'Goosebumps' review, starring Jack Black

Goosebumps never made it onto my bookshelves as a kid. Not because it wasn’t popular, of course. It just never found itself at home. When it came time to bring the series to the big screen, then, perhaps it wasn't meant to be for me.

Adapted loosely from R.L. Stine’s beloved series of the same name, Rob Letterman’s playful, frantic interpretation takes the structure of the books to heart. It’s clean-cut, good-natured, it knows when to get in and out and it understands exactly what it wants to do. It doesn’t waste too much time, lets the scares come as often as the laughs and isn’t afraid to celebrate in some campy B-movie in the meantime. The intentions are earnest, but they fail to capture the genuine audacious spirit found in its center.

The reverence to the source material is never less than genuine. It’s clear they want to respect Stine’s legacy as fitfully as they possibly can — incorporating not just one, but also nearly all the characters he created inside at once. But at the same time, however, it feels a little too riskless, a little too safe in nature to come as anything other than ordinary and stale. Beyond simply tackling the throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach, it doesn’t inspire to anything more than your average, run-of-the-mill save-the-town family adventure. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that. It just doesn’t leave you shocked.

Moving begrudgingly to the small town of Madison, Delaware after his widowed mom (Amy Ryan) receives a vice president position at the local high school, teenager Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) muddles his way through his new surroundings until he meets Hannah (Odeya Rush), an adventurous, sarcastic young girl locked inside the house next door by her mysterious father (Jack Black). Believing she’s in danger, he sneaks into her house one night with fellow high student Champ (Ryan Lee) only to discover something: various Goosebumps manuscripts lined up around the shelves.

As it turns out, Zach’s neighbor is none other than R.L. Stine, the reclusive author behind the monstrously popular children horror series. And it seems his manuscripts wield the unusual power to make the characters inside — from the abominable snowman to an unforgiving army of lawn gnomes — come alive in our world once they’re unlocked from their hardback chambers. Now three teenage strangers, with the help of Stine, must work to save the town as the creatures from the author’s mind continue to attack them at every corner. Leading to their demise is Slappy the Dummy (voiced by Black), a ventriloquist puppet much smarter than his name implies and one completely thirsty for vengeance. In order to save everyone, Stine must defeat his creations with his own pen, and to do so, he’ll have to work against his most important deadline to date.

It’s an entirely fun concept, one that invites the characters everyone’s nostalgic for without having any of them overtake the screen from one another. It respects the source material well enough, letting the original fans enjoy the references and callbacks to their favorites but doesn’t let it overtake the story at hand. It also serves as a fine enough introduction to the Scholastic series. Beyond this, however, Letterman’s film doesn’t give provide anything to get invested in. It’s harmless with good intentions, inviting children to experience some thrills and chills with some nice laughs on the side for the holiday season, and it doesn’t necessarily interfere with the morals of Stine’s work either. Through largely disregarding the structure of Stine’s books, however, and often refusing to provide any commentary on the nature of them, as well as their popularity through the years, it doesn’t really amount to much. It’s a feature-length advertisement to Stine’s work, especially as they’re quick to note how the series sold over 400 million copies worldwide and then trademark on some of its most popular stories.

Characters come across more like stereotypes and archetypes than anything else. Zach becomes simply our stock lead, Hannah is your typical girl-next-door love interest, Champ performs all the comic relief characteristics you’d expect and Black ultimately plays the part exactly as one would expect him to. He works himself around the role rather than puts himself into the character, which never lets us become immersed in Stine’s personality. Meanwhile, the supporting cast, including Jillian Bell as Aunt Lorraine, Ken Marino as Coach Carr, Timothy Simons as Officer Stevens and Amanda Lund as Officer Brooks, are all served well throughout, though most end up either overused or underutilized throughout, notably Simons and Lund.

As expected, though, Slappy is the real star. He relishes in his big-screen introduction and it proves itself much better suited for Black’s talents. He captivates and constantly remains a delight throughout, and it’s a shame they didn’t just end up making one of his stories instead. He naturally chews up the scenery in the best way possible, never afraid to let some genuine cheekiness inside the film. Despite being completely wooden, he’s the only character who feels alive.

Thankfully, Goosebumps doesn’t ever take itself too seriously, but it often sacrifices incorporating anything original beyond the premise. It relies upon familiar tropes and clichés to help carry it through. Perhaps it comes from not reading the books in earnest, but it never feels as if they’ve captured what made these stories beloved all these years. It quickly grows repetitive through the various chase scenes it bounces around, and the jokes often don’t hit as much as they miss. Despite the enthusiasm felt in earnest from the cast and crew, it doesn’t stride far from anything we’ve seen before. It’s a fairly mundane adventure, with only a handful of laughs and scares to keep the blood flowing. Needless to say, it doesn’t inspire any goosebumps.