Goosebumps Theories

The Movie.

The 2018 Goosebumps movie reveals:

• R.L Stine looks like Jack Black.
• Slappy has lightning teleport powers.
• Hannah Stine is immortal (bad ending(more details later on)).

R.L. Stine and Slappy

In the movie Goosebumps (2015) and its sequel Goosebumps: Haunted Halloween (2018), Slappy is given a deep, haunting want for a family. he calls R.L. Stine "Papa", refers to the other monsters as his siblings, and tries desperately to recruit himself a family team. He is so foolishley and obviously deperate for a family. Critically, through his first 7 books, Slappy lacks a motivation. He wants "slaves" but to no end, the most he does is ask them to feed him, rub his shoulders, and muck around. Hmmm, seems like family stuff Slappy, you need a family.

I think he just want somewhere to live? He wants somewhere to hang out and people to love. He is an asshole, but R.L. Stine gave him the means to be scary and the want to be scary, this is all he has. He has no idea now else to interact with people.

Does he need to eat? Does he sometimes feel hunger and not know how to resolve it? R.L. Stine, please help him. Teach him how to interact with people and get what he needs.

Hannah as Immortal

Hannah is dead, she is a ghost. In her book, Hannah has a limited physical presence in the living world. She can be seen and heard by a few other chracters, and can move items with effort. In the "real" world, outside the books, as revealed by the 2015 movie, Hannah has an unlimited physical presence. Only in the moonlight is she visibly a ghost. Zach interacts with her, she interacts easily with the physical world, everyone can see her. In the end of the movie, she begins going to school. She is not alive, she is dead. She cannot age. She will forever be a 16 year old.. What about when R.L. Stine dies? It will just be her and Slappy. I think this is sad. I also think its sad the movie implies R.L. Stine remade Hannah only for Zachs enjoyment. Thats weird.

Its also a little icky that Stine is intrested in Zachs aunt Loraine, and knows Zach is intrested in his daughter. Idk.

Have thoughts, critisims, or additions? Email me at: madisonirishaynes@outlook.com

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The Road Trip

Chapter 1

Slappy ran his hand over the upholstery of the Ford Country. It felt rough. It felt foreign. Everything feels so different now. In the past nothing was as - vivid. If he closed his eyes, he would have had no idea what he was touching, but now everything felt so distinctive. There was a texture diversity he lived completely unaware of.

He wants to talk to Robert about it.

But Roberts’s not very receptive right now.

Stine was uncomfortable with the changes. Or maybe more what they implied. The last three days on the road he hasn't entertained any of Slappy’s musings. He’s all ‘We can’t go back to Madison, it would become too obvious we were involved.’ and ‘These radio hosts don’t know anything about genre, I’m not even sure they know what movie they’re talking about. When I was interviewed for ABC…’.

Though he was right, they can’t go back to Madison. Every time they stayed in that house there was an accompanying disaster. Horrible beasts spotted in the treelines that disappear only after someone lets Stine know. The science lab in the school exploded, Stine the only staff member still on site. The abandoned theme park coming to life - not Slappy's fault, that was Hannah’s. Then when they came back after being away for Christmas the old hospital caught fire, Stine’s Ford Country the only car in the carpark.

It would just happen again. No matter how hard they try they can’t stop being unequivocally strange. There is some secret sign, some behavior or accent that everyone can read but them. It drew creatures and strange people towards them, and they always brought trouble.

He was right about the radio hosts too, they were awful. There was a film festival on. Huge promo spot had them interviewing directors of short films over the whole event. It was obvious they had no idea what they were talking about. Over and over they would stumble through a question that was barely related to the movie, and the director would politely try to save it and bring up something interesting. It pissed them all off, but they kept listening. Stine doesn't like driving without sound.

Slappy took his hand away from the floor. Hannah would get it, she had been very interested in his transformation. They now had another major plot point in common, a major heartache, a wound? Or a pain? The anguish, searing anguish? An experience. An adverse experience. Dying, but still being here. No ending. They had that now.

It's not something Papa would understand. Slappy and him are very close, in a lot of ways they are exactly the same. But Papa is a human, his existence is completely physical and unchanging. He doesn't know what it's like to live as something transient, it scares him, it makes him uncomfortable. The unknown of it, no structure. It.. scares Slappy too. Slappy’s not…

But it wasn't scary to Hannah, it's just what she is. She lives as something non-concrete. Alive or dead, and both at once. She is saddened by death and loss, but she's not concerned with the structure of it.

