Based on the wildly popular book series, Goosebumps’ rather meta plot has teenage boy Zach and his mother moving into a new town, where he is quickly drawn to the girl next door. Her overprotective father, as it turns out, is Goosebumps author R.L. Stein (played by Jack Black). After a series of events, Zach and his new buddy Champ discover the original Goosebumps manuscripts, which are each under lock and key. When they’re accidentally opened, the monsters from each book are unleashed on the town, and the three kids, along with Stine, have to put a stop to them.
Goosebumps is a pretty fun film overall. Though the scares are dulled, it’s made up for by the peppering of some pretty funny dialogue. The cast really helps the film along, particularly Dylan Minnette as Zach, who dutifully carries the film in the Marty McFly-esque “average American teen” role. Black really chews up the roll as the author, and is pretty fun to watch, but he couldn’t be any farther from the real R.L. Stine (who does cameo in the film). The real Stine (who acted as host to a handful of episodes of the Fox TV series based on the books) is considerably closer to Ben Stein than Jack Black.
The film feels a bit rushed, which might be the result of the demographic it’s aiming for. The tween audience was raised with very little that requires even the least bit of patience, so we’re launched into the action pretty early on. The deleted scenes on the Blu-ray has about ten minutes of build up toward the beginning of the film of that really would have helped establish Zach’s adjustment to his new school, and would have eventually made the third act a bit more gratifying.
The film also offers from an unfortunately all too common downfall these days, which is overuse of CGI. As the gang is battling the likes of a giant preying mantis, a mommy, a werewolf, and evil lawn gnomes, the use of CGI is understandable, but once again, it isn’t very scary. Sure, this is ultimately a kids film, but it’s a kids film that is based on a series of books that legitimately scared the bejesus out of it’s pubescent readers, so a bit of good old fashioned practical scares wouldn’t have hurt.
The extras on the Blu-ray are decent, and serve the demographic well. There is a bloopers reel and some deleted scenes, both of which are standard on a film of this type. There is also a vignette about main antagonist of the film, Slappy the ventriloquist dummy. Slappy is easliy the most popular character to come out of the book series, having starred in ten books. While it’s a nice introduction to the character, a bit more background about the book series as a whole would have been nice, for those not familiar with them. Also included in the extras are “Beginners Guide to Surviving a Goosebumps Creature” and “Strange Things are Happening…On-Set.”
Overall, the film confidently serves its purpose, which is a fun, family friendly horror movie with just enough smart dialogue and humor to appeal to a broad audience.
Video
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1
French (Canada): DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles
English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Discs
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
Digital copy
DVD copy
Packaging
Slipcover in original pressing
Playback
Region free