User reviews

I revisited this yesterday with my nephew n daughter. This one is a stand alone sequel n apart from Jack Black in a tiny role, none of the cast from the previous film returns here.

This time two young boys gets hold of an unpublished n unfinished Goosebumps book titled Haunted Halloween. How the book is kept in the dilapidated n abandoned house is never explained. They also find Slappy n brings it to life by speaking magic words found in the dummy's pocket. So a lil confusion here. Slappy is found aft opening the book but he comes alive aft the magic words. Also Slappy brings all the Halloween monsters to life including the Werewolf n Snowman, albeit in a tiny role n that too without opening any book.

In the second Goosebumps Cinematic Universe, some kids (of course) have some issues. There's Madison Iseman, who's terrified she's not going to be able to finish her essay on fear and get into an Ivy League University; there's her kid brother and his best friend, who are bullied in school. The boys run a business carting away old junk for free, figuring they'll find some stuff worth reselling in the trash. When they're called on to empty the attic of an abandoned house, they do: Slappy the demonic ventriloquist's dummy. He proceeds to turn half the town into monsters.

Like the earlier movie, Jack Black plays R.L. Stine in the second half of the movie -- the real author gets a cameo near the end. It's juvenile, of course, and rather silly, but there are some of the anxieties that kids really experience, and the humor is deliberate and the special effects good.

Aspiring writer Sarah Quinn (Madison Iseman) is struggling with her college entry essay. Her boyfriend just wants to have fun. Her nerdy brother Sonny (Jeremy Ray Taylor) annoys her. He and his best friend Sam Carter (Caleel Harris) have started a junk business. They are called to clean out the abandoned childhood home of R.L. Stine (Jack Black). They find Stine's book. Ventriloquist dummy Slappy suddenly appears and Sonny unknowingly brings him back to life. Slappy wants to be a part of his family unleashing chaos during Halloween.

This is pretty good for a TV Goosebumps movie on a kiddie channel. As a theatrical offering, it doesn't have the grandeur or the scares to cross over into adult or teen market. In addition, it's tough to sell parents to take their little kids to a horror movie. It's stuck somewhere in no man's land. It needs to be a little darker and a little more theatrical to get the teens. Jack Black phones in his fifteen minutes and delivers one good joke. The kids are fine but nothing that special. The writing misses a few things. Sarah needs to physically write in the book with a pen to wrap up that aspect of the story. Slappy is interesting and could deliver more sequels. The franchise is unlikely to break out and is probably on a declining trajectory. It's stuck in kiddie horror land.

The first goosebumps movie that came out in 2015 was fun, dark, and deffently for all audiences. This one felt like a rip off from modern movie IT, or stranger things. The actors at times got on my nerves and frankly Slappy as the main bad guy felt boring and I feel he is being over used. Also all of the monsters being out at the same time felt like a repetition of part 1 except the cast was younger and more annoying. 1. Would I see it again? Yea 2. Was it worth buying a ticket? No 3. Was the acting good? No 4. Was the music good? No 5. Costumes and fx good? Yes 6. Would I see it with a friend? Yes 7. Will I buy it on disc? No 8. Should you wait for it on DVD? Yes 9. Did i have fun? Yes 10. Is it a good movie? Yea...ish.

I quite enjoyed Goosebumps (2015) it was silly larger than life fun based on books I certainly enjoyed as a child. I did however not expect a sequel!

Led by two very entertaining kids, flanked by the always likeable Wendi McLendon-Covey and less so Ken Jeong the movies cast is a solid one.

SFX? Ropey in places but the movie is on a big scale, monsters of all shapes and sizes so the cgi is rife.

Plot? Highly generic stuff but passable enough to kill 90 minutes with.

So where do the real issues lay? Well the tone seems rather different, this doesn't feel like a loyal Goosebumps sequel it feels like something you'd watch on a Saturday morning with your kids. It feels like Kenan & Kel Halloween special, the horror is pretty much non-existent and instead is a full on goofy family comedy. That really damaged the film for me, sure I didn't expect actual horror but a degree of threat like the first movie would have been nice and not a full on children's movie. Absolutely no parental supervision needed for this one!

I enjoyed all the wacky monsters, I liked how bright and colorful the whole thing was and how the two leads managed to be likeable despite my hatred for kids. Haunted Halloween isn't bad, it's just very disappointing and if this is the direction they're going in then I'm not fussed for any more films.

