This is a 2015 movie aimed at scaring the crap out of children. It is in fact aimed at children and rather than having all the clues pointing towards a particular villain be it werewolf or vampire only to discover they had it wrong and there was nothing to fear after all. The Goosebumps story had monsters in them and was meant for children and were in many cases scary for very young or young at heart viewers or readers. There was a series of books and I maybe wrong but I believe there was a series of TV shows as well. Well this movie was originally going to have Tim Burton direct but he stepped away and Rob Letterman took over at the helm but that might explain why Danny Elfman got to music job. The cast is headed by Jack Black and supported predominantly by children namely Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush, Ryan Lee, Jillian Bell and Amy Ryan as mum. The movie was produced on a budget of up to $84m and then went onto gross $158.3m at the box-office. It was also well received by critics as IMDb gave it a modest 6.3/10 and the Rotten Tomatoes guys gave it a creditable 78%.
The plot follows a mother and son after the death of the dad move out of New York City and go to the peaceful climes of Delaware. Moving to a strange town and joining a strange school is bad enough but when Zach (the main boy character) meets a girl called Hannah. Her dad is not so keen on the relationship developing (it is only friendship – its still only a kid’s movie remember). They go to an abandoned amusement park where their friendship blossoms until they return home and Hannah’s da warns Zach to stay away from Hannah or something bad is going to happen. Whilst his mum is supervising a dance at the school Zach convinces Hannah’s father to go to the Police so he another friend Champ go to Hannah’s home. Whilst there he sees a library of Goosebumps books and opening The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena, they release the monster from the book into the real world. Hannah’s dad gets the monster back in the book and reveals he is R L Stine the author of all the Goosebumps books and more creatures are released after the main villain Slappy from the Night Of the Living Dummy and he is not happy at being locked up for so many years and now he is out for revenge. Unleashing as many creatures as possible how are this small band of kids and an author going to save this town, the country and even the world from all the monsters that are no unleashed.
I have to admit to dipping in and out of this movie as my kids loved it and probably more so the sequel but this has hung around so this must mean this is an enjoyable movie. There are many elements to enjoy with this film the CGI monster are suitably cartoony not to be genuinely scary but are believable enough to make you want to cheer on the kids as they do battle. The humour works and the story is face paced and keeps kids entertained. Seeing at the movie is an hour and forty thee minutes long its some fifty minutes shorter than the last review. It’s a good movie that can cater to many tastes but I would still not recommend this to very young or very nervous children.
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