Goosebumps Review

As a child of the nineties who was in elementary school at the dead center of the decade I was completely immersed in R. L. Stine's Goosebumps series. I'd go to bookstores monthly and was constantly checking to see if the latest installment was on the shelves yet. I owned and had read pretty much the entire series at least once, probably more. I was such a fan that 20 years later when a movie trailer for Goosebumps (2015) was released, everyone who put up with my fanaticism back in the day linked the video to me. Goosebumps not only is a really fun adventure movie that showcases many of the classic Goosebumps monsters, the movie's story even felt like a Goosebumps book.

Upset about moving from a big city to a small town, teenage Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) finds a silver lining when he meets the beautiful girl, Hannah (Odeya Rush), living right next door. But every silver lining has a cloud, and Zach's appears when he learns that Hannah has a mysterious dad who is revealed to be R. L. Stine (Jack Black), the author of the bestselling Goosebumps series. It turns out that there is a reason why Stine is so strange... he is a prisoner of his own imagination - the monsters that his books made famous are real, and Stine protects his readers by keeping them locked up in their books. When Zach unintentionally unleashes the monsters from their manuscripts, they begin to terrorize the town, it's suddenly up to Stine, Zach, Hannah, and Zach's friend Champ (Ryan Lee) to get all of them back in the books where they belong before they destroy the city.

Jack Black and R. L. Stine

So, after seeing the Goosebumps trailer for the first time, I was psyched. Up until I saw Jack Black and my interest plummeted. When I think of Jack Black, my mind immediately goes to titles like Year One, Gulliver's Travels, and Mars Attacks. But he keeps giving me reasons not to dislike him, which is really annoying. He's good in Kung Fu Panda and Peter Jackson's King Kong. And now I can say he's good in Goosebumps. Black plays a fictional version of the actual author; little of what I know about Stine himself was incorporated into the fictional character. The two don't look remotely similar. But that's fine because Jack Black creates an effectively droll characterization of R. L. Stine, combining a pair of heavy-rimmed black glasses, Orson Wells-type literate tones and a spiteful vanity that makes Stephen King the bane of his existence.

Goosebumps features a huge number of monsters from the book series. I did my very best not to jump up and down in my seat excitedly pointing out ones I recognized. "Oh! It's the Werewolf of Fever Swamp! Yay! It's the Haunted Mask! Oh, it's Mud Monster! YES! They included Lawn Gnomes! The Lord High Executioner! Scarecrows! Mummy of Prince Khor-Ru! Pumpkinhead! Cuckoo Clock of Doom! And Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy!" I'll bet I could have been really annoying to sit next to. As a fan of the books, this catered to audiences who grew up reading the books; it was hugely nostalgic for me. I was disappointed that a few of my favorites was omitted such as Monster Blood or the Horrorland Horrors, The Beast from the East, or possibly the Barking Ghost. To be fair, there were 62 titles in the original Goosebumps book series and not all of them could be used or have screen time. I'm grateful that the movie didn't beat you over the head with what any given monster was and the title the book came from; that would have become irritating quickly and felt like overt advertisements for a 23 year old book series.

There were three monsters I didn't recognize at all. I had to look them up and it turns out they were taken from titles from some spin-off book series that were published after I had stopped reading them religiously. They were the only ones I couldn't identify. There were some fantastic shots of the monster ensemble that didn't last long enough for me to take it all in and appreciate the detail of. Sure, the shots were good and lasted an appropriate amount of time, but I wanted to just look at it and watch for characters I recognized. I guess I'll just have to get a copy of the movie to geek out over.

Not only did Goosebumps feature some above average camera work here and there, it boasted some pretty good special effects which I appreciated. Practical effects were used as often as possible. Monster suits, costumes, and make up were used instead of CGI animated creatures when it could be done, but even the digital creatures were well animated. Puppets were used to great advantage as well. Having Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy (the movie's main antagonist) as a digitally animated creature would not have worked as well. He's a puppet, so a puppet was used to get that natural puppet movement.

