Robert Lawrence Stine, better known as R.L. Stine, has been writing terrifying tales for kids since 1986. With so much pre-teen and teen horror material, it’s no surprise that his stories and books were adapted for film and TV, like the series Goosebumps from 1995-98 and The Nightmare Room from 2001-2002, and more recently, the Netflix trilogy, Fear Street. In RL Stine’s The Haunting Hour, we get plenty of spooky tales aimed at the younger horror fan.
The series starts strong with a two-parter called “Really You,” where a demanding little girl gets a replica doll of herself, and the family soon learns of its evil agenda. Other episodes include an impish Christmas visitor with a destructive nature, a ghostly way to get back at bullies, a weird disturbance in a boy’s new home, and many more tales of creepy crawlies and sinister situations fill four seasons.
RL Stine’s The Haunting Hour has an X-Files feel for younger sci-fi and horror sets and has just enough creepiness to get them started in the horror genre. The show also gives us baby versions of actors who moved on to bigger roles like Brendan Meyer (Color Out of Space), Joey King (The Lie) and Julia Sarah Stone (Come True). Filmed in Vancouver, this TV anthology series is guaranteed to send chills down young viewers’ spines.
