(This review may contain spoilers).
I think it’s become fairly clear that my niece is taking after me in a big way. Shortly before Christmas, she wrote a letter to Santa, asking for scary films. And in her stocking were four of them – and this was one of those.
I loved reading (and watching) Goosebumps as a child, so since this was also by R.L. Stine, I was fairly happy to watch when my niece asked me to. Although the acting was a bit over the top in some parts, I still felt that this film was entertaining. I couldn’t get Max as a fake Justin Bieber out of my head, though. (Search Justin Bieber parodies on YouTube).
I did feel that the special effects were somewhat lacking in this film. That did work when it came to the ghosts (sometimes simpler can be better), but a lot of the film felt old-fashioned… even though it was set in fairly recent times.
There were some quite cool ideas in this film, such as when Tara goes online to search for information on her parents. And it was good to see that they were affected by not having their parents around. There were also some quite amusing moments in this movie… and it was nice to see Max having to deal with problems that children have to, such as older brother/parents and bullying.
I was a bit disappointed to see that the film didn’t have a proper ending and more so because the sequel only seems to have one of the original actors in it.
I think this is a good film to watch as a family. It’s a kind of ‘safe’ scary, so I wouldn’t watch it with younger children, but with children who don’t mind tame scary films, I would suggest watching it.
