2008
Once a Saturday-morning mainstay, the "Goosebumps" brand "? originated in R.L. Stine's wildly popular book series for kids "? is making a comeback, and Fox has released three volumes of the Nineties show that are new to DVD: "One Day at HorrorLand," "Monster Blood" and "A Night in Terror Tower."
"HorrorLand" includes tales about a haunted amusement park and a summer camp where the kids disappear, while "Monster Blood" offers stories about a "Blob"-like green substance and kids dealing with monsters. " Terror Tower" proves to be the ambitious, with a time-travel plot device that plops our young protagonists in a cat-and-mouse game inside the infamous Tower of London.
Performances are questionable at best, yet production values for the show are pretty solid, at least from a television standpoint. As for the scares, they are mild for its target audience. That means the grade schoolers eager to get into horror but too young for today's slasherfests will be creeped out just enough for a jump or two per episode, but will experience nothing that'll disturb or give them lasting nightmares.
"Goosebumps" is a junior version of "Tales from the Crypt," which means it's pretty harmless stuff to let the kids watch this Halloween. Aside from a brief host segment from Stine, none of the three discs contain any extras, but young viewers likely will be too wrapped up in the various episodes to notice. Mine sure were.
"?Rod Lott
