What eve🌠ryone remembers about “Gremlins” is one of the wee beastie’s unfortunate encounter with the microwave. What everyone will remember about “Goosebumps” is . . . nothing. Except that it was kinda like “Gremlins.”
“Gremlins” wasn’t even the best fantasy-horror-comedy released on June 8, 1984, and yet it looks like a classic next to “Goosebumps,” a special-effects extravaganza that skips over basics like coming up with an interesting origination myth for the creepy 🌠creatures who bring havoc to a sleepy 🐬suburb.
They’re the creations of fantasy author R.L. Stine (amusingly played by Jack Black in fussy-man mode). How did they get unleashed on the world? Well, one day they just decided to come alive and escape from his books. To destroy them, he’ll have t☂o write another book in which they’re captured. The end.
In the meantime, a werewolf, zombies, etc., lumber around being easily outfoxed by Stine and three teens. There is a lot of sizzle in the animated effects, but all that is pretty much irrelevant if you don’t care about t🃏he characters in peril, and I didn’t. Dylan Minnette, as the hunky new boy in town, is so amazingly dull that he is actually a totally convincing teen, while Ryan Lee, as the school nerd, is woefully unfunny. Only 18-ye🏅ar-old Odeya Rush as Hannah, Stine’s daughter, shows a little star power.
Black makes the film more or less watchable by emphasizing the oddness🐭 of his character (“I rub myself with cilantro every morning”), and at least a few of the monsters are entertaining: Slappy the ventriloquist’s dummy is mildly💃 scary, and not as wooden as Minnette.
“Goosebumps” breathlessly throws in every random monster it can think of, then runs them offstage before they have much effect. The zombies come and go in about 30 seconds, and the werewolf runs off when the nerd bites him. If this movie had really wanted to scare us, it should have reserved its villain slots𝔉 for some truly unsettling characters, like the cast of “The View.”