Goosebumps is rated PG, and even with it's scary veneer it's a comedy adventure suitable for kids. There are lots of laughs and exciting chases to enjoy. Parts of it might get a bit too spooky for kids under 7, but overall it's a lot of fun. I laughed a whole lot during the movie. With all the mismatched monsters roaming about, it's almost like a kid-friendly version of The Cabin in the Woods. It's a fast-paced, never-boring trip to a world where stories and imagination are powerful tools. And that sort of thing just might inspire kids to do the scariest thing of all: pick up a book.

Goosebumps doesn't particularly do anything original, but what it does do is remarkably fun! There are fun characters, an uneven story, great special effects, exciting monsters, some surprising emotional heft, a generous helping of humor, and several gags at the expense of Stephen King. This is a fun movie the whole family could enjoy, especially around Halloween time! I admit that I could be viewing this movie with rose-tinted nostalgia glasses, but I really enjoyed it. You don't need to have read the books to appreciate this movie, but you certainly will have a lot more fun if you have. This is worth seeing in theaters, and I plan on getting a copy of this myself; in part because it was a good, fun movie and because it was an amusing trip down memory lane. Make sure to be on the lookout for a cameo by the real R. L. Stine.

Did you read the Goosebumps books back in the day? Which book was your favorite? Comment below and tell me why!

Knights of Badassdom Movie Review

One of my coworkers recently discovered what a geek and movie buff I am, and she insisted that I watch Knights of Badassdom (2013). I'd seen the trailer some time back and had a small interest in seeing the movie. She let me borrow her copy and I did got a kick out of it, though the weird humor is only going to appeal to a small demographic.

Joe (Ryan Kwanten) is completely disconsolate after his girlfriend Beth (Margarita Levieva) dumps him. In an attempt to break him out of his funk, Joe's geeky buddies Eric (Steve Zahn) and Hung (Peter Dinklage) drag  Joe out to the woods to join them in a large scale Dungeons & Dragons-style Live Action Role Playing (LARP) game. Trouble arises when a prop spell book that Eric purchased on the internet ends up being a genuine tome of grimoire. While pretending to raise Joe's character from death, they unwittingly conjure up a blood-lusting succubus from hell that takes on the appearance of Joe's ex-girlfriend. Joe, Erik, and Hung are joined by fellow LARPers Gwen (Summer Glau) and Gunther (Brett Gipson) to stop the demon. Unfortunately, all they have to fight with are Styrofoam prop weapons.

This cast is brilliant. The movie itself is a celebration of geeky enthusiasm, so the geek icons that appear in Knights of Badassdom make it all the more fun. Ryan Kwanten is known for playing Jason Stackhouse in HBO's hit series True Blood. Peter Dinklage is a fan favorite as Tyrion Lannister in HBO's Game of Thrones series. And Summer Glau is well known for her role as River Tam in the Firefly series and as Cameron Phillips in Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. While these characters don't necessarily reference the roles that made them geek icons, the fact that they are all together will certainly excite geek viewers.

The weird humor is only going to appeal to a specific demographic. It's absolutely geek-style humor. In the scene where the three friends first meet Gwen and Gunther, Erik quips, " And Guinevere the fearless, who's plus-three ass of perfection should keep the memory of she who should not be mentioned at bay." referring to Beth the ex-girlfriend. Gwen responds to this with, " Plus-three? Clearly you underestimate my endowments." There is another scene where other LARPers are speaking in articulate Old English while subtitles appear below translating the dialogue into complaints about his wife making him clean out the garage. The dialogue is witty and funny; most of the jokes will be the most funny to people who play Role Playing Games or who know people who do. The humor seeks to point a finger at the LARP community and laugh at their strange hobby every bit as much as it makes self-referential in-jokes that only LARPers would likely understand.

This is a Horror-Comedy movie, and it clings to horror tropes like an alien facehugger to John Hurt. Clearly none of the characters in Knights of Badassdom passed Horror Movie survival 101; the monster will get you if you have sex, drink, or go off on your own and be different. For a comedy, I would have expected this to be done with some irony, much like Cabin in the Woods did, but it fell short and just ended up being a gross run-of-the-mill slasher sort of movie. The deaths were silly but gross; it looked as fake as any low budget movie gore would, but still was gross.

