Cinemazlowski Some scary movies worth seeing this weekend

Everyone loves getting a little scared during Halloween season, and this weekend offers two distinctly different kinds of frights for distinctly different audiences – yet both are highly recommended as being among the best films of the year so far.

 

"Goosebumps" offers Jack Black at his best in a "Ghostbusters"-quality romp that is the most entertaining family movie of the year (though any age will absolutely love it on their own, regardless of family), while the powerful indie drama "Room" offers a unique kind y of fright that's strictly for adults before transforming into an incredibly uplifting and one-of-a-kind experience.

 

We'll start with "Goosebumps," since I can't recommend it highly enough for any viewer of any age. Based on a series of children's novels that were half-humorous, half-horror stories involving monsters on rampages and kids who always saved the day, "Goosebumps" has long confounded Hollywood producers eager to build a successful film on top of the books, which have sold 400 million copies worldwide. There were just too many wild adventures to choose from.

 

But Sony Pictures has succeeded, big time, by casting Black as the actual, real-life author of the "Goosebumps" books: R.L. Stine. In the movie, he plays the dad of a mysterious and witty teen girl named Hannah (Odeya Rush), who loves surprising and joking with her new next-door neighbor and fellow teen, Zach (Dylan Minnette) – who has just moved to Hannah's small Delaware town from New York City with his mom after the death of his father.

 

At first, Zach is content to just blend into his new town, but when R.L. keeps warning Zach to stay away from Hannah before Zach sees him yelling at her, he's afraid she's being abused and enlists his odd and geeky new friend Champ (Ryan Lee, who steals the show) to go save her. But it turns out that what's really happening is much stranger, as the two would-be heroes sneak into his house and discover who R.L. is and that his handwritten collection of first edition books have a surprising secret: when they are opened, the creatures in each story actually spring to life and enter the real world.

 

And so it is that an epic and hilarious series of misadventures ensues over the course of that long night, with the teen trio and Stine himself racing across their town to catch up with everything from an abominable snowman and a werewolf to a giant praying mantis. The only person who can stop the creatures is Stine, first by luring the creatures back into the books they sprang out of, and then by writing an entirely new novel that imagines the capture of every creature they've unleashed.

 

"Goosebumps" has a perfectly pitched tone, balancing laughs and thrills in equal measure thanks to a terrific script by Darren Lemke and expert direction by Rob Letterman. Black is the only possible choice for the role of Stine, since he plays perfectly into his unique screen persona with just the right amount of mischievous energy to be appealing to both kids and adults.

 

The trio of teen actors is perfectly cast as well, mixing comedy, a bit of sadness and a whole lot of action into performances that bodes well for long careers, and especially further monster-mashup adventures. Tie all this together with great monster effects, and you've got a real winner anytime of year, but especially perfect for the Halloween season.  This PG-rated film is ok for all ages, but while it's likely even more fun in 3D, it's perfectly entertaining in the normal 2D format I saw it in.

 

Meanwhile, "Room" – which opens this weekend in New York and LA before expanding nationwide on Oct. 30 – offers an entirely different kind of chills in its first hour or so. It tells the  emotionally wrenching but ultimately highly uplifting story of a five year old boy who has spent his entire life trapped in a storage shed room with his mother, who was forced to conceive him when she was raped by a man who kidnapped her as a teenager.

 

While this might sound like an unbelievably bleak and hopeless idea for a movie, the fact that it's presented through the eyes of young Jack (Jacob Tremblay) and his innocent view of the world around him mitigates matters considerably. We see and hear his thoughts, which are fantastical views of the limited world around him – falsely positive and imaginative views taught to him by his Ma (Brie Larson, in a performance that merits a surefire Oscar nomination) in order to distract him from their horrific circumstances.

 

Those circumstances include still being under the control of Ma's kidnapper, Old Nick, who brings them barely edible food for survival but subjects her to forced sex on a regular basis outside the view of both Jack and the audience. After Nick attempts to choke her one night in a fit of anger, Ma decides it's time to give Jack a crash course in the real world and teach him how to carry out a daring escape plan that's their only hope for survival in the real world.

 

That plan is so daring and nervewracking in its execution that the audience I saw it with all hunched forward on the edge of their seats in slack-jawed suspense. I do have to give away that it succeeds in the most unlikely of ways, because the mother and son's newfound freedom opens up an entirely new story of opportunity as well as difficulties adjusting to the outside world.

 

It's exceedingly rare to find a movie like "Room," which has such a unique plot (by Emma Donohue, based on her own novel of the same name) that it offers up three movies in one: a claustrophobic drama of tragedy, terror and selfless motherly devotion, a nervewracking thriller and an uplifting tale of wonder, all in the space of two hours. This is absolutely  a movie for adults, but it does handle its most disturbing aspects offscreen and with great restraint, and aside from its initially harrowing subject matter, its R rating only comes from about ten F words and a few uses of God's name in vain, rather than a fusillade of profanity.

 

As its characters manage to find hope even from the bleakest of circumstances, "Room" also manages to make viewers appreciate every little positive aspect of their own lives. This is meaningful art of the highest order, and a thorough recommendation for viewers who can handle its emotional rollercoaster.