Goosebumps Review

Goosebumps is a 2015 family adventure horror fantasy comedy directed by Rob Letterman and written by Darren Lemke. It stars Jack Black as L.R. Stine, the acclaimed author of the popular Goosebumps book series this movie is more or less based on. Our trio of heroes is potrayed by Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush, and Ryan Lee. The movie is about this kid named Zach moving next door to R.L. Stine and his daughter Hannah, and, along with his friend Champ, they open one of Stine's books and a monster comes out, and it is no other than Slappy, the notorious ventriloquist dummy and my favorite Goosebumps character of all time. Slappy then releases all the Goosebumps monsters and they wreck havok in the city and now we have our movie. Now, I went into this movie cautious, but still really excited becasue when I was younger, I adored the Goosebumps books. I knew them all, and I had a really nice nostalgia feeling watching this movie. I got all the references and in-jokes and I was very happy with myself for doing so. The movie isn't perfect, but it's still a very fun family comedy. For starters, most of the humor works, but there still is some toilet humor which I have never been a fan of. There are two great Stephen King references in this movie because, for those of you who don't know, back in the 90's, Stine was really mad at King because he was much better known than Stien, so I thought that was a nice running gag. The actors were all really good, including jack Black. I was afraid he would ruin the movie but he was actually one of the best element. Another thing that was wonderful was that none other than Danny Elfman provides the chilling score for this movie. But the best, the absolute best part of the movie is of course the monsters. Every single monster in all of the Goosebumps books were in this movie at least for a second or two. Like I stated earlier, Slappy has always been my favorite Goosebumps character and in the movie he is absoultely perfect. He dosen't even somewhat resemble the crappy cartoon version with Hayden Christiansen. By the way, Google Hayden Christensen in Goosebumps. It's hilarious. Anyways, let's get into the bad stuff. There is some akward humor occasionally, some of the CGI used for the monsters, particullarly the Werewolf of Fever Swamp and the Abominal Snowman of Pasadena, dosen't look like it fits in with the rest of the movie. Another gripe I had with the movie is that they try this twist and it's pretty lame and is just in there because it's a rated PG family movie and I'm fine with that. It just seemed like a lame move. But then they do another twist and it's actually kind of funny. In the end, it's cute, fun, and light-hearted. If you're looking for a family film for Halloween that might make you feel nostalgic, has good characters, funny moments, decent effects, predictable moments, a great score, weirdness, a fast pace, and a sort of dumb twist, then this just may be the movie for you.

SCORE: 7.7/10

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