I saw this movie in theaters the other day, and I thought it was pretty darn good. Concept-wise, this movie feels rather similar to the Jack Black "Goosebumps" movies, given that it is about a group of kids finding a collection of scary stories and making the monsters from those stories come to life by opening the books. However, I thought that this movie was a little bit better than those films, because in addition to being fairly well-written, it can be genuinely scary sometimes.
The atmosphere in this film is great. It has a nice eeriness to it, and you can feel the gradual increase in tension and dread as more and more of the monsters come to life. In addition, the backstory behind the stories that these monsters are from, which involves the writer having been turned into a rage-filled monster from being abused and victimized by her family, was appropriately disturbing.
As for the monsters themselves, they are really well-done. In terms of design, they are recreated from the artwork of the books surprisingly well, and some of the scenes they are in have some grotesque imagery. The scarecrow Harold and The Jangly Man stood out, but the most terrifying scenes for me were the scene with The Pale Lady at the halls of the hospital and the scene where hundreds of spiders came out of Ruth's spider bite.
The performances from the cast are pretty solid for the most part, especially Zoe Colletti as Stella. There are some scenes that feel rather like padding, but other than that, the pacing for this film was pretty good, especially in the later half.
I was entertained and even sometimes frightened by this film. I recommend this to fans of the books and just anyone who loves a good scare.
RATING: B+
The atmosphere in this film is great. It has a nice eeriness to it, and you can feel the gradual increase in tension and dread as more and more of the monsters come to life. In addition, the backstory behind the stories that these monsters are from, which involves the writer having been turned into a rage-filled monster from being abused and victimized by her family, was appropriately disturbing.
As for the monsters themselves, they are really well-done. In terms of design, they are recreated from the artwork of the books surprisingly well, and some of the scenes they are in have some grotesque imagery. The scarecrow Harold and The Jangly Man stood out, but the most terrifying scenes for me were the scene with The Pale Lady at the halls of the hospital and the scene where hundreds of spiders came out of Ruth's spider bite.
The performances from the cast are pretty solid for the most part, especially Zoe Colletti as Stella. There are some scenes that feel rather like padding, but other than that, the pacing for this film was pretty good, especially in the later half.
I was entertained and even sometimes frightened by this film. I recommend this to fans of the books and just anyone who loves a good scare.
RATING: B+