Goosebumps (2015) - Blu-ray Review

Details: By Loron Hays; 03 February 2016

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Goosebumps - Blu-ray Review

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Goosebumps, directed by Rob Letterman (Gulliver's Travels, Monsters vs. Aliens, Shark Tale), might have hit theaters about a year ago but the $131 million hit film is only just now hitting shelves on blu-ray. Trust me when I suggest to you that the film – full of monsters, laughs, and scares – is definitely worth the wait. With a fully realized love story between two starry-eyed teens to boot, this is one scary movie that is a definite win for those who hunger for a howling good time.

I know what you’re thinking. Hays, you simply can’t be serious. Well, I am serious. Imagine it: a movie for kids and tweens and teenagers with a command of scares and intelligence. What decade are we living in? Family-minded flicks that hit their marks as well as this one are few and far between in the modern age.

Goosebumps, for kid and adult alike, is a definite win-win.

With a breathless screenplay from Darren Lemke, the tale hits the ground running as Dylan Minnette as Zach and Amy Ryan his grieving mother move from New York City to a small town in Delaware. As a high school student, he’s not thrilled about being in a small town, attending a new school, and making new friends; however, all of that changes when he crosses path with his precocious new neighbor, Hannah Shivers (Odeya Rush). The two strike up an immediate connection that is celebrated by impromptu meetings involving a closed-down amusement park.

But it is her father – a very cranky Jack Black as R.L. Stine, the author of all those Goosebumps books – who pulls the plug on the electricity sparking between them. Shut it down quickly. Move along, boy, nothing to see here. Except Zach can’t move on. Not with a high school dance on the horizon and the encouragement from his new wingman, a very funny Ryan Lee as Champ.

But Stine has good reason to keep people away. His house – with some very mysterious leather-bound novellas on the shelf behind his writing desk – is simply full of magic and monsters and mayhem. When an accident causes some of the beasties of his dark imagination escape the pages of his books and run rampant, it is up to this awkward gang of four to get them back into the rightful pages with the least amount of damage done to the town of Madison.

The screenplay matches the energy of the monsters jumping out of the pages of Stine’s books and the film’s director, Letterman, never once falters in his service of its imaginative pages. The CGI is tasteful and not overcooked and the entire adventure maintains a playful tone that totters back and forth between fierce and funny. It is the least insulting movie I have seen lately that is geared toward the shortest among us.

From zombies to deadly plaster dwarves with a mission to kill, Goosebumps is a highly-charged film that is easily some of the best family entertainment to come around in a long, long while.

It, just like the books it is based upon, is well worth revisiting again.

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MPAA Rating: PG for scary and intense creature action and images, and for some rude humor
Runtime: 103 mins
Director: Rob Letterman
Writer: Darren Lemke
Cast: Jack Black, Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush
Genre: Comedy | Adventure
Tagline: The stories are alive ...
Memorable Movie Quote: "You just released every monster I've ever created!"
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Official Site: http://sites.sonypictures.com/goosebumps/discanddigital/
Release Date: October 16, 2015
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: January 26, 2016
Synopsis: Upset about moving from a big city to a small town, teenager Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) finds a silver lining when he meets the beautiful girl, Hannah (Odeya Rush), living right next door. But every silver lining has a cloud, and Zach’s comes when he learns that Hannah has a mysterious dad who is revealed to be R. L. Stine (Jack Black), the author of the bestselling Goosebumps series. It turns out that there is a reason why Stine is so strange… he is a prisoner of his own imagination – the monsters that his books made famous are real, and Stine protects his readers by keeping them locked up in their books. When Zach unintentionally unleashes the monsters from their manuscripts and they begin to terrorize the town, it’s suddenly up to Stine, Zach, and Hannah to get all of them back in the books where they belong.

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[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]

Goosebumps - Blu-ray Review

Blu-ray Details:

Available on Blu-ray - January 26, 2016
Screen Formats: 2.40:1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos; English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1; French (Canada): DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1; Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Discs: 50GB Blu-ray Disc; Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD); UV digital copy; Digital copy; DVD copy
Region Encoding: A

Sony Pictures presents Goosebumps with a 1080p transfer with very strong results. Much of the film is captured in low light situations and I’m happy to report that the black levels remain well-defined throughout. Location shoots are captured with great detail and there are no moments of unfortunate crush when the levels switch. Textures are good. Colors are striking. The Dolby Atmos (core Dolby TrueHD 7.1) mix is strong and provides a nice background for some of the monster sounds to register.

Supplements:

Commentary:

None

Special Features:

With an alternate opening, a bevvy of deleted scenes, several featurettes concerning the creatures, early actor test footage, and a few fun secrets, there’s no excuse to wait on owning this horror/comedy. A DVD copy of the film and a voucher for a UV digital copy are also included with purchase.