‘I’ve never seen a ghost, but I keep looking’: R.L. Stine reveals his scariest moment
While R.L. Stine might be once of the world’s most successful authors, he is convinced there is some other reason people keep coming to his events.
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If you grew up in the 1990s, there’s probably no name more synonymous with being scared than R.L. Stine.
For me, it meant Slappy the Dummy (the stuff of actual nightmares) and Larry the boy that watches his friends turn into dogs in My Hairiest Adventure (even more terrifying to my nine-year-old mind).
But for fans of the more recent movies Goosebumps and Goosebumps 2 — which is now available on DVD and for direct download — R.L. Stine means Jack Black.
Black plays Stine in the Goosebumps movie franchise, which since the first one was released in 2015 has reignited interest in the book series.
“The movies have changed things for me in that when I do author appearances, and I’ll do a talk or something, I get enormous crowds now, even though Goosebumps is such an old series,” Stine told news.com.au over the phone from New York.
“I get much, much bigger crowds, it’s sort of like the ’90s all over again.
“I always think maybe people think they are going to see Jack, that’s why they’re coming, they think they are going to see Jack Black.”
Stine has made a living out of scaring kids, despite being a “very fearful kid” himself who has vivid memories of being afraid of the freezer in his family home’s “creepy” basement.
“I always thought I would go down and I would lift that lid off the freezer and there’d be a frozen body inside,” he said.
Despite this, Stine believes his young readers love to be scared, especially because his books ensure it stays contained.
“It wasn’t really my idea to be scary but I’m so lucky I got under it, but kids love to be scared, especially when they know that they’re safe, they’re OK, they’re just reading a book,” he said.
But surprisingly for a horror writer Stine doesn’t believe in the supernatural, telling news.com.au: “Ghosts? No, I’ve never seen a ghost, but I keep looking.”
Stine can easily recall the scariest moment of his life, saying it happened while attending a car show in New York with his son Matt when he was about four years old.
“It was thousands of people walking around and hundreds of cars, and I lost him,” Stine said.
“That was the scariest moment of my life, that was real fear and panic. The whole thing lasted maybe 20 seconds, then when I spotted him right — but it was terribly jarring — and then I went over, and I am running over to him and I’m like, ‘Matt are you OK?’ And he said, ‘Dad where were you? I was about to call the manager.’
“He was a New York kid I didn’t have to worry about it, but that was the scariest moment of life.”
Goosebumps 2 is now available for digital download and on Blu-ray and DVD
Originally published as ‘I’ve never seen a ghost, but I keep looking’: R.L. Stine reveals his scariest moment
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