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Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween

This is a fun, last-minute Halloween movie for the whole family.

Goosebumps 2 was very enjoyable and a fun movie to watch. This movie is obviously geared toward the younger audience, but the whole family would enjoy their time watching this movie together.

The special effects in this movie was definitely the most entertaining part and the movie’s best quality. The inanimate objects kept coming to life in this movie, and the transformation was incredible to watch. For a kid’s movie, the special effects really surprised me!

This movie would definitely be a fun, sorta-scary movie to go take the kids, or anyone that isn’t a fan of horror films, but still wants a little Halloween scare! Along with it’s  scary storyline, the plot of this movie also includes a cute side story about the family.

PLOT: Goosebumps 2 is just another Goosebumps story, specifically Haunted Halloween. It’s about a family- a son, Sonny (played by Jeremy Ray Taylor), his friend, Sam (played by Caleel Harris), and an older sister, Sarah (played by Madison Iseman). Sam and Sonny work a “job” where they go clean-up unwanted junk from houses. They get a job to clean up a house that happens to be R.L. Stein’s house.

SLIGHT SPOILER (NOT REALLY): They find a ventriloquist dummy named Slappy and use a spell to accidentally bring him to life. Slappy has the power to bring anything to life that he wants to and has a lot of special powers. He just wants to be part of the family and to be Sonny and Sarah’s brother. But that’s kind of weird right, so after some freaky stuff Slappy pulls in attempts to please Sarah and Sonny, they try to get rid of him.

ACTUAL SPOILER: So, obviously, you can’t get rid of Slappy, so he turns against the family and turns evil instead. He decides to bring all of the Halloween costumes and Halloween toys in a store to life. Thus creating the storyline of the book “Goosebumps: A Haunted Halloween,” a book that R.L. Stein wrote, but didn’t finish. The rest of the movie is about the kids trying to make their own ending to the book and them trying to stop all of the Halloween chaos. SPOILER OVER

ALL-STAR CAST: The three kids: Sonny, Sarah, and Sam were all really cute and did well. But Sony Pictures had to but some big-wig names in the movie to let the older crowd be prompted to see this with the family.

WENDI McLENDON-COVEY as Kathy, the mother: It was almost hard to recognize her without the classic Goldberg mom hair. She had a pretty big role in this movie, being the typical, clueless mom that doesn’t believe her kids when they say there’s a doll that’s alive. She’s funny as always, well as much as the part allowed her to be, but she seems to be the highest-paid cast member, so Goosebumps was definitely looking for a big name.

KEN JEONG as Mr.Chu, the next-door neighbor: Jeong plays the geeky, over-the-top next-door neighbor from the main family. He’s a Halloween fanatic, which causes some problems, but he is ultimately the one who prompts the kids the end the story. He’s funny as always and this role was more than likely specifically written for Jeong.

JACK BLACK as R.L. Stein: Surprisingly, Jack Black is not even credited if you look up the movie on IMDB. I would have thought that the movie would have advertised the presence of Jack Black in the movie more in the previews, considering he is an extremely well known actor for all generations. He played the author of the story, obviously, and had a fairly large role, especially toward the end of the movie. It wasn’t a funny role for him, more on the serious side, but Jack Black still put his own twist on this well-known author.

If you enjoy the Goosebumps book series, you will love this movie. It’s a cute last-minute Halloween film to go watch with the family in the days before of after Halloween night. I was eagerly waiting for “goosebumps” by Travis Scott to play in this seemingly modern-day movie, which never came, but oh well. I enjoyed myself at this movie and I think any movie-goer would as well.

RATING: 68%

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Halloween

The previews were not wrong when they said “This isn’t just a good horror movie, it’s a good movie.” I was pleasantly surprised with the balance between the story plot and horror.

A lot of horror movies are all horror all the time, and that get in the way of the story. It has become fairly difficult for an extremely scary movie to actually be considered a “good film” because the plot has become blurred in between the reckless horror scenes. This film really tells a story while still being undoubtedly scary.

WARNING: This movie is Rated-R for nudity, gore, and language, although the woman in front of me obviously did not seem to care as she brought her two 4-year-old children. This movie is NOT for children!!

This movie is a sequel to the first Halloween movie that was released in 1978. In the previous Halloween movie -40 years ago in real life and in the plot- Michael Myers is a deranged  serial killer, who started killing by stabbing his older sister to death when he was only 6 years-old. A little later in his life, Michael goes on to kill anyone he sees-or it seems that way, and of course– in that creepy mask. He kills many of Laurie Strode’s, played by Jamie Lee Curtis in both movies, friends and peers, but Michael fails in killing her before getting detained to a mental institution.

In this movie, it starts out with Michael being locked up by a chain and detained in about a couple square foot worth of space. He has not spoken a word since he has been detained. Two investigators, Aaron and Dana, go to speak with Michael at the institution, but he did not speak to them.

We get to see the aftermath of Laurie’s life after the trauma Michael put her through. She has tons of guns at her house, she has five locks on her door, security cameras in every room, a self-made shooting range in her back yard, and has created a secret underground basement. When she had a daughter, Karen-played by Judy Greer, Karen was taken away by CPS because Laurie had forced her to become prepared for a Michael situation by shooting guns, locking her in rooms, etc. Laurie’s life-time goal is to kill Michael Myers.

We are getting a side story this whole time about Allyson, Laurie’s granddaughter played by Andi Matichak, and her life in high school with her friends. Laurie’s whole family thinks she is crazy after being traumatized after 40 years.