The Good:

Looks great for the most part

Cast do a decent job

Great monsters

The Bad:

CGI fails in places

Saturday morning tone did nothing for me

The original Goosebumps movie took me by surprise when it came out in 2015. It had fun likable characters and a great villain in Slappy the evil dummy.

Fast forward 3 years and here's the sequel. 99% of the cast from the original is missing and the new characters aren't as interesting. They're serviceable but kind of forgettable. The story is also not as well paced as the original and is too fast for its own good coming in as a little too short. It needed about another 10 minutes or so in its last act.

But I can't hate it because it's still a lot of fun. Once again Slappy steals the show and there's some surprisingly creepy scenes involving him early on in the movie. The other Goosebumps monsters are fun too and the halloween setting puts a smile on my face. I also really dug the musical score by Dominic Lewis.

If you have kids I highly recommend taking them to this one. Although there might be a few scenes too scary for the younger ones it's the perfect horror movie for them to watch during the Halloween season.

Buy a ticket, some popcorn and a soda and have fun.

I decided to watch "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween" because I did actually thoroughly enjoy the previous "Goosebumps" movie from 2015. And based on that movie, then I actually had high hopes for "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween".

While "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween" definitely was a visually pleasing movie, then it was just a very unnecessary sequel. Why? Well, because it was essentially the exact same as the 2015 movie, just changed the scenery, the monsters, and the characters. But the essence of the storyline and the outcome was the exact same thing. So that felt very anti-climatic and very much like a slap to the face with a cold, dead fish.

If you haven't already seen the 2015 "Goosebumps" movie then this sequel will be a good movie to watch. However, if you already did see the 2015 one, then there virtually is no need to watch "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween". I am not kidding.

The CGI department definitely did not fail to deliver, because the CGI in the movie were quite good, just as they were in the previous movie. And that is actually the selling point to "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween", sad to say.

This is very much a sequel in the very definition of a sequel. So it was soup being boiled on watered down broth.

Not as good as the first one,but still a fun movie with a decent cast.. perfect for a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and for the kids.

Stand alone, this could make up as a pretty good children's halloween movie, it even has some morals kids would normally get in a kid's movie. BUT The first Goosebumps movie was enjoyable for almost all audiences despite some jokes being to childish and I expected so much

I think the actors did a good job but the characters that they had to give life to were just poorly imagined and too flat.

Also, Jack Black's appearance although we would have wanted more was clearly unnecessary and was treated as a narration or explanation if you haven't watched the first movie. It would have been better without him if they were just going to let him do that.

Wonderfully done! I loved all the ghouls and creatures in the film.

Pay attention to the last few minutes of the movie before the credits and you can spot a certain person making a surprise cameo!

This movie started off a little bit slow but the end product was a good one and the kids (aged 9 and 14) left excited, scared of ventriloquist dolla and ready for Halloween. Very minimal role by Jack Black in this movie but we were entertained throughout and got us in the mood for Halloween next week! Worth a Friday night.

Uninteresting characters Sub par story Meh villain Predictable ending Not worth watching just watch the originals. Verdict: MEGA CASHGRAB

So last week after Venom I said that nobody at Sony would know what going dark was if it licked them in the ass with a giant symbiote tongue. This week, I take it back.

Goosebumps isn't going to wow you with what it has to say, nor does it have much to say in the first place, but this totally understands what it wants to be.

Like the books it's based off of, it's the scary movie starter kit for kids. You get your halloween fright monsters, you get some mild jump scares, you get inspired lunacy and funny references, some for kids, some clearly aimed at adults.

This movie is everything the first movie was and everything that House with the clock in the walls wanted to be.

If you're reviewing it, sure, you can come up with the problem that the plot is pretty much the same from the first movie but the first movie generally was just the creation of a playground to workout zaniness and frights anyway so as long as those work...

Here two kids find a book from R.L. Stine. It winds up bringing Stine's dummy Slappy back to life. Slappy in turn decides he wants to complete the story of one of Stine's earlier works and unleashes a bunch of monsters on the small town in order to do that.

The whole thing is a bunch of fun and nobody is having more of it than Jack Black. He voices Slappy with Crypt-keeper like precision, especially the laugh. He later shows up in person as Stine, full of hillarious mock arrogance.

Slappy is also sure to be the best character here, one who even at his most tame is really mischievous and at his most menacing is enough to make you fear for whoever he's around.

This is also another marvel for Sony Pictures animation. The visual effects, from the costumes in the halloween store that come to life to haunted pumpkins, to demonic gummy bears.

