Goosebumps, film review: Memories of Joe Dante's zany, tongue-in-cheek movies

(PG) Rob Letterman, 103 mins. Starring: Jack Black, Amy Ryan, Dylan Minnette

Jack Black, Odeya Rush and Dylan Minnette star in Columbia Pictures' 'Goosebumps' (Columbia)

This teen horror fantasy (based on RL Stine's bestselling children's books) is made with an anarchic glee that, in its better moments, rekindles memories of Joe Dante's zany, tongue-in-cheek movies of the 1980s.

Dylan Minnette plays Zach Cooper, a teenager whose father recently died and who has moved from New York to Madison, Delaware, where his mother (Amy Ryan) has been appointed vice-principal at the high school.

Jack Black is the neighbour, RL Stine (a fictional version of the author of the novels). At first, Stine is a creepy and hostile figure who becomes furious when Zach tries to befriend his daughter. The early scenes are strait-laced. It is only later on that the monsters are unleashed. The twist here is that they all spring from Stine's imagination.

Some scenes are truly inspired, notably the ones involving an army of bloodthirsty garden gnomes let loose in the kitchen and those in which Slappy the ventriloquist's dummy wreaks havoc in the police station. The downside is that the film risks becoming repetitive and all the in-jokes (references to Stephen King and The Shining, a cameo from the real RL Stine) drain the story of any tension it might have had.