Goosebumps

The world of R.L. Stine, the huge best-selling author of the popular horror-but-you-know-for-kids book, is a very remarkable one. It is complete with cleverly visualized monsters that derive from classic adult or “adult” horror, but which are constantly and imaginatively twisted to a younger audience’s taste and tolerance. Glenn Kenny said, “The point is to supply the requisite, um, goosebumps, but not traumatizing nightmares.” Stine’s success is well deserved, and his stories have been adapted for television and direct-to-video areas, among others. A 2015 feature film expedition into that world is a potentially challenging performance, bur director Rob Letterman, helped by writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski and Darren Lemke and an energetic cast, rise to the occasion, delivering a movie that’s a lot of good scary fun despite some questioning construction.

Kenny noted, “Scenarists Alexander and Karaszewski go big by constructing a meta-narrative that can contain an incredible number of Stine’s cheeky/scary monsters.” The story begins with Amy Ryan playing the protagonist’s mom, who is the assistant principal, driving her and displeasured son Zach, played by Dylan Minette, to their new home in what he believes to be the most boring spot on this planet, let alone Delaware. Things look up a bit with the appearance of his cute teen girl neighbor Hannah (Odeya Rush) but get confused when Hannah’s crabby, eccentric dad (Jack Black) comes in. At school, a wide-eyed nerd named Champ and referred to as “Chump” by every other student, played by Ryan Lee, makes fast friends with Zach, and the two decide to find out exactly what’s wrong with the new neighbors. (It’s pretty obvious that a big part of the movie got cut in order to get to the monster stuff quicker, and the narrative does take some lumps on account of this.)

It turns out that Black is actually…R.L. Stine, or “R.L. Stine,” and what makes his books so good is that the monsters in them are real – they’re only enclosed when the manuscripts of the books in which they appear are bound and sealed. When Zach’s nosy accidentally brings out an abominable snowman, a ventriloquist dummy named Slappy, voiced by Jack Black (Kenny said, “A veritable doppelgänger for Black’s Stine”) becomes the leader of an army of now-free creatures. Slappy’s plan is to take some kind of not mentioned revenge on his, and their, creator, and cause damage on the town while they’re at it.

Kenny mentioned, “And so we get a series of horror set-pieces that are toned-down variants on the comedy horror scarefests of recent years.” The scene where Stine, Zach, Hannah and Champ try to escape a gym-shorts-sporting werewolf in a supermarket reminds both “The Shining” and “Zombieland,” while being kinder than either. Speaking of “The Shining,” that book and its author are the subjects of several knowing and funny in jokes. The movie is filled with them. Kenny said, “Although my conviction that the army of toy robots seen in a couple of shots is based on the toy designed by Fred MacMurray in Douglas Sirk’s ‘50s melodrama “There’s Always Tomorrow” might be a stretch on my part.”

In any case, every creature, which vary from the tiny robots to alarming freeze-gun arming aliens to giant mantis, are provided very nicely in realistic computer animation, while the live-action cast is always attractive and often very funny. Stine’s character normally refers to the all-important “twist” he builds into each story, and this movie has a twist of its own, a pretty dangerous one that develops on the original reflexivity of the plot itself, while also making a believably sincere statement about the power of imagination and its serious exercise. Kenny ended his review by saying, “Lest I make this sound too heavy, it’s really not; the movie is breezy and fun, offering thrills for kids and a nicely nostalgic matinee vibe for adults.”

This is a very fun, entertaining movie that you should definitely go to the theaters to check out. Have no fear, this isn’t really scary, but is actually one that you can take the whole family out to see and have a nice laugh. Also, this film is right for the Halloween season.

Now look out tomorrow because I will be ending the month off with one of my favorite film series based on one of my favorite series of novels.