Horror and comedy are the extremities of movies. One makes you hide your face behind your popcorn, while the other makes you expose even your molars. So how could one manage to survive in the theatre hall, if the movie is going to be a blend of these two factors? This 2015 movie could perhaps give a crystal clear picture of the theatre scenario.
My childhood was never complete without ‘Goosebumps’. R.L Stine never failed to entertain his fans. The mind behind recreating that book into a 103 minutes movie deserved all the appreciation it received. This film retained the name of the book and managed to gross 150 million dollars against a budget of 80 million USD.
The plot revolves around Zach, a teenager, who doesn’t believe that Delaware does have anything in store for him, until he gets carried away by the girl next door, Hannah. Not far away from reality, Hannah’s father Mr. Shivers tries to make Zach stay away from his daughter (though his attempts go in vain). The protagonist senses something wrong with that daughter-dad duo when he hears strange cries from their house each night. This curiosity led him to go to the rescue with his friend Champ. Inside their house, they find a completely loaded bookshelf with each compartment carrying a lock. At the strange sight of these books, Champ unlocks one but drops it on seeing Hannah. To her astonishment, she finds the book half open. She warned Zach not to open it; he does so, setting the ‘Abominable Snowman’ free.
This scene marks the beginning of the entire plot. They also accidentally release the most notorious antagonist of Stine’s books, Slappy (a ventriloquist’s dummy). Since the rest of the story is weaved with a number of twists and turns, I’ll leave it for you to witness the real ‘goosebumps’.
Right from Chucky to Annabelle, toys, and dolls have posed to be better villains than the bulky ones who feature onscreen. Slappy was no exception. In that way, it was a good move by Rob Letterman (the director).
There were scenes where Rob moved the audience' hearts. For example, when Mr. Shivers recalls his dreadful memories as a bullied child and how he used fictional monsters to scare his enemies away. The truth behind Hannah’s existence not only made Zach emotional but soft-hearted too.
The entire film has got a great number of unexpected happenings (especially the climax scene) which would definitely make the audience anticipate a sequel. The cast has done a commendable job. The crew has done justice as far as VFX is concerned as it is the most crucial part of any fiction film.
To put it in a nutshell, Goosebumps was a 1 hour 43 minutes of solid horror-comedy entertainment. The entire crew have triumphed in giving life to Stine’s characters.
