School on Halloween can already be a little chaotic.
Costumes, candy and trying to focus on absolutely anything when you know there are treats waiting for you at home is enough excitement for one day.
Getting trapped inside your school while a supernatural figure hunts you from the shadows?
Yeah, that’s probably not on the lesson plan.
Just in time for spooky season, pocket.watch is taking “The Besties” from YouTube into a new scripted adventure with “The Besties in Haunted High,” a six-episode original series starring creators Mackenzie Turner and Lael Hansen. The series will premiere globally and exclusively on Tubi on October 13.
Based on “The Besties” YouTube channel, which currently has 3.3 million subscribers, the new series takes Turner and Hansen somewhere considerably spookier than their usual adventures when an empty Halloween dance turns into a nightmare.
After finding themselves trapped and locked inside their school, the pair must complete six different games to collect six keys and find a way out. Making matters slightly more complicated—and by slightly, we mean considerably—is the supernatural figure hunting them from the shadows as they try to escape.
Suddenly, missing a homework assignment doesn’t sound quite so terrifying.
“The Besties in Haunted High” will consist of six 30-minute episodes and marks the latest creator-led original from pocket.watch, which has continued bringing digital creators and their audiences into longer-form entertainment across traditional streaming platforms.
Turner arrives with an enormous audience of her own, currently reaching 7.8 million subscribers, while Hansen has 1.9 million. Turning “The Besties” into a scripted series gives their existing community something familiar while expanding the duo’s world into a format capable of reaching viewers well beyond YouTube.
And Tubi is giving that expansion quite a large stage.
According to the announcement, the streaming platform currently reaches 110 million monthly active users, with “The Besties in Haunted High” becoming part of its continued partnership with pocket.watch and its push to bring creator-driven entertainment to broader audiences.
The series was created by Turner, pocket.watch Chief Content Officer Albie Hecht and Carin Davis, based on an original concept by Turner. Hecht is also directing the series, while Turner, Hecht and pocket.watch CEO and Founder Chris M. Williams serve as executive producers.
But getting trapped in Haunted High isn’t the end of pocket.watch’s plans for The Besties.
It’s actually looking more like the beginning.
Pocket.watch and Turner are already developing a consumer products licensing program centered around “The Besties,” which is expected to launch in early 2027. That means the jump to Tubi isn’t simply about turning an established YouTube concept into six longer episodes; the company is beginning to build a larger entertainment franchise around the characters and community Turner has already established online.
It’s a path pocket.watch has become increasingly familiar with.
The company currently has several additional creator originals in production, including “Love Diana: Music Hunters” with Kids Diana Show and Amazon MGM Studios, which is set to launch on Prime Video in January 2027. A holiday special featuring gaming duo Maizen’s JJ & Mikey will arrive across several premium platforms later this year, while “Captain Future Pirate: Chedda Quest” will bring together creators DeeDee Show, Kaven Adventures, Caleb Kids Show, Kamden Boi & Kyraboo and My PB&J for a new series premiering on Ryan and Friends PLUS.
Pocket.watch’s existing creator-led originals also include the teen series “Rabbit Hole,” currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+, the Emmy-nominated “Ryan’s Mystery Playdate” and animated series “Love, Diana.”
That growing slate makes “The Besties in Haunted High” part of something much larger happening with digital-first entertainment. Creators aren’t necessarily confined to the platforms where audiences first discovered them anymore. Their characters, ideas and communities can move with them into scripted television, streaming and eventually even the toy aisle.
For The Besties, that next step just happens to involve six keys, six games and one exceptionally unfortunate Halloween dance.
“The Besties in Haunted High” premieres globally and exclusively on Tubi on October 13 with six 30-minute episodes.
So maybe there is a lesson to be learned here after all.
If the school is mysteriously empty on Halloween night, perhaps just go trick-or-treating instead.