Goosebumps
DIRECTOR: Rob Letterman
CAST: Jack Black, Odeya Rush, Dylan Minnette, Ryan Scott Lee, Amy Ryan, Jillian Bell
CLASSIFICATION: 10PG
RUNNING TIME: 103 minutes
RATING: 3 stars (out of 5)
Theresa Smith
Spooky and frenetic, Goosebumps is charming family fare. It provides delicious scares for little people and a few goosebumps for the adults, while not getting too gross or grotesque.
Though it never gets too scary for children to handle, the film still uses all the scary film imagery developed over the years. Huge insects devour cars, while aliens march around with freezing beams – but there is no blood and you never see a person actually being killed.
Director Letterman keeps it scary by placing characters in danger and letting loose all sorts of boggles, ghouls and ghosties, but the scariness lies in what is seen, not what is hinted at (and therefore even scarier in the minds of over-imaginative children).
Once the characters have been introduced and the action starts, there is always something happening in every frame and the score keeps things suitably creepy.
Moving to a new town, upset teenager Zach (Minnette) befriends the intriguing girl next door, Hannah (Rush). Trying to find out more about his new friend, he breaks into her house, as teenagers do, and accidentally opens a book which lets loose a monster.
Turns out, Hannah’s dad is RL Stine, the author of the Goosebumps books, scary stuff for kids and for some unexplained reason his book creations can come to life, which they now do. Jack Black mostly, neatly underplays things as Stine, even if his accent comes and goes depending on how stressful the scene is.
What starts as a teenage fish-out-of-water story turns into a crazy escapade running from monsters with some funny moments in between. In addition to deliberately making friends with Hannah, Zach inadvertently also befriends dweeby Champ (Lee) who provides great comic relief.
While they have steered away from the more psychologically disturbing Goosebumps tales, the film has still mined many of the original books’ scary characters from obvious ones like the werewolf to fun ones like garden gnomes or the blob that eats everything to downright creepy in Slappy, the ventriloquist dummy.
The 3d preview was dark (Ster-Kinekor Cavendish still haven’t figured out this technology) so I must have missed quite a bit of action, but what I did see reminded me that watching something in 2D is just fine. There’s running and screaming and then eventually Zach figures out how to save the day.
This release is timed to coincide with US Halloween celebrations, but it would work here too – just stock up on the Coke and popcorn and watch the kids jump out of their seats.
If you liked Jumanji or Monster House, you will like this.