He stands up and leans over the back of the seat. Hannah's reading the back cover of Heartstopper. She turns to him and takes in a heavy sigh. “Do you want to read it?”

Slappy scrunches up his face at the suggestion. “No.”

Hannah raises an eyebrow “What? Are you homophobic?”. Slappy laughs.

“I’m not interested in romance” He reminds her, tapping his wooden fingers against the back of the seat.

“You were interested in Titane”

He sneered, “Titane is not a romance! What- do you- between who?”

“The truck.” she laughed.

“The truck? Hannah.”

Stine adjusts the center mirror, his eyes catching between his children, “I’m afraid to ask what you two are talking about.”

They both answer at the same time, talking loudly over each other. “Its a movie dad, a lady falls in love with a truck and-” “Its a french body horror movie, its-” “ends up pregnant. But the trucks not interested in being a father-” “No- the trucks not alive, though it does get him pregnant.” “She- or no, it is he, goes around killing people untill-” “He has to disguise himself as this guys son, but he's an asshole.” “the baby crawls out of him and its half car.” “Well, it's titanium, because he has a titanium plate in his head.”

“Sex being in a movie doesn't make it a romance.” Stine tells them.

Hannah was being obsequious. She smiles back at him and pulls her notebook out of the bag sitting at her feet. The car was packed to the top with boxes and belongings. An old leather suitcase stacked onto a repurposed deck chair box sat stacked between folded up blankets took up half the back seats. Hannah spread her belongings out amongst her seat and the remaining space in the middle, her school bag, books, and her laptop set orderly around her.

Slappy, in the boot, stood in the capsule of space Stine built for him amongst larger boxes and pvc zipper bags stuffed with clothes. Felt covered air mattresses and various other items filled the gaps and blocked most of the back windows. Slappy’s journal, a large tome, and a stack of books were neatly stacked on top of his folded blanket.

They spent most of their days driving, not entirely sure where they were going to end up. All of their options had faults, or something that made one of their chests twist with worry, but they had business to attend to across the country, so that was their start.

“Do you want to play the drawing game?” Hannah asked him, holding up her notebook and a four pen.

“Hold on, we're back on the highway in a minute.” Stine interrupted.

“Pass it over the chair.” Slappy sat back down, out of view from passing cars who might nosey their glance into a window and spot a toddler climbing around untethered. They had been pulled over before, an unamused police woman who was ready to yell at Stine about car safety before he took her to the back to show her his funny puppet. As they drove away, Slappy waved at her through the back window. Since then Stine has been very strict on his visibility while on the road. Small roads were fine, main roads, towns, stop lights - he was strictly a boot boy.

“A!” Stine protested. “No, take the middle seat down”. That was a much better idea. Hannah pulled the middle seat down, creating a bridge between them. She set her notebook on its back. “We should just keep it down the whole time.” Slappy says as he takes the pen. It felt much more open, even behind the seat he could see Hannah, Papa, and could mostly see out the front window.

“No, Slappy, it leaves me with no room. Do you want to do a theme?”

“You still have more room than I do.”

“But you're small.”

But you're small. But you're small! In his peripheral vision he saw Papa adjust the mirror to glance at him.

“Small - that's the theme” he glared towards stine. Hes okay, he is developed and emotionally secure. He has grown beyond his original, very structured feelings about being small.

The drawing game was really a general descriptor for a bunch of games that involved pen and paper. Dots and boxes, The Exquisite Corpse, and line-turn-line, which they were doing now. They each only were allowed one line at a time, each trying to turn the drawing into a specific thing. Slappy had chosen a jack, Hannah had chosen Slappy, in the end the drawing was indecipherable.

- - - - - - - - -

Slappy ran his hand over his blanket. It felt very nice. As he curled and uncurled his fingers he could catch the material in his joints - It would make a soft fwip as he raised his hand and it would fall out.

He should be asleep. This is perfect for sleep. He would have already been asleep before he changed. He laid in his little grove in the boot, pillow squished between the back of the seats and a soft cardboard box. Enough room to be encapsulated but with enough freedom to squirm.. His blanket over his body, holding heat in and away from the cold night air that moved through the car through the open vent window. The radio down low, gently playing some late night classical piano tune, lights from passing cars running in beams across the roof.

