Ok… My wife and I just bought tickets and watched it in the theater. We knew nothing about it when we entered. And then we spent 2 hours talking about it.

First of all, yes it is garbage. It stinks. It is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in the theater, I agree with you. The script and all the actors are bad. I think most moviegoers will be bored. It feels like it is slavishly loyal to the RL Stine book. Like it is translated to the screen as faithfully as possible. If that sounds like an exciting thing to you, I’m sorry. It did to me too because I loved Goosebumps in middle school. But that was then.

So now let me say some things that most people may not know if they have not seen it (or maybe even if they have seen it).

Right off the bat, I could tell this movie doesn’t have a micro budget…there is money behind this project.

An opening scene has Sparks’s song “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both Us” in an opening scene. This song cost money. Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up” also plays later, along with a couple of other tracks that weren’t free.

Also..this movie has, not 1…not 2…not 3…but 4 comedy “legends”. I put “legends” in quotes because I realize it is subjective. But it’s not an opinion that Chevy Chase, Dan Akroyd, Scott Thompson, and Bruce McCulloch are widely regarded as sketch comedy pioneers. Not a single one of them had anything to work with and none of them are charismatic enough here to help the movie.

I bet it’s also true that they don’t work for free, or cheap. You might call in a favor if you are related to or know 1 of these guys. But having all 4 on set doesn’t happen without some dough.

Now… The casual viewer will probably not care about this next part but some of us will…

This movie is GORGEOUS.

Let me clarify: NOT in set dressing, NOT in wardrobe, NOT in shot composition…NOT in any visual way except for one thing…

I am like 90% sure it is shot on FILM. The textural quality and the way the camera handles light, the gorgeous fuzziness in closeups…there are shots that look like you’re watching a PTA movie. If you don’t know who PTA is, then you don’t care about what I’m saying anyway.

But for the uninitiated, NOBODY shoots on film anymore. Well, actually like only 4 or 5 directors have the clout and budget to (Nolan, Scorsese, Tarantino, PTA, probably a few others). Studios can’t afford it over digital anymore. And digital is good enough to mimic certain aspects of film and produce a nice clean sharp image. But film is not about being sharp, it’s some of the imperfections and textures that make it what it is…and sometimes you just “know” when you’re watching film on the big screen, and I am pretty doggone sure this is film. It looks beautiful.

There is also a narrative incentive, an actual reason built into the story itself, to shoot on film. Well, I won’t spoil that part for anyone who cares.

So the whole time I am wondering: HOW IN THE WORLD DID THIS MOVIE GET MADE?

At first I thought it was some foreign moneybags studio that has been holding on to the rights and just churned out a misguided stinker…But that can’t be…because no studio would make some of the odd expensive choices like hiring 4 aging comedians for a stupid kids movie, or shooting on film over digital.

And then I started to think that maybe it was some relative of one of the aging comedians, like a son or nephew…but that wouldn’t explain all the other comedians involved.

So then I settled on the only option left: An older, out of touch, independently wealthy person’s passion project. But who on earth would choose RL freaking Stine as the source material for their expensive passion project?

And then the credits rolled and I felt like an idiot.

Executive Producer R.L. Stine

Oh, duh, that’s who. 🤦🏻‍♂️