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

Happy Halloween! October Belongs to Horror Recap

The playful 8 horror movie watching challenge from ...noir ends. The event gave finally some "excuses" to watch Finnish cult classic "Kuutamosonaatti" as well as new contender "Bodom" as well as some wacky zombie films "Dead Before Dawn" and "Dead Rising: Watchtower."

There were many other horror films that I planned to watch but October ends to soon. Partial blame is to Lou Ferrigno marathon in the beginning of October that went on a bit longer than expected. Well, those other scary flicks will be watched sooner or later anyways. For example these were left unwatched this time:

Now it is time to eat some Dracula-themed candies that I didn't know they were still manufacturing.

October Belongs to Horror #8: Mostly Ghostly: Have You Met My Ghoulfriend?

Mostly Ghostly: Have You Met My Ghoulfriend? a.k.a R.L. Stine's Mostly Ghostly 2: Have You Met My Ghoulfriend?

Universal 1440 Entertainment, Commotion Pictures, Lookout Entertainment, USA, 2014.

Halloween movie for the whole family, based on the book by R.L. Stine.

Max (Ryan Ochoa) goes to walk his dog on cemetery. Max has a ring that protects from evil ghosts. He even has ghost friends Tara (Madison Pettis) and Nicky (Roshon Fegan). Eevil ghost wizard Phears (Charlie Hewson) wants to raise a ghost army. Phears looks like Nosferatu with pointy teeth and hair.

Max, Tara and Nicky

Phears

Cammy

Max likes cute redhead Cammy (Bella Thorne) but she is not very interested in him. Grandma (Joan Rivers in her last role) and parents give tips about girls. Nicky and Tara are trying to find their parents. In the evening Max and the ghosts search for clues at school. Surprise! Cammy is also there setting up Halloween decorations. Little by little Max begins to look more interesting to her. 

Grandma and Cousin Shelley

Max  has to survive PE-lessons, there he gets help from his ghost-friends (that's ghost-doping!) As a weird detail PE-teacher (Carolyn Hennesy) has named all the gym equipment. Phears sends ghost dancer Emma (Caroline Lagerfelt/Anastasia Baranov) to steal Max's ring, but she targets annoying big brother Colin (Calum Worthy) instead. Comical possessions and ghostly pranks follow. Teacher Mrs. Wright (Juliette Cohen, who plays teacher in all of the "Mostly Ghostly" movies) tries to keep the order in the classroom with poor results. Emma isn't evil but she was tricked by Phears, so Emma loans her athletic skills to Max. 

Emma (Anastasia Baranov)

Mrs. Wright

It seems that this is a sequel to "Mostly Ghostly" (2008), flashbacks in the beginning reveal what happened previously. It is curious that the sequel took so many years. This is not the best R.L. Stine filmatization, "Haunting Hour" (2007) was more entertaining spooky fun. This movie suffers from overtrying to entertain with (cheap) special effects and having a weird pacing, the main story ends and the movie still goes on for 15 minutes. Only appearance of Phears is in any way scary, overall the adventure is too comical to be creepy. For younger kids the spooky gimmicks are quite safe as Halloween entertainment. Some fun is also there when Max performs magic tricks. In the beginning Max is kind of underdog  requiring help from the ghosts all the time, but the lesson is that he must learn to trust his own skills.

Colin and Max escape evil ghouls

Ali Eagle who has a non-speaking role here appeared year later in "Lake Placid vs Anaconda"  as sarcastic goth.

Rating:  Average

Starring: Bella Thorne, Ryan Ochoa, Roshon Fegan, Madison Pettis, Charlie Hewson, Calum Worthy, Eric Allan Kramer, Gigi Rice, Joan Rivers, Ali Eagle, Caroline Lagerfelt, Anastasia Baranova, Marc Kenneth Robinson, Casey Young, Wyatt Bernard, Eric Julian Shaw, Adi Shankar, Carolyn Hennesy, Juliette Cohen, Hank Donovan, Abbey Blake, Mary Passeri, Elsie Hewitt, Chelsea Vale, Jordan Bailey, Nick Bemrose, Ilia Constantine, Sherilyn Henderson, Benjamin Levy, Scott P. Martin, Scott P. Martin, Danny Mika, Nino Nava, Isabella Revel, Jan-Michael Rosner, Joe Sobalo Jr.

Director: Peter Hewitt