Now if one of my favourite book series as a kid are Goosebumps, another will be Horrible Histories. Written by Terry Deary, Horrible Histories are essentially history books. They tell you history. But there’s a twist. They tell you the more horrible, the gorier, the more twisted parts of history. The sort your history teacher doesn’t.
Interestingly, there’s going to be an expansion to the franchise. While we won’t be seeing a movie for it, like Goosebumps (hmm, interesting idea), Horrible Histories will be going into the video games arena, with developer Slitherine Strategies taking it up.
If you’ve never heard of Slitherine, do not despair, for you haven’t missed anything. Slitherine’s previous works appear to be rather obscure titles I’ve never heard of either. Still, I think it should be in the right hands, since all of Slitherine’s previous works have been historical strategy games.
To be entirely honest. I’m not sure how a strategy game on Horrible Histories will work out. HH is more about the obscure facts and secrets of histories that were either distorted or maybe censored in time. How can you convert a series like that into a strategy game?
And the second focus of Horrible Histories is humour (and black humour at that). The last game I’ve seen that was actually funny would be Psychonauts. Okay, there’s Portal too. My point being, comedy in video games is an art. How well will Slitherine capture it?
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Why so serious you ask? Well, at the time of it’s cinema release The Dark Knight was the new IMDB #1 highest rated movie beating everything under the sun including The Godfather Parts 1, 2 and unsurprisingly 3.
Now that people in more counties have seen the movie it’s come down in it’s IMDB rating significantly so it’s now #3 overall. Considering the rave reviews it might be that Dark Knight is better suited to an American audience as to have almost a full point taken out by international cinema goers from it’s overall out of 10 score must indicate something.
Right now the current status on the sequel isn’t up to Warner Bros as in a current interview they stated that conversations regarding a third movie have not even taken place yet. Yet with the huge dollar signs floating above the Batman name right now a third movie appears to anything but impossible.
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Sony Pictures will be doing the big screen version of R.L. Stine’s hugely popular Goosebumps line of books. I’ve read dozens of these as a kid, so I have a reason to be excited, you know. There are 62 books in all, written over the years 1992 through 1997. That’s a lot of content to pick from, almost as much as a comic book franchise.
Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander have been signed on for writing the screenplay. This early, we have no idea on which story will be adapted. If you ask me though, an anthology or a series of loosely connected segments wouldn’t be such a bad idea either, considering the source material.
The tone of the movies is also up for debate. Goosebumps is largely a children’s horror series, which means that you can’t have anything overly horrific or sadistic. For quick reference, they are nothing like Saw or Hostel. The point is, which was the last horror movie you saw that looked like it was perfectly safe for an 11-year old?
Still, the Goosebumps series can perhaps be best appreciated for its eerie settings and the situations that the protagonists encounter. While the resolutions may end up being a bit cheesy or mild, they definitely get you thinking on what Hollywood could do with them and a bit of gore and dark stuff.
Let’s just see how this turns out, then.
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