Which shows like Amazon’s Paper Girls manage to capture the coming-of-age experience alongside supernatural shenanigans?
Based on Brian K. Vaughan's comic book of the same name, Amazon's new original series Paper Girls premiered on July 29, 2022. The story concerns four 12-year-old female newspaper deliverers who uncover a supernatural entity threatening their small Ohio town in 1988, forcing them to band together, figure out what's happening, and do their best to keep the townsfolk safe.
Paper Girls joins a terrific lineup of paranormal TV shows aimed toward kids that revolve around young adolescent characters coming of age as they grow and evolve by grappling with supernatural forces endangering life on Earth. What similarly-themed shows will fans of Paper Girls enjoy?
With Joe Dante working as a creative consultant, Eerie, Indiana is a highly underrated and scary sci-fi kids show that is essentially a gender-reversed version of Paper Girls. The show follows Marshall Teller (Omri Katz), a young teenager who moves to the tiny town of Eerie, Indiana where he and his two new friends Simon and Dash X begin investigating a skein of supernatural phenomena.
A coming-of-age story wrapped in the awesome wonders of the weirdness beyond, fans of Joe Dante's Explorers and Gremlins know how adept he is at plumbing deep childhood fears and anxieties like few others. As such, it's no stretch to see the precocious Paper Girls from Stony Stream, Ohio mixing it up with their Midwestern brethren in Eerie, Indiana.
The definitive go-to for children's horror entertainment, R.L. Stine's Goosebumps boasts the same light family-friendly tone, tenor, and tableau as Paper Girls. The highly amusing anthology series remains eminently watchable due to the vast array of different spooky stories and memorable Goosebumps episodes from season to season, in which young preteen characters take on every grisly ghoul under the sun and full moon alike. There are even multiple time-traveling episodes, making the show ideal for watching with Paper Girls.
Between Hannah in "The Ghost Next Door," Allison in "Cry of the Cat," Becca in "Teacher's Pet," and more, Goosebumps does a beautiful job of telling preteen ghost stories from the rare perspective of adolescent girls, allowing generations of viewers to feel seen and heard in ways Vaughan is trying to repeat in Paper Girls.
The suddenly popular So Weird is enjoying a resurgence thanks to its addition to Disney+, making the sci-fi fantasy perfectly timed with Paper Girls. So Weird concerns Fiona Phillips (Cara Delizia), a brilliant adolescent who traverses the country, encounters a slew of paranormal activity wherever she goes, and uses her scientific acumen to find answers and keep the population safe.
Just like Erin, Tiffany, Mac, and KJ in Paper Girls, Fiona encounters time warps, alien incursions, and ghastly entities as she tries to save her father from being possessed by a Scottish Will-o-the-Wisp. So Weird is one of the most satisfying and thought-provoking preteen horror-sci-fi shows on record.
One of the all-time best preteen horror fantasy series includes Deadtime Stories Volume 1, a brilliant blend of macabre childhood fairytales with campfire-style ghost stories that is sure to appeal to Paper Girls fans. The premise entails a babysitter (Jennifer Stone) who tells her charges a new spooky tale each week, many of which involve youngsters fighting ghosts, zombies, goblins, aliens, werewolves, and other harrowing entities.
In particular, viewers can easily imagine the strong-willed and badass recurring character of Nancy Patanski (Pieper Reese) joining the gang in Paper Girls because of the way the tough neighborhood girl confronts her deepest fears to bring down such frightening foes as Giggles the Clown and others.
The most comparable show to Paper Girls is Netflix's runaway hit sci-fi horror series Stranger Things, in which the small town of Hawkins, Indiana is overrun by The Upside Down, a hellish landscape beneath the town littered with freakish supernatural creatures and creeps. While many storylines intersect, it's ultimately up to the young teens and the mysterious Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) to thwart the evil scourge.
Aside from capturing the childlike sense of wonderment and imagination like few others, Stranger Things excels in its ability to strike a nostalgic chord among those who grew up in the 1980s watching everything from E.T. to Stand By Me, resonating as one of the most riveting and recognizable coming-of-age sci-fi tales of a generation.
