Beware, you're in for a scare

Who's the dummy now?

Believe it or not, there was a time in my childhood where I actually enjoyed reading books....mostly Goosebumps books. From the freaky art covers to the twist endings that R.L. Stine managed to pull off in every story, if there was a moment where I wasn't playing my Game Boy, I was probably reading Goosebumps. At first, I wasn't sure how a film adaptation would work seeing as there are so many stories to choose from, each warranting their own movie. Instead, the film goes a Who Framed Roger Rabbit route by combining all the infamous monsters from the Goosebumps lore into one main story. The result? Surprisingly good. Zach (Dylan Minnette) and his mother have just relocated from New York to the more hidden suburbs of Madison, Delaware. Upon arrival at their new house, Zach

meets his next door neighbors Hannah (Odeya Rush) and her mysterious and overly-protective father (Jack Black). One night, ​from his room Zach witnesses what appears to be an argument gone wrong between Hannah and her father and sneaks into their house to see what has happened. Inside, Zach comes across a bookshelf containing locked manuscripts of Goosebump stories. Zach immediately realizes the reason why as upon opening one of the them, the monsters from the books are unleashed and soon cause havoc in the real world. Zach and his friends must now work together to bring the monsters back and (literally) keep them under lock. Typically, kids books don't always make the smoothest transition to film, and most times end up looking like something completely different from the book itself (I'm looking at you Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), so I had my doubts about Goosebumps. But I'm happy to say that the movie managed to pull off a great feat by borrowing elements that made the books great to create an eerie and and enriching story with an unusually deep mythos on the importance of overcoming desolation. Goosebumps delivers where most movies based on kids books fail, the twist this time being giving us something we weren't expecting but end up enjoying. 

-Reviewed by Razor, 1/28/16