Plans for a film based on RL Stine’s bestselling spooky kids’ books date back to 1998 (a Canadian TV series ran from 1995) when Tim Burton was set to produce a big-screen adaptation. Nearly two decades later we finally have this FX-heavy Poltergeist-y romp. Ed Wood writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski take “story” credit on a yarn that casts Jack Black as Stine, and finds the multiple demons of his various bestsellers coming to life when new neighbour Zach (Dylan Minnette) unwittingly raids his personal library.
It’s a cute device, enabling Night of the Living Dummy’s titular creep, Slappy, to join the diminutive ghouls from Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes, The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena and a host of other plants and zombies in an attack on sleepy Madison, Delaware. It’s a little scrappy, but there’s more than enough carnivalesque mayhem to keep monster fans young and old diverted.