And all of that was very nice, and he felt very comfortable. But, he couldn't sleep. It was unending, frustrating. It had been 4 nights now that he couldn't sleep and he found himself so desperate for it. There was a weight he was mostly unfamiliar with, a fatigue that used to feel different. His thoughts were cloudy at night, not ending in finalities but fading away into a horizontal line that he could feel behind his eyes. He wanted to sleep.

Maybe it was still some magical sort of adrenaline. His experience dying had filled his body and mind with so much draw that hadn't faded away yet. Kept him awake just in case there was some important action to take.

But there was no action, he was safe. He was in the boot of the Ford Country and Papa was driving and Hannah was here. His body was different, but not horribly. He was still here, a doll of some sort, and safe. He had nothing to do but live. No one needed besting, he didn't need to seek some power, everyone here loved him and he loved them. There was nothing to prove.

But his body didn’t understand. It kept him from sleep even when he lay still for hours.

He only had another hour to keep trying, or they would arrive at their hotel and he would have to start all over again.

He stands up and peeks over the seat. Hannah is asleep, curled up into a ball against the door. He carefully pulls himself over the chair and gingerly steps onto the middle seat. He leans over the front seat and looks to Stine.

Stine glances back at him warmly. He looks so tired.

He pulls himself over and into the passenger seat. He sits with his legs out straight. “Robert?” he whispers.

Stine looks back to him and nods.

“When we get to the hotel can I stay with you?”

“What’ d you mean?” Stine asks back. His voice is deep and raspy with night weary.

“Like, can I sleep in your bed?”

“Did you sleep last night?”

“No.” Slappy turns his eyes away.

A few years ago, Slappy was completely unable to sleep without his fathers help. It was a transition period, Slappy was learning to live in the real world, which meant he needed to change. Before, Slappy was a tool. Slappy was Stine’s creation, his creature. He stayed in his book until he summoned him with a task. It was like a family reunion every time. Stine would hand him a project, and they would work on it together until done. Solving magical problems, writing, revenge on extended family, revenge on neighbours, revenge on coworkers. They would do it as a family. There were periods Slappy stayed awhile, days or weeks. Sometimes Stine would bring him out just to talk. But he would always return him to his book.

Slappy was always disappointed to reach the end. He would tell Stine so, but he was a book character, Slappy understood there had to be an end. But that wasn't true for Hannah.

The day he found out, they had just finished fetching Hannah locket from the cometary. They were slowly wandering back home to wait for dad so they could enact the next step of their current big scheme. They were both covered head to toe in dirt. They were laughing, talking. Walking by moonlight through a tree covered path.

Hannah mentioned wanting to start school.

Slappy was confused “He lets you stay?”

In that moment they both realized that their father was deeply flawed.

Slappy decided to not go back. Hannah gave him her locket.

Stine eventually found Hannah back at the cemetery. She had yelled at him, demanded for him to do better.

Stine was terrified. He was terrified of what Slappy might do. Terrified of someone seeing him. Terrified that he was an awful father. Terrified that Slappy felt unloved. He snapped. He broke down. He needed to do right by his children. He needed to help Slappy.

It was a weeks long period. Stine eventually found him, and they screamed at each other. Then the next time they screamed less. And it continued until they figured out how to move forward. It was horrible, cathartic, and embarrassing. But it was necessary. It bonded them together and they hugged for the first time in a very long time.

When Stine managed to get Slappy home, he let him burn his books. A testament to how serious this was. Stine showed him he loved him, he would never change his mind.

Slappy had decided to be good. Forgo evil. He wanted a sustainable place in the physical world. To have that he needed to no longer be a villain. After weeks of turmoil and uncertainty, the decision was incredibly grounding. It felt right.

But a horrible thought lingered in his head. The anxiety that sat deep in the foundation of his thoughts. He had realised it wasn't true long ago, but he had spent so long being motivated by fear. His backstory, his curse. If he did not do one evil thing a day, he would die.

It was the base of who he thought he was. He had no choice in it, he had always had to be evil, so he made himself good at evil. He made evil fun, he made it entertaining.

He knew it wasn't real. He was completely in the right. He was remaking himself, building his new life the way he needed. All for himself, all his own thoughts. There were no books anymore.

But as days drew closed, he would panic. He felt he was going to die. He was dying. It hurt. His chest squeezed tight and he couldn't think further forward than half a thought. He had to take action, had to save himself. So he would run away, Stine would catch him, and he would sob.

Stine started reading parenting books for traumatised kids. It helped. The biggest step was realising that Slappy couldn't regulate his emotions. He could barely identify them. Even during the day when he could think rationally, he struggled to tell Stine how things made him feel.

