GOOSEBUMPS 2: HAUNTED HALLOWEEN (O-RVZ MOVIE REVIEW)

Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween is a comedy horror film and serves as the sequel to the surprise hit 2015's "GOOSEBUMP" starring Jack Black. This film is directed by Ari Sandel who previously directed "The DUFF" and "When We First Met" films and stars a completely new young cast of Jeremy Ray Taylor, Madison Iseman and Caleel Harris with only Jack Black returning from the original film. The film is based on series book called "Goosebumps" which were all written by R.L Stine.

The original film "Goosebump" was indeed a surprise. Its unique plot with funny performances around the casts (especially from Jack Black) made this film so memorable and enjoyable to watch. That film was a success and it was expected already that a sequel would follow. 3 years after the original film, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween is now released with a completely new faces and a new storyline involved. If you watched the end of the original film, *spoiler alert* I thought the sequel would be involved with Invisible Boy as the main villain which didn't go through. If you're going to ask me, is this a good sequel to the original film? Sadly, this film didn't hold up any of the memorable and enjoyable moments which were present from the original film. It felt like a huge downgrade with its unentertaining storyline and characters that were just plainly boring. The pacing is even dragging that it takes around 20mins for things to get spicy and although they managed to have Jack Black returned to this sequel, he doesn't have any role on the storyline and was served as a fan-service for those fans who loved the first original film. I was really surprised about all of the changes done in this film. I'm fine with having new casts or characters on this sequel as long as they managed to write a good character development on them. The main leading kid of this film was just boring without any character development and his best friend that supposed to be the comic relief on the film was just meh. I really wished that they should have just kept the old gang back from the film because their chemistry was one of the many reasons why the original film worked so much. I would really want to see more adventures from those old characters especially with Jack Black playing a huge role in the film since he is R.L Stine who wrote these Goosebumps transcripts. There is a saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", they could have kept the old characters and focus on formulating a new storyline that is as entertaining and memorable as the first one.

OVERALL

GOOSEBUMPS 2: HAUNTED HALLOWEEN is a huge step down from the original film. Its pacing issues, bland characters, and unentertaining storyline really made this film not so worth watching. Thankfully enough, they can just create a third sequel of it and have the old characters come back and given what was happened at the end of this film, they should continue this time the storyline of what they have teased up at the end. If you're a fan of the original film, you're okay to skip this one. If they announced that a third sequel is in the works, then that's the only time that I will recommend you to watch this one to know the previous events that will hopefully leading up to the third sequel.