THINGS THAT GO BUMP ...
Sequel’s mild scares maintain silliness of the original Goosebumps series
It’s hard to believe that Goosebumps is the second-bestselling book series of all time (after Harry Potter). It’s true that for millennials, R.L. Stine’s spooky low-lit pulp novels, churned out one after another in the 1990s, are a relic of seemingly simpler times.
This is no less encapsulated by the cheesy theme song for the Goosebumps TV series, which featured a dog bark as a percussive punch.
No one ever batted an eye at the silliness at the time.
But looking back, the Goosebumps series has always been silly — that signature bubbly slime-like font used on its book covers was a quick shorthand to parents, denoting that the “horror” in its pages was tame enough for children.
For some reason, the appeal of
this PG-rated horror has yet to wear off.
It might be a surprise to learn that not only does Goosebumps continue to exist, but that today’s children find Stine’s harmless vein of icky terror delightful.
The franchise refuses to die, not unlike Slappy, the ventriloquist’s dummy who comes to life in order to become the central villain in Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween.
Jack Black is back as Stine in the film’s clever meta-narrative that revolves around the idea that his books have the power to unleash horrors into the world that some poor kids have to magically conjure back between their dusty, black-leather covers.
In this followup to the 2015 film, which featured a similar premise involving Stine’s books all serving as individual Pandora’s boxes, siblings Sarah (Madison Iseman) and Sonny (Jeremy Ray Taylor), plus best friend Sam (Caleel Harris), must conquer Slappy’s evil plan to bring Halloween decorations and costumes to life, while also trying to explain what is going on to the siblings’ overworked mom (Wendi McLendon-Covey, the real MVP in the film).
Sarah, Sonny and Sam face typical teenage tribulations: She’s having difficulty writing her admission essay to Columbia and finds her boyfriend kissing another girl at a concert; the boys have bullies whose style of abuse feels 20 years outdated (they’re the kind of bullies one encounters in 1980s films where jocks are apparently the only cruel people in high school).
The three kids must fend off a mob of monsters, including witches with green-glowing marbles for heads, a giant purple spider and villains from different Goosebumps books, like the Abominable Snowman, lawn gnomes and the werewolf from Swamp Lake.
As fun and goofy as these kooky characters are (tempered by the pleasant presence of Ken Jeong, who plays an innocent, annoying neighbour who goes overboard with Halloween decorations), Haunted Halloween is stunted by relying too much on monster intro-scares.
There are some half-hearted attempts to ground the film, like Slappy turning on the teens after they reject his desire to become one of the family, and Sarah confronting her writer’s block by saving her family from the ghoulish beasts brought to life.
Haunted Halloween ends with her asking Stine for writing advice, but it’s all clichés: “Write what you know,” he says. Hopefully, she’ll find better instructors at Columbia.