cheap gimmick. But it keeps kids reading, they have to read one more chapter. Because what are these books about really? They're about what happens next.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. You've kind of unlocked the code of binge reading, before it was kind of popularised by streaming networks really. You are onto it.

R.L. Stine:

Yeah. No one talks about binge reading. That's [inaudible 00:04:48].

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. That was your invention. You did that. I mean, to bring it to the films, the first Fear Street film is out now on Netflix, part 1, 1994. And as someone who was so part of the horror genre of the 90s, how do you think horror or spookiness in general has changed over the last few decades?

R.L. Stine:

Well, this movie is a big change from what I've done. The Fear Street movies are scarier than Goosebumps, and they're scarier than Fear Street. There's so much more gore and slashing and blood and screaming. That's a very change. Kids haven't changed. I was thinking these books could have been written back in the 50s when I was a kid, because your fear has never changed. Kids, they're still afraid of the dark, afraid of being lost, afraid that they're somewhere they've never been, something's in the closet. All the fears are the same. The only thing that's really changed is the technology, cell phones. Cell phones have ruined mysteries. There are five teenagers in a cabin, with one of them as a murderer. What are you going to do? You take your phone, you call for help. Book's over. Book's ended. Yeah. I spent a lot of time getting rid of the phones, and getting rid of all the screens in the stories, so that we can have a real story.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Do you have a favourite horror film yourself?

R.L. Stine:

I do. It's ancient. It's from 1933. There are other horror films that I like. It's called Island of Lost Souls.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I love that movie.

R.L. Stine:

It's Bela Lugosi, and Robert Armstrong from King Kong. You like this movie?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I love this movie.

R.L. Stine:

I think it's amazing. Dr. Moreau on this island, and he's experimenting on animals. He's trying to turn animals into humans, and he has all these horrible failed experiments. These poor creatures that he's created. It's really, really creepy movie. When it came out, this is true, when it came out in 1933, audiences were so upset by it. They actually threw up in their seats.

Gen Fricker:

Is that the kind of benchmark that you go for in with your books?

R.L. Stine:

We aim for that. I don't know if we achieved it. Did we achieve it in Fear Street? I don't know. We'll find out.

Gen Fricker:

Speaking of these kind of horrific images, when I kind of spoke to people about the fact that we were going to be interviewing you, a lot of people had very visceral memories of specific images that have jumped out at them from reading a Goosebumps series, from reading Fear Street. Is there a particular horror image that you're very proud of, or that you feel for a lot of fondness for?

R.L. Stine:

Well, there are a bunch. People still come up to me and say, "I never forgot that scene where the boy put his arm down the garbage disposal."

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh yeah.

R.L. Stine:

You know that? That's pretty bad.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah.

R.L. Stine:

I'll tell you the best murder I ever did, and it's from a brand new Fear Street. It's from a recent book called The Lost Girl, which just came out a year or so ago. It takes place behind this horse stable. The girl is watching when these two men drag her father out, and they rip off his shirt, and they tie him to the ground. They attach him to the stakes on his back. He's lying on his back on the ground.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh my worst.

R.L. Stine:

And no, you haven't heard it yet. That's the good part.

Gen Fricker:

I'm already creeped out though.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I'm tingling.

R.L. Stine:

They pour honey over him, and then they pour oats on top of the honey. Then they open the stable doors, and they have all these starving horses inside. They let out the starving horses, and they go for the honey and oats, and they devour her father while she watches. That's a good kill.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Quite lawless. That's a great kill.

Gen Fricker:

That's a great murder.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

And then, it probably would feel pretty good for maybe 45 seconds, before something would feel really bad.

R.L. Stine:

That's right.

Gen Fricker:

And it would smell delicious.

R.L. Stine:

They'd have to be very hungry horses, I think.

Gen Fricker:

The first instalment of the Fear Street film trilogy is out now on Netflix. Parts two and three dropping this Friday and next Friday. R.L. Stine, thank you so much for joining us on The Big Film Buffet.

R.L. Stine:

Thank you. I really had fun. Stay scary, everyone.