Animation
Disney Twisted-Wonderland: The Animation
In Twisted-Wonderland on Disney+, Yu finds himself at a school of magic, governed by Disney villain-inspired houses. And he desperately wants to find his way back home.
When five teenagers took a dare to spend the night in an abandoned research facility, they had no idea the place would turn out to be haunted. Clearly, they’d never read a Goosebumps novel.
Naturally, this dare ended in tragedy. A boy named Matty was mysteriously killed by an unseen supernatural being, and his younger brother, Anthony–unable to explain what he saw–described the event as a freak accident. No one knows what really happened, and no one is very keen to find out.
Fast-forward 30 years, and Anthony has teenagers of his own. Twins Devin and Cece live with their mom, Anthony’s ex-wife, but they’ve come to spend the summer with their dad in his hometown of Brooklyn. And wouldn’t you know it: The local kids present the newcomers with a very familiar dare.
And so that supernatural being awakes again, and Devin and Cece have the chance to put a decades-old family mystery to rest.
That is, if whatever got their uncle doesn’t catch them first.
R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps novels enthralled a generation of tweens with toned-down horror and paranormal adventure. The series was such a smash hit that it spawned a franchise of video games, movies, spin-off books…and, of course, a recent TV adaptation.
Goosebumps: The Vanishing is the second season in an anthology series inspired by Stine’s stories. At some points, the adaptation stays true to the tone of its source material: horror-comedy with a dash of kid-friendly frights. For the most part, however, ‘kid-friendly’ falls a bit to the wayside.
The Vanishing is a bit more “cool TikTok teen” than “Scholastic book fair” (the Sabrina Carpenter and Travis Scott needle drops make that fairly obvious). Devin and Cece are typical TV 17-year-olds who get embarrassed by their lame dad and laugh when he makes them waffles. Devin’s entire motivation for checking out the research facility is, naturally, to impress a girl.
A few of the frights are above the grade-school demographic, too. You won’t be on the edge of your seat or hiding under a blanket for the entirety of The Vanishing, but there are a few jump scares and images that could be disturbing for younger viewers. There’s a general uneasy atmosphere in several scenes, and you might find yourself thinking: “What’s around that corner? Why is it so quiet? Did anybody hear that—AH!” And, of course, the show’s baked-in supernatural elements will give many a parent pause.
No, Goosebumps: The Vanishing is no Poltergeist or Scream, but it’s not entirely kid-appropriate, either. A few darker elements raise this adaptation beyond its source material and well into the TV-14 rating.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
Twin siblings Devin and Cece find themselves threatened by the same mysterious being that killed their uncle 30 years before. Their father, Anthony, continues to hunt down clues about his brother’s death.
The most disturbing imagery is the death of Anthony’s brother, Matty. He twitches as though having a seizure, and black, oil-like gunk comes out of his eyes and covers his face. His skin melts down to his skull before the scene cuts away. While it’s not overly gruesome or graphic, it’s an unsettling image that sets the tone for what could come later on.
The teenagers find themselves in some threatening situations, such as exploring an abandoned research facility (where Matty was killed 30 years before). While nothing overly frightening takes place, the scene is tense and carries the constant threat of a jump scare. Devin is eventually infected by the same black gunk that killed his uncle. It takes control of a plant that drags him into a sewer, then crawls into his mouth. We hear Devin choke before the plant retreats.
One of Matty’s friends says he likes to sleep naked. Someone makes a crude remark when referencing bumper-to-bumper traffic. Cece wears a crop top that shows her midriff.
Lauren Cook is serving as a 2021 summer intern for the Parenting and Youth department at Focus on the Family. She is studying film and screenwriting at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. You can get her talking for hours about anything from Star Wars to her family to how Inception was the best movie of the 2010s. But more than anything, she’s passionate about showing how every form of art in some way reflects the Gospel. Coffee is a close second.
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