Black plays the famed young adult book writer, but since he retired several years back, he has become somewhat of a recluse. He and his daughter, Hannah (Odeya Rush, The Giver) have moved around a lot over the years and Stine seems to think he has finally found a place of peace, that is, until he gets a new neighbor.
Zach (Dylan Minnette, Scandal, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day) and his mother have just moved to the small Delaware town and next door to Stine, though the author goes by the name of Mr. Shivers. As the new kid, Zach finds himself the odd man out a lot in school. In fact, the only friend he seems to be able to make is the social outcast Champ (Ryan Lee, Super 8, This is 40). When Zach thinks that Hannah is in trouble, he and Champ break into the Stine house only to find the girl is fine. Unfortunately, in the process of snooping around, they unintentionally open one of the original Goosebumps manuscripts. Normally this isn't a problem, except in the case of these books, when opened the monsters come out.
At first, the trio just has to try and stop the Abominable Snowman of Pasadena from causing too much damage, but what they don't realize at first is that the creature's rampage has led to another book opening. This book, Night of the Living Dummy, unleashes one of Stine's creepiest characters, Slappy.
With the help of Stine, the kids work to round up all of the monsters that Slappy has unleashed upon the town, but when the wooden menace starts to burn the books after the pages are emptied, not even Stine knows how they are going to stop all the damage his monsters are causing.
Goosebumps contains several special features. One has Minnette and Lee explaining how to take on several iconic Goosebumps monsters, while another one is a short behind the scenes featurette where Minnette explains to the viewers that there were strange occurrences happening during the filming of the movie. The Blu-ray version of Goosebumps also has several exclusives. These include a ton of deleted scenes (including an alternate beginning and ending) as well as a blooper reel. There is also a featurette where two of the film's special effects artists talk about how to make monster makeup and even turn one of the cast members into a mummy. Other extras include the casting videos for the movie's main cast and an in depth look into Slappy with the real R.L. Stine talking about creating the dummy.
This movie seems to hit the sweet spot of both family entertainment and horror, but then again, finding that balance is something that the Goosebumps series has been able to do since the beginning, so that shouldn't really be surprising. If you are looking for a good movie to play on family night, or even if you just have fond memories of Goosebumps, then this movie is a good place to look.