Knights of Badassdom was kind of fun. The story was hard to take very seriously, even for a comedy. The humor was hit or miss, but when it hit it was funny; more so if you've ever played Dungeons and Dragons. The cast was lots of fun, I understand that the main cast went through Live Action Role Playing sessions before filming and Peter Dinklage was declared the most successful out of everyone. That would probably have been more fun to watch than this movie was. Knights of Badassdom reminded me of a grittier, more crude, and very violent version of Unicorn City. Unicorn City is squeaky clean, family friendly movie that features lots of geek humor while Knights of Badassdom is a crude and bloody romp that features a lot of geek humor that is intended for more mature audiences. Both have their merit and I'm glad I saw them, but neither of them is worth more than one viewing.

If you were to make a geek-fest movie, what collection of geek icon actors would you use? The more mismatched the better! Comment below and tell me about it!

The Cabin in the Woods Movie Review

I've said it before, I'm not really much of a horror movie fan. However I have had lots of people tell me how different and unique The Cabin in the Woods (2012) is and that I should see it. I begrudgingly saw it last weekend and I have to admit, I'm really impressed!

Five college students head off for a weekend in a secluded cabin in the woods. They are typical horror movie characters; Curt the hero (Chris Hemsworth), Dana the good girl (Kristen Connolly), Jules the bad girl (Anna Hutchison), the comic  relief pothead (Fran Kranz), and Holden the mature and thoughtful kid (Jesse Williams). When the cellar door flings itself open, they of course go down to investigate. They find an odd assortment of relics and knick-knacks, but when Dana reads from a book she finds there, she awakens a family of deadly killer zombies. There's far more going on than meets the eye as the five campers are all under observation by a pair of techno geeks (Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford) in a secret underground laboratory. The five college kids struggle to survive while everything around them is being manipulated by the mysterious lab.

The Cabin in the Woods starts out like a whole lot of other horror movies. In fact it really looks like a run-of-the-mill slasher movie that any horror movie fan could probably recite with no difficulty. Five very predictable characters doing exactly what you would expect them to do: they go out to the middle of nowhere, awaken a monster of some kind, they start getting picked off one by one, they use lines that every character in every horror flick uses, etc. But rather than using these common elements as the main story, They are used to get us to think about horror movies. It's a meta-horror movie; I don't think that has ever been done before.

The movie gets us to think about the "rules" of a slasher movie. If something is chasing you, you should split up; if a creepy old man warns you not to go somewhere, make fun of him and go there anyway; if you hear a strange sound outside, have sex. It's basically a commentary on free will. Do horror character make the choices they so often do because of the requirements of the genre or because of their own decisions? And since they are instruments of their creator, how much free will can the filmmakers exercise? The Cabin in the Woods takes horror movies in a whole new direction while still including the elements that make horror/slasher movies so endearing to their fans. As a result, it acts as a criticism of horror movies and almost like a puzzle for horror fans to solve.

There are enough scares and gore strewn throughout the movie to appease hardcore fans of horror movies, but those really are not the point of The Cabin in the Woods. It's the creative meta-criticism of horror movies that makes the movie so unique. The traditional horror movie story is basically over by the end of the first act, then the movie shifts into something very different and bigger than the predictable horror movie.

I really appreciated the special effects. There were lots of practical effects; monster suits and make up as well as actual physical props rather than digitally rendered sets. Any time a puppet or costume could be used, it was, and CGI was resorted to only when necessary. The CGI creatures were usually well animated, and only occasionally looked like obvious digital imagery.

I wasn't all that excited to see The Cabin in the Woods, but I'm glad I did. It used clichés, writing tropes, and archetypal characters as a means of telling a very unique story that analyzes and critiques the horror genre. The end result is something that turns the genre on its head while still maintaining genre traditionalism. I don't really like horror movies that much and I thought this was a highly interesting piece of cinema. You don't have to be a veteran horror fan to appreciate this film, but you're going to love watching for references to classic horror movies and horror movie directors. It's just so fascinating to watch. That said, I think The Cabin in the Woods is worth owning because it's a "Meta-horror" movie and the only one of its kind to date.

What is your favorite horror/slasher movie? Comment below and tell me why!