Goosebumps: A Movie Review

When you see movies as often as I do, sometimes you have to accept that some weeks will have dry spells in which you are forced to see movies you may not typically fancy.  The postive side of this is that it expands your movie viewing experience and  the other aspect is that you may end up seeing something you'd rather wish you hadn't.  The night I saw Goosebumps was in fact a night where nothing else was out and the movie start time worked perfectly with my schedule.  I knew Jack Black was in it so it could go either way.  I would either love it or hate it.

Zach and his mom are forced to move due to her new Vice Principal job at a high school.  Zach is less than impressed with his surroundings but tries to make the best of it.  He discovers he has a neighbor close to his age.  She seems interesting and reaches out to him within a day of moving in.  There friendship begins and consists of meeting in between their houses to talk.  She is homeschooled so this is really the only time they have to see one another.  Soon enough, Zach meets her controlling father who forbids Zach from seeing her anymore.  Luckily for Zach, Hannah has no interest in listening to her father so she continues to sneak over and eventually the two venture off into an intriguing place she disocvered in the woods.  Upon return, Hannah's father is livid and sends her inside then threatens to move.  Zach later hears screams and thinks Hannah is in trouble.  Once the police arrive and find nothing out of ther ordinary, Zach is left confused and worried as Hannah is nowhere to be found.  Her father lied to the police and explained she was out of the country with her mother.  Finally, Zach can't take it anymore so he sneaks over to find Hannah's whereabouts.  What he finds are books upon books that are locked.  With the help of his friend, curiousity gets the best of them and they open a book.  Before you know it Hannah has arrived and yells for them to close it, but before they can help it, a large and scary character literally comes out of the book.  You see, her dad is none other than R.L. Stine and his books are locked in order to keep the deep, dark characters in.  Their story gets more complex as other books are accidentally opened and all of the characters are loose and reaking havoc in town.  It is up to Zach, Hannah, and her father to get them all back.  Eventually they find out, the only way to do this is for R.L. Stine to write another book, which is hard to do when characters are setting fires and destroying the town. Zach is then given another twist in his life when he finds out Hannah is a character herself.  R.L. Stine created her and never told her or anyone else she wasn't real.  What is Zach to do now?  The characters are too difficult to capture and the girl he is falling for isn't real even though she is very real to him.

Some movies meant for children are still enjoyable for adults.  I am affraid this wasn't the case for Goosebumps.  It reminded me of a less impressive Jumanji.  The characters from the books were scary so I wouldn't recommend it for younger children, but can see 8-10 year olds enjoying it depending on their sensitivity.  I enjoyed the popcorn and that was about it.