Zach Cooper (Dylan Minette) is forced to move from big city New York to small town Madison, Delaware with his mother Gale (Amy Ryan) who’s new job as vice principal necessitated the move against his wishes. He quickly makes friends with his next door neighbour Hannah (Odeya Rush) but he is warned away by her overprotective and strange father Mr.Shivers (Jack Black) but he’s a teenager and when have they ever listened to their parents, so Zach and Hannah begin meeting in secret. One night Zach hears screaming coming from next door and assumes Hannah is in trouble so he calls the police however Mr.Shivers manages to convince both the police and Zachs mother that he is merely watching TV and there is no problem. Zach is unconvinced and along with his other new friend Champ (Ryan Lee) he breaks into his neighbours home to rescue Hannah. During his break in he notices a shelf full of the Goosebumps series of books which are all locked while looking at one of the books is surprised by the appearance of Hannah and drops the book inadvertently releasing the monster, an abominable type snowman creature, within. Hannah explains the secrets behind the books so the three friends need to chase down the creature in order to trap it in the book. This leads to a showdown in the local ice rink where things look bad for the friends until Mr.Shivers turns up and traps the creature back in the book. It is revealed that he is the author R.L.Stine and that when he realised his creations actually came to life he was forced to lock all his books in order to keep the creatures trapped. When they return home however they find out that another of his invention Slappy, has also escaped, is not happy about being confined within a book and has released many other creatures from the books and the town is under attack so it is up to Stine, Zach and his new found friends to save the day.

Director Rob Letterman has brought all his experience of working on movies such as Monsters Vs Aliens and Shark’s Tale and put together some good CGI which mixes very well with the live action and Jack Black was a great choice in the role of Stine as his over the top acting and comedic timing brought a lot to this film.

Fully aimed at the young adult audience the movie is surprisingly entertaining, and has some cleverly hidden themes of coping with the loss of a parent and being a fish out of water having to find a way through which are captured within an adventure plot which reminded me a little of the classic Goonies movie with more than a leaning towards a comic caper movie at times and with many references to other classic movies within. I was pleasantly surprised as it’s a good movie to watch with your kids, not too scary, not too childish and although the plot does run itself into the ground a little towards the end it’s a fun filled 100 minutes that the whole family can enjoy.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5.5 Out Of 10