Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
After moving to a small town, Zach Cooper finds a silver lining when he meets next door neighbor Hannah, the daughter of bestselling Goosebumps series author R.L. Stine. When Zach unintentionally unleashes real monsters from their manuscripts and they begin to terrorize the town, it’s suddenly up to Stine, Zach and Hannah to get all of them back in the books where they belong.
Goosebumps (2015) is a fun, competently made family adventure-horror that cleverly uses R.L. Stine himself as a character and weaves multiple monsters into a single narrative. The plot is serviceable and entertaining for its target audience, with a cute meta-conceit about books bringing monsters to life, though it doesn't dig very deep. Jack Black's hammy, self-aware performance as Stine is a highlight and carries much of the film's charm. Cinematography is workmanlike — functional but unremarkable suburban and small-town visuals with decent but not outstanding monster effects. The novelty is reasonably solid: the idea of unleashing all the Goosebumps creatures simultaneously with Stine as a character is a fresh enough hook, even if the execution is formulaic. The ending wraps things up in a rushed, predictable fashion with a twist that feels half-baked rather than earned.