Gänsehaut 2: Gruseliges Halloween

In the second Goosebumps Cinematic Universe, some kids (of course) have some issues. There's Madison Iseman, who's terrified she's not going to be able to finish her essay on fear and get into an Ivy League University; there's her kid brother and his best friend, who are bullied in school. The boys run a business carting away old junk for free, figuring they'll find some stuff worth reselling in the trash. When they're called on to empty the attic of an abandoned house, they do: Slappy the demonic ventriloquist's dummy. He proceeds to turn half the town into monsters.

Like the earlier movie, Jack Black plays R.L. Stine in the second half of the movie -- the real author gets a cameo near the end. It's juvenile, of course, and rather silly, but there are some of the anxieties that kids really experience, and the humor is deliberate and the special effects good.

The first goosebumps movie that came out in 2015 was fun, dark, and deffently for all audiences. This one felt like a rip off from modern movie IT, or stranger things. The actors at times got on my nerves and frankly Slappy as the main bad guy felt boring and I feel he is being over used. Also all of the monsters being out at the same time felt like a repetition of part 1 except the cast was younger and more annoying. 1. Would I see it again? Yea 2. Was it worth buying a ticket? No 3. Was the acting good? No 4. Was the music good? No 5. Costumes and fx good? Yes 6. Would I see it with a friend? Yes 7. Will I buy it on disc? No 8. Should you wait for it on DVD? Yes 9. Did i have fun? Yes 10. Is it a good movie? Yea...ish.

The original Goosebumps movie took me by surprise when it came out in 2015. It had fun likable characters and a great villain in Slappy the evil dummy.

Fast forward 3 years and here's the sequel. 99% of the cast from the original is missing and the new characters aren't as interesting. They're serviceable but kind of forgettable. The story is also not as well paced as the original and is too fast for its own good coming in as a little too short. It needed about another 10 minutes or so in its last act.

But I can't hate it because it's still a lot of fun. Once again Slappy steals the show and there's some surprisingly creepy scenes involving him early on in the movie. The other Goosebumps monsters are fun too and the halloween setting puts a smile on my face. I also really dug the musical score by Dominic Lewis.

If you have kids I highly recommend taking them to this one. Although there might be a few scenes too scary for the younger ones it's the perfect horror movie for them to watch during the Halloween season.

Buy a ticket, some popcorn and a soda and have fun.

I decided to watch "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween" because I did actually thoroughly enjoy the previous "Goosebumps" movie from 2015. And based on that movie, then I actually had high hopes for "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween".

While "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween" definitely was a visually pleasing movie, then it was just a very unnecessary sequel. Why? Well, because it was essentially the exact same as the 2015 movie, just changed the scenery, the monsters, and the characters. But the essence of the storyline and the outcome was the exact same thing. So that felt very anti-climatic and very much like a slap to the face with a cold, dead fish.

If you haven't already seen the 2015 "Goosebumps" movie then this sequel will be a good movie to watch. However, if you already did see the 2015 one, then there virtually is no need to watch "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween". I am not kidding.

The CGI department definitely did not fail to deliver, because the CGI in the movie were quite good, just as they were in the previous movie. And that is actually the selling point to "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween", sad to say.

This is very much a sequel in the very definition of a sequel. So it was soup being boiled on watered down broth.

Aspiring writer Sarah Quinn (Madison Iseman) is struggling with her college entry essay. Her boyfriend just wants to have fun. Her nerdy brother Sonny (Jeremy Ray Taylor) annoys her. He and his best friend Sam Carter (Caleel Harris) have started a junk business. They are called to clean out the abandoned childhood home of R.L. Stine (Jack Black). They find Stine's book. Ventriloquist dummy Slappy suddenly appears and Sonny unknowingly brings him back to life. Slappy wants to be a part of his family unleashing chaos during Halloween.

This is pretty good for a TV Goosebumps movie on a kiddie channel. As a theatrical offering, it doesn't have the grandeur or the scares to cross over into adult or teen market. In addition, it's tough to sell parents to take their little kids to a horror movie. It's stuck somewhere in no man's land. It needs to be a little darker and a little more theatrical to get the teens. Jack Black phones in his fifteen minutes and delivers one good joke. The kids are fine but nothing that special. The writing misses a few things. Sarah needs to physically write in the book with a pen to wrap up that aspect of the story. Slappy is interesting and could deliver more sequels. The franchise is unlikely to break out and is probably on a declining trajectory. It's stuck in kiddie horror land.