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It’s the month of Halloween, time for a whole bunch of scary reviews. So every week I will try to give a review on horror or Helloween-related show, movie, and franchise. So let’s start the Halloween craze with the 90’s horror master: R.L Stine's
Goosebumps!
That's right! As a kid living in the ’90s, I remember reading the Goosebumps books. The novels themselves were pretty easy to read but that’s understandable since these books were meant for younger readers. Not exactly first readers, but not books that ever reach Stephen King's length. The stories weren’t extremely scary, with no blood or guts or terrible violence but they still had plenty of supernatural elements, and Stine did a great job giving good character development. And most of the stories were creative. So what’s the downside? Well, as I said before, this series was meant for younger readers (3-4 grade), so while the stories could be
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creepy, it was never scary. No plot was ever uncomfortable enough to give me nightmares. So to read these books again serves no fear for an adult. There was a total of 62 books in the original series, however, I know for sure I didn’t read them all. The books I remember reading for sure were: Stay Out of the Basement, Monster Blood, Night of the Living Dummy, The Girl Who Cried Monster, The Haunted Mask, Be Careful what you wish for, The Werewolf of Fever Swamp, One Day at Horrorland, A Night at Terror Tower, and Attack of the Jack ‘O Lanterns. I know for sure my favorite was The Haunted Mask. Actually, there were books in the series I never even heard of, I think it was because they were not as popular as the other books. There was Legend of the Lost Legend and I Live in Your Basement! If anything, I always thought the book covers were scarier than the actual stories. I don’t know who did the original artwork, but holy cow, they deserve an award because some artwork did scare me. The art cover for the book You Can’t Scare Me, was the worst. There’s just something about those mud men with their eyeless black sockets that bothered me. Also the artwork of Slappy the living dummy gave plenty of nightmares to kids, I included.
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The books became pretty damn popular. In fact, I could remember back in elementary school when the library would get a new book, there would be a waitlist immediately. Due to popularity, there was a TV show that was shown on the Fox channel. And it was made in Canada…..strange. So how was the tv show? Well, it had its ups and downs. The best of the show was there was an effort to make a scary show for kids. I can’t really remember any cheesy lines or cliche 90’s tropes. No pop songs or popular trends happened in an episode. The show never talked down to kids but it never brought up controversial stuff. There was an effort in the special effects, especially at the time. They did build an actual dummy for the Night of the Living Dummy episode and masks for The Haunted Mask episode. So some effects look pretty real. So what’s the bad side? Child actors. Let’s face it, most of the kid actors in this series couldn’t perform for beans. There were plenty of times when the kids sounded like there were trying too hard to give an emotional performance. Sometimes even the adult actors look like they were just phoning in a performance for a paycheck. Also, the computer's special effects were dreadful. Since it was the 90’s, TV shows still didn’t have the money for good computer effects. It was pretty obvious that the monster's blood was not really there.
But while the TV show had its acting problems and the computer effects are dated, the show still had this charm to it. It was for kids yet it did try to be creepy. Slappy was creepy, even he didn't look like his book counterpart. For me, at least, the show did a better job scaring me than the books did. Especially with the Haunted Mask episode. While the effects are laughable now, holy damn did seeing those floating heads, CHASING the girl, scare me. I could remember screaming at the TV for her run her ass away. Another episode that was creepy was "It came from underneath the sink", especially the ending. Four words. Potato with sharp teeth. The Goosebumps show wasn't afraid to push some intense imagery on kids. Again no gore or even blood, but you do get creepy-looking monsters. Ok, ok ok....now time for the movie...Urgh...I have very mixed feelings about the movie. So I know it's supposed to be kid-friendly which it is. Jack Back makes a goofy R.L Stine but who knows, maybe the real R.L Stine is actually goofy. It does have the atmosphere and the monsters so looks cool, especially Slappy. He does look more like his book counterpart. And the teen actors (sorry no kids here, they are totally teens) are pretty good. The real problem with this movie is that it's funny. Many times I was laughing my ass off. And that's the problem! This is supposed to be a GOOSEBUMPS movie! Even if it can't be a horror movie, it should still be creepy. There should still be this effort for fear. But the fact that I'm laughing so much is disappointing. If this happened to be a different Halloween-inspired movie, I would have considered it the same as other movies like Hocus Pocus and Halloweentown. But come on! If the books and tv shows made some effort to be creepy why not the movie?! And is it just me? or is Jack Black is given way too much credit on the title? I mean come on, they had to change the "G" to fit his name on top of the goosebumps title. And holy christ! Why did they not use the original tv show theme song?! That theme song was awesomely scary. It had some weird creepy imagery. and the music did creep me out. And what happened to the monster blood!? A whole movie and not a speck of monster blood?! what a jip! Oh well, maybe the sequel will be better. Maybe it will be creepier. Anywho, so that's it for the Goosebumps review! A nostalgic spooky series from my childhood.
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