ViewGuide

Created May 30, 2016 01:33PM PST • Edited Jun 04, 2016 01:01AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   Even as an adult who hasn’t read any of R.L. Stine’s fantastically popular Goosebumps horror novels for children, Goosebumps the movie made for an engaging and satisfying airplane entertainment experience. One can only imagine how much better it was received by the millions of kids who treasure those books.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Jack Black is more affected than affecting as legendary horror writer R.L. Stine. Pity, but it kind of leaves the center of the movie wanting.

   Odeya Rush jumps off screen as his teenage daughter, appearing to be the second coming of Mila Kunis. This young actress is going to be a big star.

   Dylan Minnette also jumps off screen as the new neighbor of R. L. Stine. Minnette is a promising young actor, first coming to my attention in the 2013 child abduction thriller Prisoners.

   • Amy Ryan delivers an affecting performance as his mother, the high school’s new vice-principal. Ryan is a terrific actress, as she proved in Gone Baby Gone and Win Win, to name two.
   • Ryan Lee is appropriately dorky as a high school dork.
   • Jillian Bell is cheerfully self-absorbed as a lovelorn townie.
   • Halston Sage pops off screen as a high school hottie. However, following her turn in Neighbors, she’s in danger of being type-casted as the hot coed.
   • Ken Marino is reliably amusing, here as a romantically bumbling coach.
   • Timothy Simons is likewise reliably amusing, here as a pedantic police officer.
   • R.L. Stine himself cameos as Mr. Jack Black, the new drama teacher. Jack Black, the actor playing R.L. Stine, encounters him in the hallway near the movie’s end.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    The filmmakers made a risky decision to create a film around R.L. Stine himself, rather than any one of his Goosebumps books. It works, in no small part because of the delicious twist at the end of the movie, just as Stine prescribes.

11. Direction Good 3.0

12. Play Very Good 3.5

13. Music OK 2.5

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.5

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Fierce 1.9

19. Rudeness Salty 1.6

21. Reality

    Supernatural 4.0

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.1

23. Biological Fantasy 5.0

24. Physical Fantasy 5.0