Movie Review: R.L. Stine's Monsterville: The Cabinet of Souls

R.L. Stine's Monsterville: The Cabinet of Souls
Universal 1440 Entertainment, EveryWhere Studios, USA, Canada, 2015.

"Mostly Ghostly: Have You Met My Ghoulfriend?" left a bit disappointing feeling, so let's see if another R.L. Stine filmatization is better.

Four high school teens visit Annual Harvest and Halloween Festival. Kellen (Braeden Lemasters) has crush on Beth (Dove Cameron) but he is too shy. Luke (Casey Dubois) tries to make impression on Nicole (Tiffany Espensen) but with similarly thin results. Then the Halloween festival gets more thrilling than usually.

Luke and Kellen

Beth and Nicole

Dr. Hysteria (Andrew Kavadas) and Lilith (Katherine McNamara) appear with their Hall of Horror spectacle. Also smug cool guy Hunter (Ryan McCartan) arrives and charms Beth. Goth girl Lilith starts to vamp Kellen. Dr. Hysteria's ghost house actually hosts real zombies and vampires. Dr. Hysteria can make everyone's dreams come true - in exchange for their souls. Beth notices that his friends begin to become impolite and turn into monsters.

Dr. Hysteria

Lilith

Hunter

This is in every way better than ""Mostly Ghostly", and offers some genuine creepiness. It is aimed at older kids, but with a story that is not far off from some real horror films, so adults could enjoy it too. Great Halloween-entertainment for the whole family entertainment. Funny horror references for the genre fans: chainsaw creep swings his instrument, zombies point at Beth like "Body Snatchers", one zombie looks like Danny Trejo and there is Dr. Caligari inspired cabinet. The production values are good TV-level and the actors are likable. Katherine McNamara's goth meanie steals the scenes she's in, and the young actress already has appeared in an impressive resume of films and TV-shows. Rising star she is. And the other teen actors have also appeared in high-profile productions.

Props for "Goodnight Moon" appearing on the soundtrack.

Rating: Good

Starring: Dove Cameron, Braeden Lemasters, Katherine McNamara, Casey Dubois, Tiffany Espensen, Ryan McCartan, Andrew Kavadas, David Lewis, Keith MacKechnie, Laine MacNeil, Karin Konoval, Fiona Vroom, Jacob Desormeaux, Carey Feehan, Kelly-Ruth Mercier, Sean Tyson, Connor Stanhope, Matt Phillips, Bernadette Beck, Briana Buckmaster, Jameson Trenholm, Sean Quan, Cameron Fraser, Sarah Corrigan, Corey Woods, Carley Ishii, Kerri Jesson, Janet Walmsley
Director: Peter DeLuise