Goosebumps review: Based on RL Stine's books, this film will take you down memory lane

The Goosebumps series of books by RL Stine have always been a treasure of nostalgia. There was nothing more awesome in childhood than reading Stine’s little horror stories in bed under a blanket with a torch late at night when your parents assumed you were fast asleep. The anticipation of your parents walking into the room coupled with the dread of the stories themselves was a special kind of giddy feeling. It was spooky, adventurous fun, and Rob Letterman’s feature version of Goosebumps captures that spooky adventurous fun pretty well. [caption id=“attachment_2489254” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Jack Black in Goosebumps.[/caption] In the film, a kid named Zach (Dylan Minette) moves in with his mom to a new place. His neighbor, Mr Shivers (Jack Black) is predictably weird and mysterious, and there’s something not quite right between him and his daughter (Odeya Rush) – they seem to share some sort of a dark secret. When Zach and his new friend Champ (Ryan Lee), the constant target of bullies break into Shivers’ house to know what the heck is going on they stumble across some books they’re familiar with, and unleash some monsters out into the world, Jumanji style. What works is how funny the film is. There’s not a moment of dullness. Much like Jumanji, there’s constant stream of mayhem happening around the characters as they try to come up with ways to send the monsters back to where they came from. Some of the setups are wonderfully scary too, as the filmmakers channel the creepy, atmospheric ghoulish scares from the books. If you’re a fan of the books you’re in for a treat because some of your favourite monsters show up on screen. Those not familiar with the books will have a hard time not having fun with a monstrous blob, lawn gnomes, mummies, murderous clowns, flying vampire dogs and more. Slappy the ventroliquist dummy (voiced by Jack Black) takes center stage as the chief villain, and he’s both terrifying and fun. The special effects are a great blend of practical FX and CGI dressing and it works really well. Director Letterman goes one step further by injecting a blast of comedy throughout the film. So even if you’re not a fan of the books and aren’t easily scared there’s still a ton of fun to be had. The comic timing from everyone is near perfect. In one side splitting scene Lee runs away from Mr Shivers who is stuck on a compound wall, in another a werewolf comically runs through a supermarket knocking over things. There’s a surprising amount of heart too – it’s been a while since we’ve had a horror comedy where we end up caring about the characters. There are of course, some plot holes for the convenience of the script, like an abandoned amusement park whose lights somehow still functions, but we’re talking about a film that has aliens with guns so disbelief has to be suspended anyway. It’s not hard to predict the twists in the film, but it’s the journey that matters in this case. Few films this year have had the knack to entertain from start to end without letting up, and it works for children as well as man children like us. The bonus is that it’s available in 2D, so make sure you watch it.