SPOILER (kind of not really) On Halloween of 2018, Michael Myers takes control of one of the mental institution busses and escapes. He goes on the hunt for the investigators and to take his mask back. He kills basically everyone he encounters. Before he gets his mask, he’s already killed a total of 6 people in gory, gross ways. He then goes out into the night for Halloween– and just looks like he is normal and in a costume for Halloween with his mask.

He kills everyone, literally almost everyone in this movie. He kills all of Allyson’s friends, her dad, 2 officers, and at least 8 people we don’t know who they are. Just for funsies.

It ends with Laurie, Allyson, and Karen trapping Michael in the underground basement which is actually just a death trap. Laurie pulls a lever and the whole house starts to slowly burst into flames. They get out of the house and Michael dies a slow death as he is burned… just kidding after the credits we hear him breathing, so let’s get ready for a Halloween 3. But this isn’t the first time in the movie Michael seems to be invincible. He got shot 3 times in the movie, stabbed at least 5 times, and hit by a car, yet every time, he gets up and acts like nothing happened.

SPOILER OVER

This is a classic horror movie where all of the characters seem to have less than no brain. The classic- there’s an empty running car that they could steal, yet they run into the woods instead- and you hear a simultaneous groan from the entire audience. But that just makes the movie all that more enjoyable by adding a comedy factor to the movie.

I gotta mention this character that stole the show. Jibrail Nantambu plays the young boy Julian that Allyson’s friend is babysitting. This kid is HILARIOUS!!! He saw Michael staring at his room from his hallway and somehow escapes, but the other two people in the house gets killed. We never find out what happens to Julian, but he sure was a comic relief in this movie.

If you typically enjoy Blumhouse Productions and other classic horror movies, you’ll love this movie. If you’re a horror movie fanatic, you will be incredibly pleased with the production of this movie. I highly recommend it, even if you do get easily scared, you can handle it. It’s a good storyline filled with a perfect amount of horror. It’s the perfect movie for the 2018 Halloween season.

RATING: 82%

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Truth Or Dare?

I’ll start out by saying I was incredibly excited for this movie months before it made its way into theaters. As a fan of Blumhouse Productions such as Get Out, Split, and The Purge series, I was absolutely ecstatic for this, what looked to be, typical jump-scare movie. Even more exciting, Lucy Hale and Tyler Posey star in this new, modern day horror. I loved Tyler Posey’s work on Jane the Virgin specifically as the love interest, in which he also plays in Truth or Dare to Olivia, whom was played by the wonderful Lucy Hale. Being a mega-fan of Lucy Hale since first seeing her on Wizards of Waverley Place to Pretty Little Liars, the Season of Lucy Hale: starring in a hopeful top box office movie- Truth or Dare, starring in a Netflix Original- Dude, and starring in the TV series- Life Sentence all at once, this movie was set up for success with such a strong and relevant female lead.

As much as this movie was so heavily advertised on social media and TV, it had to be good right? Those previews looked pretty scary and interesting… and they were. Except they revealed what would have been some nice plot twists in the movies. From seeing 2 deaths in the previews, and seeing the preview that dares Carter to cut out his tongue. If I had not seen these previews before the movie, I feel like the movie would have been more enjoyable than it was. I was not surprised at anything in the entirety of the movie and it was not as scare as Blumhouse Production’s other works.

As there were little to no jump scares in this entire movie, except for, SPOILER ALERT, an old man was lying dead in a hospital bed. When it is the boy, Brad’s, turn to play the game, he is shaken and screamed at by the old man out of no where. It is sad to say that the biggest scare in the whole movie had nothing to do with the plot. The only other scary, or in my opinion only other messed up, scene in the movie, is the opening scene. The girl who helped play the first game of truth or dare- thus letting the demon, Calux, out- is dared to burn an innocent woman in the parking lot of a gas station. So the girl, Giselle, does just that, pours gasoline over the woman and lights a match to throw on her. The rest of the movie is completely predictable and the special effects in the death scenes are poorly edited, including the now famous “Truth or Dare Face”, making this movie look very immature.

The actors did not do a horrible job with the material they were given. The actors made the story seem realer than the completely unrealistic plot they were given. The ending was extremely disappointing, for a movie that would have been interesting- had I not already seen most of the movie in the previews. The main characters die because they cannot get out of the game? No. The two girls that are left out of the entire truth or dare game end up victorious and defeat the demon, Calux? Nope. Instead this movie is ended with the two girls posting a video on YouTube simply asking the viewers, Truth or Dare? This way it would take years for the two girls still alive: Olivia and Markie to be forced to take another turn playing the game. So instead of killing one or both of themselves in order to end the game, the girls decide to risk every life in the world by unleashing the demon onto all of humanity with no possible way to end the game. Now, I will give it to the writers that they left the ending open for a possible sequel. But due to how poorly this movie did in theatre despite how well it was predicted to do, there is a high likelihood that there will not, in fact, be a sequel to Truth or Dare.

This was the movie I was looking forward to the most for this year, 2018, and I am still incredibly disappointed months after seeing it. If the advertisements had previewed less content and the movie was not advertised in every swipe of social media, this movie would have had less expectation and a much better scare factor. This movie had some strong stars along with some very talented newbies and it is a shame that the producers and writers were not able to give these actors an outcome such as Get Out. But Blumhouse Productions have already come out with better Horror Films since the release of this bust and have covered up the sad failure of Truth Or Dare which had so much potential.

RATING: 28%