Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/612945
20 UCW DECEMBER 9-15, 2015 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM For some reason, I never got around to reading the Goosebumps books. That is especially odd considering that the original run included no fewer than 62 titles, and I read everything I could get my hands on cheaply during the height of its popularity. Because I never read a single one, I lacked the intimate connection that so many fans of the series will bring to the theater. Consequently, I didn't have much interest in watching Goosebumps (105 minutes), but that doesn't mean I can't recognize a quality flick when I see one. Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) and his mother Gale (Amy Ryan) move from New York to Delaware. Ryan only gets a few minutes of screen time, and I have to wonder what sort of role she requires to highlight her acting, as opposed to starring as someone's supportive mother. At school, Zach bonds with his new sidekick Champ (Ryan Lee), the comic relief/awkward, oversexed stereotype the movie was absolutely not crying out for. Zach's new home is located next to a mysterious stranger (Jack Black) and Zach's designated love interest, Hannah (Odeya Rush). The mysterious stranger does not invite Zach into his daughters' room with hugs and kisses, so Zach concludes that there is something wrong with him. This results in a call to the local P.D., which is played for broad comic relief in several scenes. Nothing about any of this is played with subtlety, but the movie is targeted towards a younger audience, deadened to true humor by their steady diet of reality shows and YouTube clips. In a shocking twist that is shocking to absolutely no one at all, the neighbor turns out to be R.L. Stine. As revealed to everyone in the trailers, he has locked up his Goosebumps manuscripts on a shelf in his home because that is absolutely the most secure place to keep novels that occasionally fly open and release monsters. Leaving them out in plain sight is a much better option than keeping them inside, I don't know, a locked basement room, a locked safe inside a locked basement room, or an acid bath. PG-appropriate havoc and carnage ensue when the main monster from R.L. Stine's Night of the Living Dummy escapes, kidnaps the books and then releases the monsters. We know he is the evil kind of villain instead of the mostly harmless, G-rated, confused kind of villain because he burns the books afterwards. Our heroes race through the town on their way to the conveniently timed high school dance, encountering monsters everywhere. My single biggest issue with the film is the entirely random, completely functional, carnival midway, complete with ferris wheel and funhouse, in the middle of an overgrown pine forest. Yes, you read that right. And in a further test of my ability to suspend disbelief, it still has power, and flipping a single switch turns on all the lights. The only acceptable explanation is that the carnival itself is a product of an R.L. Stine book, which begs the question: If the things he writes become real, what is the nature of reality? Is reality itself merely a product of his typewriter? Overall, there were more hits than misses in this family-friendly horror film. Amy Ryan was under used, and the boys hogged a little too much screen time, but other than that the film's staying power is no surprise — helped along, of course, by the box office poison that has limited moviegoers' choice. If you, like me, have never read a Goosebumps book you might tire of trying to follow the insider references, but I have a feeling that won't bother the average viewer nearly as much as it bothered me. Now playing at Patriot 14 + IMAX. The Author as Godhead Goosebumps (Rated PG) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910.484.6200. Hours: 9am-6pm Mon-Fri 3006 Bragg Blvd. 910.323.1791 Personalize your Christmas gifts for men, women, children and babies! Open on Saturdays in December from 10am-3pm