Goosebumps ***½ (2015, Jack Black, Dylan Minnette, Ryan Lee, Odeya Rush, Amy Ryan, Jillian Bell) – Movie Review

Dylan Minnette stars in this delightful fantasy adventure horror comedy as nice American teenager Zach, who moves from New York to the small town of Madison, Delaware, with his equally nice mom (Amy Ryan) after his dad dies. She’s the new vice-principal at his new school, where he meets his new best friend Champ (Ryan Lee).

Things look up for Zach when he meets the beautiful girl next door, Hannah (Odeya Rush). But then Hannah’s strange and mysterious dad, who is revealed to be – (Jack Black), creator of the best-selling Goosebumps series, warns him off.

It turns out that the monsters that Stine’s books made famous are real, and he protects his readers by keeping them locked up in their books. But, in a bid to help Hannah, Zach unwittingly unleashes the demons from their books and they begin to terrorise the town.

Goosebumps is highly appealing and monstrous lots of fun, with good acting from the half dozen actors playing the main characters the screenplay focuses on. The rest are the CGI monsters, nothing extraordinary or ultra-special, but a lot of fun anyway. The monsters are important but it’s also essential that they don’t over-dominate the human characters, and that’s what they’ve got so right here, otherwise it just would be a moderate animated feature.

Danny Elfman is the usual suspect they rounded up to pen the score and he’s exactly the right man for the job, as the music really buzzes the show along and sends you home singing its main theme (maybe just me!).

Darren Lemke’s screenplay is bright, light-hearted and amusing, making easy, pleasurable work of the story based on the real R L Stine’s Goosebumps books. Jack Black is surprisingly low key in the star role, and all the better and more amusing for it. He also voices two of the monsters, Slappy the ventriloquist’s dummy and the Invisible Boy. Minnette, Rush and Lee all play it cute, precisely as required, Ryan is warm as mom, and Jillian Bell funny as her sister (and Zach’s aunt) Lorraine.

The hour and three quarters just vanishes and I was looking for more. A sequel must be on the horizon. I’ve never really like gnomes, but I never knew they could be this scary!

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3272

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