by Frank Calvillo
Anyone who has read Goosebumps feels that the popular horror series belongs to them and only them. Each book in the series brought forth both thrills and fun, igniting many a child’s imagination. It became so easy to forget exactly how powerful the series was as well as the fact that it was one of the few to actually to make a lasting impression on many a generation.
Like so many other beloved childhood properties, a movie had to be made. Unlike many other childhood properties, the creative team behind Goosebumps knows what they’re doing.
Teenager Zach (Dylan Minnette) is still recovering from the death of his father when he and his mother (Amy Ryan) move to a small Delaware town. Though his expectations are low, Zach finds himself intrigued by pretty next door neighbor Hannah (Odeya Rush) who lives with her tyrannical and highly overprotective father (Jack Black). As it turns out, Hannah’s father is R.L. Stine, the reclusive author of Goosebumps; a series of kids horror novels who keeps every book he’s ever written locked and stored away. Through a series of events, the books are unlocked and it isn’t long before every monstrous and horrific creature Stine has written, comes to life and proceeds to terrorize the small town.
Some films can’t help but scream the question: “who the right audience for this movie?” Perhaps anticipating such a question, the makers of Goosebumps have fashioned a movie to suit a number different types of moviegoers.
True, younger kids unfamiliar with the Goosebumps series could find this film version scary, especially ones who probably aren’t old enough to actually read any of Stine’s books. The film’s impressive effects produce a surprisingly realistic werewolf and an unnervingly sinister ventriloquist’s doll, among other monsters which may prove a bit too much for those under seven.
The obvious misgiving with Goosebumps however, is that even if a child is old enough to not be scared by the content, he or she would feel somewhat lost and bored if they weren’t familiar with the series. And yet Goosebumps never draws on enough specific references of any one particular book to feel like a fan’s movie, thus crushing any chance of alienating such audience members. This is a film which truly stands alone and can be enjoyed as a pure monster-filled romp with plenty of twists and turns galore.
Those familiar with the series will have nothing but fun as they are reunited with their favorite creatures from the books which captivated them as children. Aside from the very potent nostalgia factor, there’s more than enough tongue-in-cheek humor at hand to make sure the older Goosebumps fans don’t have to contend with middle school level comedy. Stine’s disdain with Stephen King is one of the film’s great running jokes; culminating with Black running into an empty school auditorium where the drama club is staging a version of The Shining, to which he exclaims: “Oh, come on!”
There’s a nice message for kids on the act of letting go, while the absence of technology (the monsters destroy the town’s power rending cell phones useless) earns the filmmakers applause for showing kids independent of the devices which seems to take them over before elementary school is complete.
Each of the kids does a pretty good job with their characters, especially Ryan Lee as Zach’s friend Champ, who not only manages to rise above the standard sidekick role, but also proves himself to be the only actor with the ability to keep up with Black’s delightfully manic performance.
Playing the most exaggerated version possible of the man himself, Black hasn’t been this wildly over-the-top in ages. With a wonderfully pretentious dialect and wicked sense of sarcasm, Black’s R.L. Stine is a cartoonish force of nature who is as every bit as animated as the characters which come to life. At one point during the screening, I remembered how Black was at one point hotly-tipped to star in the film version of the acclaimed comedic novel A Confederacy of Dunces. The project, which would have seen Black play a highly audacious know-it-all man/child, sadly fell apart in its pre-production stage. Something tells me that the actor’s turn here may hint at what he might have brought to that role.
For years there had been talk of trying to bring Stine’s property to the screen, with most discussions and proposed ideas leading to dead ends and Goosebumps forever languishing in development hell. In the end, I couldn’t have imagined a more interesting way to bring such a seemingly unfilmable series to life than through this fun postmodern slant. I sincerely hope the rights holders to Encyclopedia Brown are planning to go to the movies this weekend.
