Viewers beware. You’re in for a scare. Well, with this new version of Goosebumps you aren’t so much in for a scare as you are for a bubble gum version of some of the 1990s best scares.
That introduction may sound like a put down, but I assure you that it isn’t. Goosebumps (which I feel should be called Goosebumps: The Motion Picture) is kind of a fun nod back to the original books by the incredibly prolific R.L. Stine.
What surprised me about the movie is how incredibly well-balanced the picture is. Goosebumps doesn’t rest on any nostalgia that may exist within viewers who are my age or perhaps slightly older. Instead it creates a very meta (ooooh, how I hate that buzzword) premise.
The new boy in town, Zach (Dylan Minette), is having a hard time making friends – save for the goofy and nerdy Champ (Ryan Lee). Having a mom (Amy Ryan) who is the new vice principal of his new high school doesn’t help either.
But, he does manage to make one new friend – a girl next door named Hannah (Odeya Rush) who has a mysterious overprotective father (Jack Black). It turns out that Black’s character is R.L. Stine, author of the source material books.
Through a series of missteps Zach, Champ and Hannah release Stine’s monsters from his manuscripts. Now it’s up to that trio plus Stine to get the ghouls back in the books. I must admit that I was probably prone to like this movie from the go. Stine’s books were some of the few books – that weren’t comic books – that I actually really liked reading as a kid.
If I were to trace my love affair with words back to a certain point in time, inheriting a bunch of those books is probably a pivotal step in the right direction. The television program was also something that my older brother, my younger sister and I found often frightening and fascinating.
Fascinating mostly because I didn’t understand why all the characters said “about” like “aboot” and “sorey” instead of “sorry” until I realized it was shot in Canada. But I must say, I was surprised at how inventive this movie is with its implementation of the source material.
Screenwriters Derek Lemke and writing duo Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski have done a miraculous job of implementing a good deal – not all – of Stine’s literary creations that the narrative is refreshing, even if you know a good deal of these stories by heart as I do.
Director Rob Letterman handles the special effects and the characters fairly easily. The visuals never over power the characters and it seems quite a few of the characters are done with good old-fashioned putty and make-up.
My favorite effect in the film belongs to the work done with the haunted ventriloquist dummy Slappy (also voiced by Jack Black). The young actors are game for the material and wisely avoid a lot of the clichés that are generally associated with these kinds of movies. They’re not overly smart; they’re not pedantic or dumb.
They operate on a level of kids who are smart enough the audience believes they might be able to get out of the trouble that they were dumb enough to get into. Black has a lot of fun with the material and hams it up properly, playing Stine not as the sedate self that he is in real life, but in a wide-eyed panic that comes across as playful as opposed to annoying or over-the-top.
Will Goosebumps creep kids out the same way the books continue to and the way the television show did back in the late ‘90s? Probably not, unless the one you are thinking of taking is relatively little.
But the movie is mostly more funny and slyly engaging than it is scary. I would recommend Goosebumps for a fun time at the movies. If you remember the books, then a lot of the references within the picture will likely bring back good memories, but there is a pretty solid plot and characters to keep you engaged as well.
And if you aren’t a fan of the original books or maybe know a young person who hasn’t yet read them, this would likely serve as a proper introduction to the source material.
Brian Laughran
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