Review of Goosebumps (2015) by Jesse O — 27 Jan 2016

Been on a run of pretty good movies lately. Surprised I enjoyed this movie as much as I did. Surprised would, perhaps, be the wrong word to describe it, but when I saw this movie and its trailers, I wasn't impressed.

Not that I thought it would be a bad movie, just that it wasn't anything that I felt like I'd ever watch. I don't wanna say that I'm super glad I ended up watching this, but I think this was a good movie that pays respect and tribute to a man that most elitist or snobbish book fans won't recognize or give proper respect to in RL Stine.

I've never actually read a Goosebumps book, or at least I haven't to the best of my knowledge, but I do know that the series has been very important to some in my generation. I don't know what the point of that was, but I digress, this movie is quite enjoyable and a perfectly fine for families.

Now normally I don't really give a shit if a movie is family friendly, I just care if it's good, but this one is both, so there you go. It's not like it actually adds much to the movie, but at least it's perfectly fine for the kids in the audience.

This is something like if they did Night at the Museum for RL Stine's Goosebumps' books and, you know what, it's better than any of the Museum movies, at least by my estimation. The fact that the film features, theoretically, all of RL Stine's monsters from his manuscripts, then the film moves at an incredibly quick pace and that's part of its blessing and its curse.

A curse because none of what the film throws at you ever seems to stick, or is particularly memorable, but the film never slows down, so you're never given enough time to actually be bored by the film.

So it helps and it detracts. The cast is solid, Jack Black looks really inspired in this film and the kids, or teens, more than hold up their own. Jillian Bell is quite entertaining in her role and I wish she had played a more prominent part of the proceedings, but she makes every appearance she's in count.

The film has its problems, of course, the characters aren't exactly that compelling, outside of Stine himself, and there's this really forced romance subplot between Hannah and Zach that leads to some really corny moments in the third act of the film.

Particularly when they play it up as if Zach and Hannah are in love despite, literally, only knowing each other like a couple of days before the shit hits the fan. It's a little tacky and unnecessary, but I get why it's there.

I remember watching a horror movie called The Hole, by Joe Dante, that was also more of a family friendly horror movie and that movie was so bad, shitty acting and dull horror. I don't know why, but this movie reminded me of that and how this is worlds and away better than The Hole.

The way this ends seems to suggest a sequel and while, in theory, I have no problem with that, what do you do in the sequel that's different than what you did in this movie? You already brought every monster out, so what can you do to top yourself? Or do you just repeat what was done before? So a sequel seems like a real hard sell to me, this just seems like a one-and-done type of movie to me.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Not every mildly successful movie needs a sequel. I'm not saying this is one of them, but it's something to keep in mind. The concept was novel and fresh enough to make this into an enjoyable little movie.

But if you repeat that, much like the Museum movies did, it ends up becoming the joke of diminishing returns. And I'm sure the people conceptualizing the sequel don't want that. But I digress, this is a good movie.

Has its flaws, but I think its high energy and its concept add up to make this enjoyable to watch.