Slappy needed help calming. Stine found very quickly that he responded best to touch. He was a puppet after all, it was very natural for him to be physically guided. As nights drew near, Stine would put on a movie - something with surround sound. He would sit Slappy next to him or on his lap, holding his arm against his chest. He would take him up to his bed and lull him to sleep, pat his back and keep him still.

He would rub his shoulder and listen when he would beg for permission to do something bad. Slappy’s mind, riddled with stress, would try to combine two competing wills into coherent plans. As hours ticked he would watch Slappy check the clock and silently weep into his chest or panic that he was dying. Stine kept his thoughts checked, would gently talk him through the logic, that he was okay.

Sometimes he would wake to slappy gone. He would walk the house, find him amongst a few smashed plates or standing in the basement with an old tool in his hand. Pick him up and take him back up to bed.

It was a long journey of mental toil. Stine had to learn to identify his own expectations for Slappy and where they came from. He couldn't expect him to conform to societal, gender, or age expectations. Norms were out of the wheelhouse for Slappy. He was other, let him be other.

This fear of dying took a long time to beat. In the aftermath Slappy struggled to fall asleep by himself. He didn't need a lot of sleep. A few hours every few days and he was fine. But even at exhaustion, he couldn't sleep without Stine's hand.

That challenge was long ago now. He had progressed out of it and had slept alone for years. But with recent events.... he just wanted comfort.

Chapter 2

They could move to Canada, or Australia. Become Americans in Australia. He could buy a house an hour out of a capital city, a 3 bedroom with an office. Hannah would probably love a long plane ride. He would have to put Slappy in a suitcase, which he would also probably enjoy.

Stine's typewriter isn't the only magical object in the country. There are all manner of creatures, beasts, and beings of unnatural origins with strange objects in their possession spread throughout America. Stine doubted it would be any different elsewhere, but it could give them some time to reset their lives, figure out their next steps.

They would just be waiting on some teenage yowie or bunyip swim coach to cross their paths and spread the word around, but here is no better. It could give them some time to think things through, process and make decisions about how to proceed.

Stine turned the radio off and pulled the Ford Country into the underground car park. Slappy had been telling him about Roman doechedrons but had now become quiet. “Can you wake Hannah up?” Stine asked him. “I'll be right back.” Slappy nodded.

Stine had been to this hotel before. In 1994 he had a meeting with Scholastic to discuss the second wave of Goosebumps titles. Slappy had desperately wanted to come with him, insisted he would be of use. Stine could impress them with a replica of his most popular character. He could wait in the meeting room before anyone else got there, scare the first person to arrive so bad they would pee their pants, then they could convince everyone else they were insane.

How that would have been beneficial - both were unsure of, but it was a fun idea. Stine had declined, but he remembers wishing he could have Slappy with him anyway.

Stine wondered if these days he was too liberal with risking outside contact. In the past he was so strict with his children. Wouldn't allow them to draw a curtain during a full moon or approach the hallway when he had to open the door.

They are far beyond that now, and likely the only solution was to move even further.

Stine checks in and unloads his children from the car. He puts a snow jacket over Slappy and pulls up the hood. This was usually good enough from a distance. He leads them into an white lit elevator.

Slappy looked pale, which is not a way he has ever looked before. Hannah looked pale as well, though she looked that way often. Stine supposed he looked pale too. In future, he needs to book closer hotels, fatigue is much too taxing.

He leads them through the halls to their room. The key is an electronic keycard, an extremely stupid endeavour. Increases the hotel's profit in exchange for security. Stine detests it. Keys have worked for centuries.

Dad, I forgot my phone charger.” Hannah says as they approach the door.

“Do you really need it?”

“Dad”

Stine unlocks the door and leads Slappy inside, who walks immediately to the balcony.

“Can I just have the keys?” Hannah asked seriously. Stine considered it, but steeled himself to absolutely not. Hannah is an eternal teenager, she is respectful, independent, very intelligent, but she has a habit of absconding when she sees the chance. Running off for a walk through the park lands, through a cemetery, or to peek through living teenagers' windows.

“No I’ve forgotten something as well” He tells Slappy they will be back, closes the door, and quickly walks back down the hall towards the car park. His watch reads 3am. Check out is at 10am. His head feels heavy.

Once they leave earshot of the room, Hannah begins to speak. “Is it true that the sun will expand and absorb the earth?”

He glanced at her.