Every once in a while the mom from the Goldbergs or Ken Jeong will come in for some comedic support. The kid actors are fine too and there's a nice message about facing fears.

Really if I was 10 i'd think this was a great movie but even as an adult, I laughed at its absurdity while admiring how it balances being wacky, frightful, and also kid friendly.

If you like this, check out Craig James Review on Youtube for more

As a major "Goosebumps" fan, I can say my favorite monster is Slappy the ventriloquist dummy, and that I adored the first film. This sequel film took a while to be made and released, since it was drowned in development problems, but I DID enjoy it, and I AM glad I own it on DVD. Oddly enough it looks as though the new name for the film is simply "Goosebumps 2", instead of "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween" (which just sounds better, all around). This was a fun film, but it's nowhere close to being as heartfelt or fun as the first film was, in my opinion.

I love the way the film is crafted for "Goosebumps" fans. Most folks who don't read the books would probably wonder how Slappy has managed to live, after the ending of the first film. To a "Goosebumps" fanboy, we know that every sequel to almost every book, no matter what series, never really begins where the last book ended. Honestly, though, we never really need to know how a monster character returns from a previous story. It's just not important, and I love that about both the movies AND the book series (which I've been reading since I was a small child).

Slappy is found by two older boys who take junk off of people's hands. They found him inside R.L. Stine's old house from the first flick (apparently Stine moved away, at some point). But Slappy isn't stuck in the book from the end of the first film, now. The boys read the very famous voodoo words from a card in Slappy's pocket, and they eventually discover that he's actually alive.

You could very well call this another Slappy Show, and I know that bothers many fans. Slappy seems overexposed to the franchise, and I can admit that, even though he's still my favorite monster from all of the books. He's just too much fun to hate, even here, when a different actor was playing him (Jack Black did the voice in the first film). I don't mind the newer actor-he sounds almost identical to Black until he laughs his absolutely TERRIBLE laugh. It's silly, and not tense, or biting, like what Jack Black had given us. I'm definitely not a fan of that new laugh. Slappy seems happier, in this film. He actually wants to be part of the family with the one boy, his sister, and his mother. Slappy is so likable here, even if he's drastically different in personality from his character in the first film. Again: continuity doesn't matter in the "Goosebumps" world, so it doesn't bother me, and shouldn't bother the dedicated fans. One of my favorite moments I texted my mother about was when I got to see Slappy the Dummy playing PlayStation. I never expected to see that, and now I have. What a wonder.

The rest of the cast tends to be just okay. You've got a lot of young people I don't know, but I do recognize the actor who played Ben from "It". Honestly, I don't think they were given much to work with. The mother of the two main kids is absolutely horrible. The Asian guy from the "Hangover" films is horrible, too. And I mean, HORRIBLE. Both of 'em. At least the aunt in the first film had some charisma, and could actually pull comedy off well. She seemed like she actually cared about the project. Neither the mother nor the Asian neighbor seemed to give one turd about the respect and fanbase behind everything "Goosebumps" related. And it shows. One character that none of us thought would be in here, when it was supposedly announced that he wouldn't return at all, was Jack Black as R.L. Stine. I was so happy when he showed-up in the trailers for the film, last year, but he's literally just a tacked-on subplot. And that's immensely disappointing. It's like the filmmakers or Sony or someone involved with the movie saw a YouTube video where people were upset that Black wasn't going to return (given that most people seemed to find him as a major highlight of the charm of the first film), and decided to go ahead and tack him right on to the sidebar. He's barely in the film, but his presence really helps you realize what's actually missing from this sequel. Maybe we shouldn't have had a second film, altogether? I still liked what I got, for the most part. At least we got that incredibly fun "It" reference. Definitely a highlight for "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween".

The writing wasn't very strong, nor were the emotions or comedy. That's something noteworthy in difference of quality and direction between this film and the previous one.

The CGI, in my opinion, is a very mixed bag. There's tons of it, and yet it feels like there isn't much. The film itself feels cheaper than the first film, and it feels like it's much less grandiose than the first film tended to be, at times. But there are some incredible things done with CGI, here. The design of the witches is absolutely stellar. I love them. The killer gummy bears, on the other hand, look like first-tier poop, once they grow to be life-sized (again: as we've seen in the trailers). If someone is wearing a monster costume, then it's pretty obvious. And, speaking of costumes, the main characters even have a cool reference to "Halloween 3: Season Of The Witch", at one point! I couldn't help but smile at that.

When it comes to the musical score, it's esssentially the exact same music from the first film. I liked the original film's score, so that worked well, if you ask me. Very suiting.

