Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween has been watched. And my mind has never battled itself more than this because A) it is a kids' movie and B) I am not a kid (my parents would argue to the second point). After much deliberation, I have tried to look back at Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween as objectively as I can. And I don't feel it was as satisfying as its predecessor, Goosebumps, which released in 2015.

The responsibility of directing Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween was given to Ari Sandel, who has made The Duff. Rob Lieber has written the story and the screenplay, which are the main areas of problems for this horror-comedy (strictly for kids).

The biggest set back for the film is that it thinks kids are lame. Breaking news, they aren't. The kids these days have rejected movies like A Wrinkle in Time. They want more. They understand more. Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween is utterly dumb. And I am not talking about the 'gummy bears come to life and attack children' part. That was quite cool. What's purely flat about the movie is how the story has been treated or even written in the first place. Just the opening scene - an eerie knock on a girl's window, only it turns out to be her boyfriend trying to sneak in - and you know just how cliched this movie is going to be.

And you get exactly that. Scene after scene. The movie is just so harrowingly predictable that it sucked the fun out of THE best Halloween scenario - RL Stines' characters coming to life and spooking a town. Slappy the Dummy, from the first movie, is alive now, thanks to two adolescent friends Sonny (Jeremy Ray Taylor) and Sam (Caleel Harris). The dummy first appears to be friendly, as joked about in the trailer. But things go down south once Slappy sets his evil plan into motion - getting a family for himself by bringing Halloween to life. Which basically means all the Halloween decoration you can think of becomes animated, including pumpkins and, as mentioned earlier, gummy bears. Sonny's sister, Sarah (Madison Iseman), is also sucked into the madness and the trio of kids tries to save their family and their town. Jack Black ( RL Stine) only has a gimmicky cameo that serves zero purposes to the plot.

What seems like a good premise on paper is reduced to cliched plot points and bad dialogues. When kids find a locked book and a key next to it, the dialogues are literally - "It's locked" and "Here is a key". Kids can understand that by visuals, you know! Barring one or two, there are no jokes that will make you giggle. The silver lining is the CGI of the film which brought Halloween to life, which I found to be oddly fun to watch. Kids would like it, too.

I don't specifically love Goosbumps (2015), but it was an entertaining watch. There was even an emotional depth to the story. Jokes were good. But the sequel comes nowhere close to that campy fun.

Yays

- Good CGI

- The character of kids' Mom is fun

- The set up for the sequel

Nays

- Terrible dialogues

- Cliched scenes

- Boring story

- The climax is all over the place

Final Words

Well, in conclusion, what can I say? There are chances that you have watched the trailer of Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween and we recommend that you judge the book strictly by its cover, for a change. If you have kids in the family, this movie MIGHT be a fun outing. In any other scenario, avoid the movie at all costs. For adults Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, would feel like a long episode of Shh...Koi Hai that went abroad for a fancy education but at heart is still lame.

Rating:1.5out of 5

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 25, 2018 09:43 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).