Brief Story Line
In the small city of Port Lawrence, few high school students that consisted of the popular Isaiah (Zack Morris - Eastenders TV series etc) with his girlfriend Allison (Rhinnan Payne) and best friend James (Miles McKenna) decided to throw a party in an old house that was said to be haunted. They were joined by Isaiah's neighbor Margot (Isa Briones - Star Trek: Picard TV series etc) and later other students like Lucas (Will Price) and Isabella (Ana Yi Puig).
The party though was short-lived when new owner of the house Nathan Bratt (Justin Long - Barbarian, Accepted etc) returned home early. However, something supernatural & strange also happened during the party and started to terrorize the students. Lucas mother Nora (Rachael Harris - Lucifer TV series etc) seemed to know more about this and she tried to warn other parents, but to no success.
So what would happen to the students? And why were there being targeted? You could find out in this series.
End of Brief Story Line
Well that was fun! Despite being a horror series, I was quite confident that it would not be extremely terrifying as after all, it was based on book series of the same title by R. L. Stine aimed for teenagers (or younger). The books were so popular that there were already several adaptations before like the 2015 movie Goosebumps and its 2018 sequel, 1995 TV series and even video games, comic & audio books. So it was a no brainer that Sony Pictures decided to create this new series which was developed by Rob Letterman (co-director of Shark Tale, Monster vs. Aliens etc) and Nicholas Stoller (director of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Neighbors etc), with Letterman's experience of directing the 2015 movie certainly a contributing factor.
The first episode of the series basically introduce the characters involved and also a little background on some of them with something scary but fun related to the old house. The comedy feel was stronger with the appearance of Justin Long who I was quite familiar with due to his previous comedic roles. And frankly I thought he was really suitable in this role especially in subsequent episodes. The second and latter episodes mostly focused on one of the character trying to solve the supernatural problem (monster) but they were still connected by the main story. This was different from the anthology series back in 1995.
In general I like most of the episodes here, particularly episode 3 and 5. I also think the way they ended episode 8 and what they did in episode 9 and 10 was pretty smart. It made me appreciate the series more and hoping so much there would be a second season (by the time I write this post, there is no news yet whether it would happen). Like in typical horror, there would be the occasional jump scare scenes but surprisingly not so many compared to others. The special effects were pretty decent and OK.
The main characters were quite enjoyable to see with their dynamics and standard high school romance. Of all the teenagers, I think I like Isabella the most while Margot was fun to watch at first but I did not really like her character development. The parents were not part of the main cast here, however their roles were important for the story. Aside from Nora, there were also Isaiah's father Ben (Leonard Roberts - Heroes TV series etc), Isabella's mother Victoria (Francoise Yip - Rumble in the Bronx etc), James' mother Eliza (Laura Mennel - Van Helsing TV series etc) and Margot's parents, Guidance counsellor Colin (Rob Huebel - Spontaneous etc) & Sarah (Lexa Doig - Continuum TV series etc). In addition, there's also support cast of Chris Geere as iconic character of the series, the familiar face of Jonathan Silverman (Weekend at Bernie's etc) and a surprise cameo (albeit only in voice).
Overall I was pretty entertained with the series. The horror was not the very eerie or truly horrifying kind and combined with mystery, few humorous scenes and nice chemistry of the cast making it fun for me. Changing it from anthology to a serialized story was a wonderful decision as well, as it made me more intrigued and invested to watch it till the end. So if you like R. L Stines books, I think you would enjoy the series as the part that made them such a success were still apparent here (the mystery solving and the monsters).
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment