HALLOWEEN

the most ambitious special effect. When Honnold shocked the free soloing world by climbing Yosemite’s imposing 3,200foot El Capitan, the New York Times made the event a front-page story and called it “one of the great athletic feats of any kind, ever.” Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, “Free Solo” chronicles the ins and outs of that instantly legendary climb as well as a whole lot more. On one hand, the documentary lets us in on how much went into the climb on a physical, psychological and emotional level, showing us how meticulously even the tiniest move is planned. But “Free Solo” is also a surprisingly personal film, allowing us privileged glimpses of Honnold’s private life. This includes the dynamics of his relationship with girlfriend Sanni McCandless and the question of whether the emotional connection romance entails is compatible with the kind of laser focus free soloing demands. Vasarhelyi and Chin are ideal people to tell this story, and not only because they’ve already done another superb mountaineering film, 2015’s “Meru,” which was short-listed for the best documentary Oscar. Chin has been an accomplished climber as well as a photographer and filmmaker, so he’s known Honnold for years and has the kind of rapport with the climber that makes the film’s candor and emotion possible. Chin insisted his entire crew, including fellow cinematographers Clair Popkin and Mikey Schaefer, be experienced climbers, and one of the film’s most compelling aspects is how nervous these extremely knowledgeable folks were about Honnold’s safety. — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

GOOSEBUMPS 2: HAUNTED HALLOWEEN

PG-13. Through today only at Niantic. Still playing at Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. The 2015 adaptation of R.L. Stine’s popular “Goosebumps” book series was way better than it had any right to be. Starring Jack Black as a freewheeling version of the author, the film was a kid-friendly Halloween spookfest that examined the way we use horror as a coping mechanism in everyday life. It was smart and silly and scary, anchored by the inimitable Black. But the follow-up, “Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween,” is a serious disappointment, starting with how Black is barely in it. Less Black, less ‘bumps, as it turns out. It’s not just the lack of Black that has a detrimental effect. There’s a changeover of writing and directing teams, writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski and director Rob Letterman replaced by writer Rob Lieber and director Ari Sandel. Darren Lemke stays on as co-writer, but no holdovers from the original cast, either. Turning it into an anthology franchise, there’s a new group of kids in a new town, Wardenclyffe, N.Y., who are taken in by the evil machinations of ventriloquist dummy Slappy. Sonny (Jeremy Ray Taylor) and his friend Sam (Caleel Harris) pick up Slappy at an old creepy house while doing a junk run. Of course they promptly recite the incantation found in his pocket, as one does when one happens upon a terrifying puppet, and bring him home. Slappy, who apparently longs for a family, is happy to ingratiate himself with Sonny’s sister, Sarah (Madison Ives), a senior struggling with a scummy boyfriend and college applications, and their harried, snarky mom, Kathy (Wendi McLendon-Covey). — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service R, 106 minutes. Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. With hollow eyes and sagging cheeks, the flabby white mask of Michael Myers is horror’s great blank slate. Project your fears here, it says. Myers doesn’t speak. His movements never rise beyond a deliberate gait (well, aside from all the stabbing and strangling). Even his name is purposefully bland. Decades after John Carpenter’s slasher landmark, David Gordon Green has resurrected the faceless Boogeyman of “Halloween” and set him loose on another Halloween night, 40 years later. Time has done little for Michael’s personality. He is still a poor conversationalist. (He hasn’t uttered a word in the intervening decades.) He is still handy with a knife. There are no roman numerals in the title of Green’s film, nor any of those dopey subtitles like 1998’s “Halloween H20,” which presumably delved into the very real fears of dehydration. As if to draw closer to the original (and to ignore the nine sequels and reboots in between), this “Halloween” has simply taken Carpenter’s 1978 title. And with gliding cameras, Carpenter’s score and original cast members Jamie Lee Curtis and Nick Castle (the man under the mask), it has tried very hard to take much more, too. But while Green’s “Halloween,” which he penned with Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, has faithfully adopted much of what so resonated in Carpenter’s genre-creating film — the stoic killer, the gruesome executions, the suburban nightmares — what makes his “Halloween” such a thrill is how it deviates from its longago predecessor. Having survived the “Babysitter Murders” of 40 years ago, Laurie Strode (a fabulously fierce Jamie Lee Curtis, reprising the role that was her film debut) is now a self-described “twice-divorced basket case” living in a run-down house on the outskirts of the fictional Haddonfield, Illinois. She has turned her home into a training ground and domestic fortification for the second coming of Michael she’s always been sure will happen. — Jake Coyle, Associated Press