Like I mentioned earlier: the film feels cheaper than the first flick. I hate that the film flopped, because it's decent, for more of a children's film that older "Goosebumps" fans can still enjoy. It was fun, and that's all it needed to be. But I also find some things in the film (one in particular dealing with the mother) that were genuinely creepy. Too bad most people don't appreciate "Goosebumps" anymore. Maybe it's time to pack it away in a toy chest, along with "Star Wars", "Star Trek", and so many other once-upon-a-time classics that fascinated people like myself, growing-up in the 90s and early 2000s?

Overall, though: if you're a fan of Slappy the Dummy, or just plain, fun kid's movies, try this one out. But make sure you've seen the first film, because you might have some small things float right over your head. Believe me, it's worth seeing them close together.

This is a fun movie with an atmosphere that just oozes Halloween. I love the idea of Halloween decorations themselves being the monsters and there were a lot of really cool designs used for the various monsters. And I like that we see more monsters in this one than in the first one, as the first Goosebumps movie needed a lot more monster mashin' goodness.

However, it was not nearly as funny as the first Goosebumps. The plot was a bit slow and not that suspenseful or exciting. And despite Slappy being featured more in this sequel, he actually was not as creepy or menacing as he came across in the first movie.

While the first Goosebumps movie felt more like a love letter to the franchise, this movie's recipe felt more like a TV movie that tried its hardest to use the Goosebumps books as inspiration only to be just lightly Goosebumps flavored (and heavy on the Halloween candy).

Very fun, very Halloween-y, but...not that Goosebumps-y.

Not as bad as the critics says,i actually enjoyed the movie.Love the joke and the characters

Was a fan of the series but this played like a really bad TV movie of the 80's . The acting was wooden , the writing lazy , plot predictable and cliche with only one chuckle for King fans . Don't worry about being too scary for pre schoolers as they will likely laugh at those parts . I'm a middle aged dad that likes to go to the movies with his teen age son oncec a week and only reason I didn't walk out is that I'm in a wheelchair . Any glowing reviews are written by trolls wanting you to waste your time and money or by the Studio staff .

Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween is spooky, fun and creative! It is very engaging and entertaining throughout the whole film.

The story is about a young boy, Sonny (Jeremy Ray Taylor) and his best friend, Sam (Caleel Harris) who finds a book. When they open it, a doll called Slappy comes out! The boys lose the book, but keep Slappy. The friends are very surprised and a bit scared when they discover that the doll can talk. He seems nice at the beginning. He wants to have a family. But later, the boy, his sister Sarah (Madison Iseman) and his best friend realize he is strange and don't want him to be part of their family anymore. Slappy has his own personal agenda and decides to create his own family. He makes Halloween come to life as he invades the whole town with monsters and all the creatures as allies. This is a very scary Halloween for the town of Wardenclyffe, where the story takes place, as all creatures make real chaos. Sonny, Sam and Sarah team up with neighbor Mr. Chu (Ken Jeong) to find the book that Slappy from to figure out how to stop him. They discover that the book can suck up monsters and they are determined to save the city.

The story is based on R.L Stine's books. This is where Jack Black comes in as he reprises his role from the 2015 film, playing the writer who came to help. His performance as the author is excellent. I love his voice work giving life to Slappy the Dummy.

The movie is funny and spooky in equal amounts. There is mystery and discovery all combined in the storytelling. There's kind of a homage to horror films, as we see some classic monsters. My favorite scenes are the ones with the Halloween decorations coming to life in the store and the fight with the gummy bears that become real and attack Sonny and Sam.

The effects are very well done. This story focuses on the 3 main characters and the actors did a good job carrying the film. There's a tribute to the books and literature. There's a beautiful metaphor with the blank pages in the book which is powerful. It is so interesting and kind of reminded me that reality is scarier than fantasy and there will be more stories to be written. The message of this film is, "when we face our own fears we learn how not to be scared."

Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween opens October 12, 2018 and is the perfect movie for kids this Halloween. I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars and recommended it for ages 6 to 13 and grown ups as well.

By Zoe C., KIDS FIRST! Film Critic

Just like the book, you can't expect more from it. It's just another cheeky teen movie, just come from more popular source. That's it.

It's obviously not really scary, but it has that "Scooby-Doo Scary" vibe nailed! It's fast paced, fun and has a lot of Halloween themed action. The whole movie has a sort of 90's type TV feel to it, in a good way. The acting is fine and the Villain is very enjoyable.