[yasr_overall_rating]
A teenager teams up with the daughter of young adult horror author R.L. Stine after the writer’s imaginary demons are set free on the town of Greendale, Maryland.
R.L. Stine, author of over 180 ‘Goosebumps’ books, has been recognized as one of the best-selling authors in history. Over 400,000 copies of his books have sold worldwide in 32 languages since the first book’s publication in 1992. ‘Goosebumps’ books have become a childhood staple for two generations. The humor, nostalgia, charm, and kid friendly horror that “Goosebumps” the movie has managed to capture will most definitely fan the flames of Stine’s books!
“Goosebumps” highlights the humor and comedic timing of Jack Black as hermited R.L. Stine. After the epic failure of “The D Train,” Black offers audiences a completely rib-splitting performance with a well-written script and clever direction by Rob Letterman.
As the movie begins, we meet teenage Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) and his mother Gayle (Amy Ryan) as they arrive in the small town of Madison, Delaware after having left New York. Upset about moving from a big city to a small town, Zach finds a silver lining when he meets the beautiful girl, Hannah (Odeya Rush), living right next door. But every silver lining has a cloud, and Zach’s comes when he learns that Hannah has a mysterious dad who is revealed to be R. L. Stine (Jack Black), the author of the bestselling ‘Goosebumps’ series. It turns out that there is a reason why Stine is so strange – the monsters that his books made famous…are real. Stine protects the world by keeping them locked up in their books. When Zach unintentionally unleashes the monsters from their manuscripts and they begin to terrorize the town, it’s suddenly up to Stine, Zach, and Hannah to get all of them back in the books where they belong. Our hero Zach also has the mandatory quirky sidekick – Champ (Ryan Lee). For any fans of the TV show “The Big Bang Theory,” you will be tickled with Lee’s rendition of Champ resembling a young Howard Wolowitz!
The adventure begins when Zach thinks he hears Hannah scream and the police offer no assistance. Zach and Champ break into Hannah’s house to rescue her, and instead begin the “night of terror” where Stine’s monsters escape their books. Approximately 25 of Stine’s monsters are released, with his most famous of monsters, Slappy the ventriloquist dummy, leading the attack on the town. Slappy is Stine’s most well-known character. He is highlighted in 3 books and served as the host for Goosebumps television show and videos.
Referring to Stine as “Pappa,” Slappy brings to light the anger and resentment that the characters in the books feel about being locked away. While chilling and extremely creepy, the horror level is well tempered with funny one liners and well placed physical humor.
One by one we see Slappy release the monsters to take over the town, and destroy the books they came out of so that they can never be recaptured. Stein and Zach devise a plan to save the town and destroy the monsters. In true ‘Goosebumps’ fashion, their adventure takes us through a graveyard, an abandoned amusement park, a post apocalyptic town and finally ending at the high school where the kids and adults attending the homecoming dance are oblivious of anything happening outside the doors. As our team of monster slayers make their way to the high school, keep an eye out for nods to classic monster lore and even a “Dr. Who” reference.
The first attempt at a “Goosebumps” movie was in 1998 when Tim Burton was going to direct, but it didn’t materialize. In 2008, Columbia Pictures acquired the rights, and brought on board the screen-writing team of Scott Alexander and Lary Karazewskie. The duo decided against writing a story using only one of Stine’s books, feeling that they were too short to make the transition to the big screen. Instead, we are given a fast-paced, action-filled story where all of Stine’s work comes to life.
“Goosebumps” achieves a very succesful balancing act at entertaining adults and kids equally. Going to see this movie with my 19, 16, 15 and 9-year-old kids ended up being one of the best family movie nights of the year! The Abominable Snowman, zombies, killer psycho gnomes, Godzilla sized bugs, man-eating plants, the blob, the invisible boy, the werewolf and of course Slappy, all make for a chilling trip down memory lane!
In theaters now
