R.L. Stine Unleashes the Year’s Bleakest Kids’ Horror — and the Ending Is Haunting Adults

Heads up: there is a new kid-targeted horror movie that is quietly wrecking families' evenings. It is called 'Pumpkinhead,' and despite the PG vibes, the ending is so grim people are coming away rattled. Yes, kids too. Especially kids.

What this thing is

'Pumpkinhead' is adapted from a short story by Goosebumps creator R.L. Stine. Jem Garrard wrote and directed the movie. It is streaming free on Tubi right now.

The setup

The story follows Sam, a boy who swipes a pumpkin and triggers a nasty curse. His little brother, Finn, disappears, and in a truly mean twist of the knife, everyone else forgets Finn ever existed. Sam is the only one who remembers, so he sets out to break the curse and get his brother back.

Okay, spoilers ahead

If you want to go in clean, skip this paragraph. The movie ends with Sam rescuing Finn, but not how you want. Sam essentially trades places with his brother. Finn returns and the family remembers Finn again... while Sam is erased from their memories and left behind. It is a bleak, bleak button to a kids horror tale.

'I have watched a lot of really dark horror movies this year. I do not think any of them had an ending as downright BLEAK as the new for-kids horror movie R.L. STINE'S PUMPKINHEAD, now streaming on Tubi... The STINE TWIST is alive & well in '25.'

— John Squires, editor in chief at Bloody Disgusting

How people are reacting

• A dad on Reddit said his kids handled the scares fine, but the ending messed with them in a way Jason and Freddy never did, and he wanted to warn other parents.
• Another parent reported their kids hated the ending for the same reason, even though they liked the movie overall. The kids were also annoyed there is no sequel planned. The parent did say it opened the door for a talk about how not every story ties up with a happy ending.
• One 30-year-old viewer called the finale deeply unsettling and more depressing than scary, and said that is not how they expected to feel coming out of a PG movie.
• Someone else described it as the most whiplash-inducing ending they have seen in a while. They compared the tone to a Goosebumps-style romp that suddenly refuses to slap a pretty bow on things, leaving them staring at the credits, stunned at how stark it all is.

So, should you watch it?

If you like your kid-horror mean enough to make grown-ups stare into the middle distance, absolutely. If you are queasy about sad, morally thorny endings, maybe pre-screen it. Either way, 'Pumpkinhead' is free on Tubi right now, and it is already generating some loud reactions for a reason.