Movie Review: R.L. Stine's Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It!

R.L. Stine's Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It! 

Universal Studios Home Entertainment Family Productions, The Hatchery LLC, Steeltown Entertainment, Creata Entertainment, Zappa Studios, USA, 2007. 

Based on the children's horror anthology "Haunting Hour" by R.L. Stine.  

Little Max Keller (Alex Winzenread) is afraid of the dark. His 13-year old Gothic sister Cassie Keller (Haley Joel Osment's sister Emily Osment) is largely responsible for that. Actutally Max is afraid of almost everything. 

Max Keller

Cassie

The family has moved and Cassie has to attend a new school. Halloween is approaching and school's most popular girl Priscilla Wright (Brittany Curran) wants to be Pumpkin Queen. Cassie has no friends but she tries to help handsome boy Sean (Cody Linley) write a paper about Edgar Allan Poe. Priscilla humiliates her so Cassie wants revenge. 

Sean

Priscilla (middle)

Cassie finds a strange horror shop. The shopkeeper (Tobin Bell) sells her a book titled 'The Evil Thing.' To scare his little brother she reads it for him. Reading it summons a monster that begins to abduct folks. Cassie and Sean must save them and destroy the monster. 

Shopkeeper

Monster kidnaps Priscilla

This is quite fun family movie for kids who like scary things. All of the characters have some negative characters traits they need to improve: Cassie is moody and likes to scare people, Max is scaredy-cat, Sean is nice but somewhat spineless and Priscilla is mean-spirited diva. In the end they are better persons than in the beginning. Well, at least most of them.

Although the movie is for older kids, grown-up horror fans may spot some horror references: Cassie writes a paper about classic horror films (including Fritz Lang's "M" and "Godzilla"), the monster's head looks like the alien from "Deadly Spawn", "Saw"-veteran Tobin Bell appears as Crypt Keeper style character (but much nicer looking), Halloween's TV programming consists of old zombie films, ballroom scene makes one think of "Carrie." Evil books of course are nowadays present everywhere from Lovecraft's tales to "Evil Dead" and "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic." 

Rating: Good 

Starring: Emily Osment, Brittany Elizabeth Curran, Cody Linley, Alex Winzenread, Michelle Duffy, Matt Angel, John Hawkinson, Tobin Bell, Nigel Ash, Colleen Dengel, Katelyn Pippy, Colin Burnes, Barbara Russell, John P. Hopkins, Eric Johnson, Nialyn Reid Bey, Marty Schiff, Maria Becoates-Bey, Elias Brown, Michael Dickson, Tony Amen, Matthew Miles Carter, Brady DelVecchio 

Director: Alex Zamm