“In the far future. Like in that Dr Who episode. Do you think it's based on fact?” Hannah's tone was calm.

“It’s not something you have to worry about.”

“Its something we’ll have to worry about eventually.”

Stine almost stopped in his tracks. He wanted to dismiss her. Discourage her from catastrophising. But as soon as his mind dawns on her reasoning he dismisses it. Now is not the time for any of this talk.

“We’ll be passing through a few very small towns tomorrow, one of them is known for their sheet metal sculptures.”

Hannah gives him an unimpressed look.

When they reenter the room, Stine finds Slappy out on the balcony, pressing his head between the bars, looking down at the street. Hannah joins him.

The room isn't at all like the one he stayed in in 1994. The walls are a soft grey, the bathroom a striking white. There is a main bed made up with white ruffled bedding and bunk beds with dark mink blankets. It’s ugly.

Stine showers as quick as he can, though finds himself standing for too long. By the time he is out Hannah is already asleep on the bottom bunk. He stands in the doorway of the balcony. Slappy turns to him but doesn't make any effort to move. There is a dramatic wind that he is probably enjoying. It's 3:50am. Stine picks him up.

Stine enjoys these moments with Slappy, where his needs are so easily solved. He can sit with him or put a hand on his shoulder and he comes okay. The realisation that he responds so well to physical contact had changed his perspective on a lot of his past frustrations with Slappy.

When he was a teenager, when he would bring his magical best friend out to spend the night smashing pumpkins or writing graffiti in the rain, and he would lean against his arm or try to hold his hand, Stine would get so annoyed. At 14 he thought Slappy was treating him like a baby, or trying to tease him. Slappy would play it off coyly or yell at him. But he was just a baby, a difficult state of adulthood where you are also an eternal child. Slappy was hungry, begging to be fed, and Stine had denied him food and gotten annoyed when he grew weak.

That was a long time ago. But it stung to know he had messed it up so bad. Slappy was a 30 year old minor. He needed taking care of.

He places Slappy beside him on the bed. “Where are we going tomorrow?” Slappy takes the snow jacket off and lays face down on the mattress. “Road.” Stine replies.

When he seems settled, Stine runs his hand flat down his back. He is immediately unsettled. Slappy’s back feels so different to how it usually… used to feel. Slappy's torso is fabric over dense cotton and wood, he can feel that, but the structure is different. There is something complex, he can feel the ridges of his shoulders and something running down the length of his back. It's not human, not close, it’s doll. Doll that imitates humans much more closely than Slappy's body had used to.

It’s disgusting, Stine has to stop himself and wonder why he feels that way. It feels foreign, like he's hugging a stranger. There are no controls. Where there used to be a cavity, the surface of his back instead continues. Slappy seems to realise this at the same time. He flinches and sits up to run the back of his hand down his back. In the dark Stine can’t see his face.

Why did he change so drastically? How is he meant to support this? Without a word, Slappy lies back down. Does he not find this disturbing? Stine places his hand back onto the center of his back.

Slappy had “died” in his books. Been fraughted, injured, bested and his body sent away. But there has always been an ‘yet he survived’ and he would be back in some discoverable location or distant cousins hands in the next book. What happened between he had never made completely clear, but it was meant to be something physical and real. He fixes himself up and heals or is restored by some antique collector.

This was very different. He had been completely destroyed, burnt up into nothing, there wasn't even any ash.

But he still came back. Physically different. But majorly the same.

The idea was too terrible to think through. In the days since it happened, Stine's mind would approach the idea. Walk though the steps to a door, behind it a horrible conclusion. But he could not reach for the handle. He had to turn away. He had important decisions to make. He had to keep his children safe, not dwell on maybes.

But one of the maybes is laying under his hand. The other one a few feet away.

Slappy may be immortal.

Which would follow Hannah as the same.

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Come morning, Stine wakes to both Slappy and Hannah out on the balcony. It's 8:30am.

4 hours maybe. 4 hours sleep.

He gets up with a numbness and a foreboding. He needs to rebook the next hotel much closer.

He stands behind the sliding door. They are sitting on some plastic wicker chairs, both engrossed in something on Hannah's phone, talking quietly.

They might live to see the sun expand. Be the only ones left on the planet. Walk through ruins for hundreds of years until it gets too hot and they burn up over and over.

Maybe they will find a way to kill themselves before then.

Stine dresses and takes himself to the continental breakfast. He doesn't ask if they want him to bring anything back.