Zach and his mom just moved into Madison, Delaware. He meets his neighbor Hannah, a home-schooled girl. One night she shows him an abandoned amusement park. Her father warns him not to see her again. He then sees their shadow on the window, arguing when she suddenly screams, making him call the cops. The father disproves his claims, but then he tricks him to go out, and Zach sneaks in; taking a new friend Champ who's passing by. They found a collection of locked Goosebumps manuscripts. Champ suspects something but Zach dismisses it, opening the lock with a key. Hannah comes finding the opened book, which suddenly has its title monster, the abominable snowman, jumps out from the pages. It runs out after tearing out a wall. Zach and Champ follow Hannah chases it to a hockey rink. She explains it can be locked back in the book if they open the book on it. They get cornered by it but the father opens the book behind it, locking it back into the book.
Back at Hannah's place they find another book, Slappy's, has been accidentally opened. Slappy greets them and soon runs away with the rest of the books after burning his own book. Slappy starts opening the books and burning them after the monsters in them get out. Hannah, Zach, Champ and the father face a batch of evil gnomes and escape. In the car father reveals himself as the Goosebumps writer R.L. Stine. He explains the cause behind the monsters being real. They shake off the invisible boy and escape a giant locust into a supermarket, only to find a werewolf. Zach's aunt Lorraine saves them and Zach tells her to warn the town while they take a shortcut to find Stine's special typewriter in Zach's school to let him write another book to catch all the monsters back. They escape ghouls in the cemetery shortcut, and Zach discovers Hannah is also Stine's creations.
In the school Zach confronts Stine about Hannah. They find the typewriter and Zach and Champ warns the school dance. The giant locust confirms Zach's warning. Slappy focuses the monsters advance to the school, setting free more monsters and burning more books. The school gets barricaded but the monsters advance easily. Champ helps a girl from the werewolf. Slappy confronts Stine, breaking his fingers and stopping him from finishing the new book. The whole school gets cornered, so Stine, Hannah, Zach and Champ lures the monsters away while they flee to the amusement park. Slappy sets fee the blob so Stine lets himself gets captured as bait while Hannah and Zach get to the ferris wheel and finish the story. But as the new book sucks all the monsters back in, so does Hannah gets sucked in. Stine gets a job at the school, and apparently he wrote another book, a rewrite on Hannah, bringing her back to reality.
Well, now I see why the movie managed to nab top positions in the box office for its first weeks. It was able to gain in from the combination of factors; the building mood approaching Halloween, the lack of good and worthy Halloween movies, and the sense of nostalgia of the 90s kids who then read the books, like I did. Although the story doesn't really reflect the usual mood of the original books, at least the nostalgia effect kicks in greatly as the appearance of the familiar monsters keeps the old readers to their seats the entire movie.
Again I must say that the box office phenomenon will likely be mostly caused by the nostalgic parts, as the story itself lacks the focus the original books had. Having more than one monster or ghost at a time deprives the movie of the common horror formula of recurring threat and instead changes the movie into a quick paced adventure rather than the scary children's horror it use to be.
Also the movie doesn't really reflect the full breadth of how Goosebumps can be. I own five Indonesian editions of the book, including the Shock Street, Camp Jellyjam, and Horrorland. It felt very much nostalgic to see Shock Street's locust. But the movie only follows the mainstream Hollywood formula of giving happy endings. I was kind of expecting that the movie may go somewhere wild like how My Hairiest Adventure went.
A thing to add is that the CGI looks nice enough to give adequate weight for the monsters to look scary. The acting overall is just adequate to support the movie. Jack Black did enough as the horror author in a more comedic and adventurous movie. He really looks funny even in his threatening lines. Also he did quite a great job in vicing Slappy and The Invisible Boy, maximizing the contrast in them that I didn't recognize it's him until I read the credits. Dylan Minnette and Odeya Rush did just okay, their faces are the real reason they landed the roles.
My opinion about Goosebumps (2015) is a score of 7 out of 10, which covers mainly the nostalgic parts and the adventurous rush. A recommendation just goes as a so-so say since it's not really a horror movie at all in this Halloween time.
Back at Hannah's place they find another book, Slappy's, has been accidentally opened. Slappy greets them and soon runs away with the rest of the books after burning his own book. Slappy starts opening the books and burning them after the monsters in them get out. Hannah, Zach, Champ and the father face a batch of evil gnomes and escape. In the car father reveals himself as the Goosebumps writer R.L. Stine. He explains the cause behind the monsters being real. They shake off the invisible boy and escape a giant locust into a supermarket, only to find a werewolf. Zach's aunt Lorraine saves them and Zach tells her to warn the town while they take a shortcut to find Stine's special typewriter in Zach's school to let him write another book to catch all the monsters back. They escape ghouls in the cemetery shortcut, and Zach discovers Hannah is also Stine's creations.
In the school Zach confronts Stine about Hannah. They find the typewriter and Zach and Champ warns the school dance. The giant locust confirms Zach's warning. Slappy focuses the monsters advance to the school, setting free more monsters and burning more books. The school gets barricaded but the monsters advance easily. Champ helps a girl from the werewolf. Slappy confronts Stine, breaking his fingers and stopping him from finishing the new book. The whole school gets cornered, so Stine, Hannah, Zach and Champ lures the monsters away while they flee to the amusement park. Slappy sets fee the blob so Stine lets himself gets captured as bait while Hannah and Zach get to the ferris wheel and finish the story. But as the new book sucks all the monsters back in, so does Hannah gets sucked in. Stine gets a job at the school, and apparently he wrote another book, a rewrite on Hannah, bringing her back to reality.
Well, now I see why the movie managed to nab top positions in the box office for its first weeks. It was able to gain in from the combination of factors; the building mood approaching Halloween, the lack of good and worthy Halloween movies, and the sense of nostalgia of the 90s kids who then read the books, like I did. Although the story doesn't really reflect the usual mood of the original books, at least the nostalgia effect kicks in greatly as the appearance of the familiar monsters keeps the old readers to their seats the entire movie.
Again I must say that the box office phenomenon will likely be mostly caused by the nostalgic parts, as the story itself lacks the focus the original books had. Having more than one monster or ghost at a time deprives the movie of the common horror formula of recurring threat and instead changes the movie into a quick paced adventure rather than the scary children's horror it use to be.
Also the movie doesn't really reflect the full breadth of how Goosebumps can be. I own five Indonesian editions of the book, including the Shock Street, Camp Jellyjam, and Horrorland. It felt very much nostalgic to see Shock Street's locust. But the movie only follows the mainstream Hollywood formula of giving happy endings. I was kind of expecting that the movie may go somewhere wild like how My Hairiest Adventure went.
A thing to add is that the CGI looks nice enough to give adequate weight for the monsters to look scary. The acting overall is just adequate to support the movie. Jack Black did enough as the horror author in a more comedic and adventurous movie. He really looks funny even in his threatening lines. Also he did quite a great job in vicing Slappy and The Invisible Boy, maximizing the contrast in them that I didn't recognize it's him until I read the credits. Dylan Minnette and Odeya Rush did just okay, their faces are the real reason they landed the roles.
My opinion about Goosebumps (2015) is a score of 7 out of 10, which covers mainly the nostalgic parts and the adventurous rush. A recommendation just goes as a so-so say since it's not really a horror movie at all in this Halloween time.