Characters from the Goosebumps novel Stay Out of the Basement.
Casey and Margaret Brewer
Portrayed By: Beki Lantos and Blake McGrath (TV)
The protagonists. They are two siblings having to deal with their father becoming increasingly distant from them, and eventually learning there's something even more distressing going on.
- Action Heroine: Margaret proves to be the rather intrepid protagonist as she investigates the goings-on in the Creepy Basement even after Dr. Brewer's angry threats. Taken up a notch in the TV series, where she is the one to kill the plant-clone of her father, spraying it with weed killer.
- Adaptational Dye-Job: Casey has blonde hair in the book but has brown hair in the TV episode.
- Badass Normal: Margaret when she uses her quick thinking to figure out who her real father is, especially in the TV episode where she's the one to finish him off.
- Big Sister Instinct: Margaret tries to distract their father while Casey goes downstairs to get his shirt back. When he gets caught up in plant vines, Margaret tries to free him.
- Dumb Blonde: Downplayed with Casey (in the book, that is). While he can be a bit scatter-brained at times, he's not as bad as most examples of this trope.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Both avoid many of the more Flanderized traits of the later protagonists, with Margaret's general Badass Normal persona and despite her (understandably) melancholic disposition, she proves to be much more of a poor soul than a Straw Loser. Casey's Annoying Younger Sibling traits are also greatly toned down.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Margaret hated her Father's nicknames of "Fatso" (she's slender) and "Princess", but misses them greatly as they were a sign of now-absent closeness. Also provides the key to finding out which Dr. Brewer is her real father.
- Fish out of Water: Have had trouble getting used to their new California home from their native Michigan, though their father's reclusive behavior hasn't helped.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: A milder example than most, with Margaret the responsible to Casey's foolish.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: At the very end, a backyard sunflower claims to be Margaret's real father. In the show, a lot of flowers claim this.
- Named After Somebody Famous: Margaret shares a name with Margaret A. Brewer
, the first woman in the USMC to reach general officer rank. - Promotion to Parent: With their mom away for most of the book and Dr Brewer being confined to the basement, Margaret has become a surrogate parent of sorts to Casey.
- Supporting Protagonist: A very rare instance for this franchise. The story is told from Margaret and Casey's perspective, but their father is the one the plot revolves around and who's forced to endure the horror of his creations.
Doctor Michael Brewer
Portrayed By: Judah Katz (TV)
A botanist/father who spent hours in his basement trying to create new forms of plant life. These experiments caused him some... unsettling changes.
- Affectionate Nickname: He calls Margaret "princess" and "fatso" (the latter ironically due to how skinny she is). Him calling her princess is partially what hints Margaret as to who her real father is.
- Anti-Villain: Brewer himself is a type V. Grotesque as his experiments are, he's simply a good man who got caught up in playing god and wound up neglecting his family.
- The Atoner: By the end of the book, he gives up his horrible experiments and tries hard to make up to his family. Or so it seems.
- Bad Powers, Good People: He's a well-meaning father/botanist with a talent for growing human-plant abominations. Better be careful introducing him to your first dates, Margaret and Casey...
- Body Horror: His mutation into a plant creature. And let's not even talk about the things he grows in the basement...
- Creepy Basement: His lab. The book is called "Stay Out Of the Basement" for a reason.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: To his boss for firing him.
- Evilutionary Biologist: The real Brewer even states that while he knew what he's doing is wrong, he just couldn't stop, because creating life is just too damn exciting.
- Evil Doppelgänger: His clone held him hostage in a basement for weeks and tried to take over his life.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He loves his kids, Margaret and Casey, hence why he created his clones to be with them.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Subverted. He's not really evil, just stubborn and willing to ignore certain morals.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Played with. He doesn't become a super-villain like most instances of this trope, but his reckless experiments turn him from a simple botanist to a Mad Scientist who endangers everyone around him.
- Genetic Memory: His clone went rogue because of this-since he was a near perfect copy of the original, he had all of that man's memories.
- Good Parents: Unlike his clone, he's very compassionate and close to his family and is extremely grateful to his kids for saving his life.
- Humanity Ensues: What made him think turning plants into humans was a good idea?
- Impossible Genius: An average middle-class man who, through some process that isn't elaborated on, was able to grow living, breathing human-plant organisms in his basement. How he could afford the equipment even necessary for such an experiment, or whether he has some kind of supernatural gift, is anyone's guess.
- LEGO Genetics: Apparently, combining plant and human DNA only took him a few weeks.
- Mad Scientist: His freakish experiments with plant matter are what causes the book's conflict.
- Planimal: His entire time in the basement was spent creating these. Unlike most examples, these aren't cute or friendly in the slightest.
- The Workaholic: Spends hours in his basement trying to perfect his experiments and ends up sorely regretting it.
Doctor Brewer's Clone
Portrayed By: Judah Katz (TV)
One of Dr. Brewer's plants that he accidentally brought to life.
- Adaptational Badass: The plant clone in the book is a clumsy and pitiful freak doing a very bad job fitting in with his human family. The one in the 2015 game is a full-blown plant monster with a giant nasty temper who can turn his appendages into crushing vines. Weed killer doesn't even destroy him like in the TV episode.
- Adaptational Ugliness: Official artwork, merchandise, and the video games tend to portray him as some horrible Botanical Abomination, when in the story itself he was passably human outside of having green blood and leaves instead of hair.
- Adaptational Villainy: Downplayed in the TV adaptation. While the clone still overpowered Dr Brewer and stole his identity in the book, there is never anything else especially ulterior about his motives. He just seems to want to continue the doctors research himself and live life as a human. The TV adaptation fleshes him out more, revealing that he wants to create plant clones of all of humanity to Kill and Replace them. He also is even more hostile and abrasive to Margaret and Casey then he was in the book.
- Affably Evil: He's a pretty nice guy in human form aside from the minor detail of knocking out and tying up Dr. Brewer and Mr. Martinez for days. He does try to be a good father to Margaret and Casey and even helps a neighbor install his sink.
- Anti-Villain: He just wanted a chance to be human and even tries to be a good one.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: He's chopped in half with an axe by the original Dr. Brewer, in full view of the rest of the family.
- Genetic Memory: He went rogue because of this-since he was a near perfect copy of the original Dr. Brewer, he had all of that man's memories.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: He wanted to be human and experience a normal life outside of being a plant.
- Kill and Replace: He was presumably planning this, both for him and the rest of his family.
- Obliviously Evil: According to Dr. Brewer in the TV adaptation anyway, who claims it just wanted to dominate its environment like most plants naturally do.
- Out-of-Character Alert: His cold and indifferent treatment of Dr. Brewers family while impersonating him quickly alarms Margaret and Casey, as their pop is usually very close with them.
- Plant Person: One accidentally created when Dr. Brewer cut his hand and some of his blood mixed with a plant.
- Turned Against Their Masters: He imprisoned his creator and stole his identity.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Plant Clone!Brewer may be one of the most creepy and intimidating villains in the series, but he really just wants to be human and gain a family. This even extends to his short appearance in the 2015 video game, where he only attacks you if he thinks you're threatening him, and starts whimpering pitifully once you spray him with weed killer.
