Sorry to start a post with a dated meme, but I feel this is a relevant and appropriate use of the meme so GET OFF MY CASE INTERNET COMMENTERS WHO LIVE IN MY BRAIN!!! And now to go balls-in on my hackneyed intro to this wonderful bit of movie news:
HEY ’90s KIDS! Remember Goosebumps?! I sure as shit do! (Three cheers for remembering stuff!) Well it looks like Entertainment Weekly has the first ever stills from the upcoming Goosebumps movie set to arrive in theaters August 7, 2015. Jack Black will play Goosebumps’ author R.L. Stine in the film, which is being billed as a “a comedy-fueled horror that promises to channel Goosebumps’ kid-approved brand of scary while pleasing grownup loyalists of the 1990s franchise.”
Wait a second, R.L. Stine is a character in the film? How does that work? Brad Miska AKA MrDisgusting of Bloody-Disgusting.com explains:
The adaptation of the R.L. Stine books series follows a young boy who moves with his mother and sister to the small town of Greendale, Maryland. There, he meets veteran Young Adult horror author R. L. Stine, played by Jack Black. The infamous Slappy – a demonic ventriloquist’s dummy – comes into play and sets free the many many demons of Stine’s mind. Stine’s niece teams with the boy to put all the evil genies back in the bottle.
That’s right, the Goosebumps movie will be featuring myriad R.L. Stine ghoulish creations, like a demonic Justice League. I am elated to hear that Slappy from Night of the Living Dummy will be making an appearance. In my curiosity, I went to the IMDB page for the Goosebumps movie to see what other R.L. Stine creations will appear. I am happy to report we will be seeing cameos from The Haunted Mask and the scarecrow from The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight. I only hope that the camera from Say Cheese and Die! will somehow come into play.
In an interview with EW, Jack Black explains his reasons for doing the film.
It’s funny and scary—something that would be great to take my kids to.
[…]
Well, kids like scary movies, but you can’t take them to what are the big scary movies now where Satan comes out and bites your genitals off. Those movies can actually leave you mentally scared; that’s not for kids. But kids still like to get a little thrill and a little danger, so you need projects like this.
While part of me is a little disappointed that I am no longer the target audience for a Goosebumps feature, I can’t help but be charmed by Jack Black’s desire to protect his kids from movies where the devil bites off cocks. He’s the sweetest. It will be nice to see Jack Black back on the big screen again after a nearly three-year long hiatus.