Also based on the comic book written by Brian K. Vaughan, Marvel's Runaways imagines the teenage offspring of various superheroes learning their parents are really villains in hiding, forcing the teens to unite, flee from home, and reconcile their elders' past sins in order to forger a brighter future.
While it may not seem like an ideal pairing at first blush, Vaughan has once more penned a poignant coming-of-age tale in the guise of dark fantasy that not only features incredibly strong female characters but also has similar things to say about the old versus new generations. Indeed, the Pride featured in Runaways is very reminiscent of The Old Timers in Paper Girls, with the tug-of-war among the youth and elders raging on.
Hulu's original horror fantasy series Light as a Feather concerns a group of teenage girls whose nightmares become a wicked reality when a childhood game of "Light As a Feather, Stiff as a Board" menacingly manifests in the real world, leaving the remaining survivors to discover why they're being targeted and by whom. Imagine Pretty Little Liars meeting Final Destination.
A lightweight supernatural horror drama deliberately geared at the younger female demographic like Paper Girls, Light as a Feather has much more to say about contemporary adolescence, teen angst, cliquey popularity, and the impact of growing up in a small town where everyone knows everyone.
While the original is still favored by many, the recent Nickelodeon reboot of the 1990 teenage horror fantasy drama Are You Afraid of the Dark? is a great companion piece to watch with Paper Girls. The anthology show concerns The Midnight Society, a gang of young teens who gather in the woods at night to scare each other with mortifying ghost stories.
Specifically, fans of Paper Girls are bound to respond to the character of Rachel, a new teen in town who finds confidence when The Midnight Society invites her into their group, ultimately becoming one of the main reasons the gang defeats the evil Mr. Tophat. Even more timely, a new season entitled Ghost Island premiered on July 30, 2022, one day after Paper Girls.
Goosebumps author R.L. Stine's graphic novel series Just Beyond has been adapted into a highly amusing fantasy drama that young fans of preteen horror are sure to lap up. The acclaimed Disney+ original anthology show has no shortage of supernatural thrills and chills helping youngsters to come of age, but it's McKenna Grace's role as Veronica in episode one that really jives well with the main characters in Paper Girls.
As Veronica, Grace soars as the 14-year-old activist sent to an all-girls prep school where the culture of manners conceals a dark mystery she's forced to slowly uncover. Veronica would make an ideal member of Paper Girls by using her wits and wiles to help them fend off the time-traveling teenagers.
Few horror fantasy shows tap into the limitless imagination of children like Netflix's Locke & Key, another ideal companion piece to Paper Girls. The story concerns young Bode, Kinsey, and Tyler Locke as they uncover the menacing mysteries of Key House, their deceased father's ancestral home littered with magical keys that hold specific powers. Alas, they must collect all the keys before a demon named Dodge uses them for their own evil purposes.
One of the key plot points in both Paper Girls and Locke & Key is time travel, with the Timeshift key in the latter proving to be an integral plot point for Tyler and Kinsey, who trace the key back to 1988 and the Tamers of the Tempest. Paper Girls is also set in 1988 and features a similar group of time travelers called the Old Timers, furthering the parallels between both series.
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A Senior List Writer covering a wide array of topics who has been with Screen Rant since September of 2019, Jake Dee has written movie news and reviews since 2008, working primarily with OMG Horror (IGN), JoBlo.com, and Arrow in the Head as a freelance reporter based in Los Angeles. A hopeless cinephile, social media Luddite, certified Nic Cage doppelganger, and a big Weekend At Bernie’s fan, Jake can often be found tucked away in a dark corner watching an old horror movie. Born and raised in California, Jake has a Bachelor’s Degree in Film & Digital Media from the University of California Santa Cruz with an emphasis on theory and criticism, is the author of several “WTF Happened To This Movie” and “WTF Really Happened To This Movie” videos on YouTube, and has covered everything in the entertainment industry from set visits, studio luncheons, and red carpet interviews to wrap parties, movie premieres, private screenings, talent interviews, and more.