New Release Date and Cast Members for 'Goosebumps' Film

Simons and Lund, courtesy IMDB.com

According to The Wrap, the "Goosebumps" movie has just added Timothy Simons ("Veep") and Amanda Lund ("Ghost Ghirls") to the cast. The duo will be joining Jack Black in a spin on the R.L. Stine series as a pair of bumbling police officers, whose ineptitude reaches an all time high when their town is overtaken by storybook monsters come to life.

The movie follows teenaged Zach Cooper and his family as they move to the small town of Greendale, Maryland. His neighbor turns out to be none other then author R.L. Stine. Things quickly turn spooky when the demonic dummy, Slappy, unleashes the villains from the "Goosebumps" books into the real world! Zach, Stine's niece Hannah and the man behind the pen himself have to team up and get the baddies back in their books before they completely take over.

Directed by Rob Letterman, the film will now be released on August 7, 2015. Filming is currently underway in Georgia and Los Angeles.

-Nowal Massari

Details Revealed on the 'Goosebumps' Movie

Image Courtesy Cinema Blend

Readers beware, you're in for a scare! Fans of the YA horror anthology are getting an early Halloween treat, as details of the upcoming "Goosebumps" movie have been revealed. The plot has been outlined in a press release, and it sounds absolutely (and delightfully) crazy!

In Goosebumps, upset about moving from a big city to a small town, teenager Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) finds a silver lining when he meets the beautiful girl, Hannah (Odeya Rush), living right next door. But every silver lining has a cloud, and Zach's comes when he learns that Hannah has a mysterious dad who is revealed to be R. L. Stine (Jack Black), the author of the bestselling Goosebumps series. It turns out that there is a reason why Stine is so strange… he is a prisoner of his own imagination – the monsters that his books made famous are real, and Stine protects his readers by keeping them locked up in their books. When Zach unintentionally unleashes the monsters from their manuscripts and they begin to terrorize the town, it's suddenly up to Stine, Zach, and Hannah to get all of them back in the books where they belong.

The meta-plotted movie will be directed by Rob Letterman, with a screenplay by Darren Lemke and Mike White, and a story by "1408" scribes Lemke, Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander. Filming began earlier this week in Georgia (Conyers, Madison and Atlanta) with a release scheduled for March 23, 2016.

-Nowal Massari

R.L. Stine Returning to 'Fear Street'

Through the magic of Twitter, R.L. Stine's "Fear Street" series is making a comeback! What started out as a single tweet pleading for more teen tales of terror, a storm of 140 character fond memories and requests for more stories soon followed.

In an interview with Big Thrill, Stine admits that he was initially shocked by the requests, but after some consideration, he decided that the time to revive the series was now. He began shopping the idea to publishers, however, despite the success of the "Fear Street" series, with over 100 stories and 80 million copies sold, no one was interested in returning to ShadySide High.

'Monster Edition' Pays Tribute to 'Goosebumps'

"Reader beware, you're in for a scare!"

From 1992-1997, R.L. Stine brought kid-friendly horror into the mainstream with his popular "Goosebumps" tales. During that period, he published 62 original stories and followed up with several spin-off titles that are still being published over 20 years later.

To commemorate these childhood-shaping stories, Monster Edition, a new fan made art zine, is releasing a special edition dedicated to the "Goosebumps" anthology. They have collected artwork from over 40 international artists who have all put their own personal spins on some of the most popular titles from the series.

This issue of Monster Edition features 46 full color pages, and is available now for pre-order ($20) or you can snag the limited edition combo pack ($35), which features the zine, trading cards, stickers and an original Goosebumps book. Shipping will begin in January 2014.

Head on over to the Monster Edition Tumblr for more sneak peeks!

-Nowal Massari

R.L. Stine's scary cinema

What three flicks does scribe R.L. Stine recommend for a case of the goosebumps?

Arachnophobia
(1990)
“A movie that’s sort of like what I do. It’s very creepy but also just fun … it’s a really good scary introduction film for kids.”

Let The Right One In
(2008)
“A Scandinavian vampire movie … it’s clever, but has some wit to it.”

Pontypool
(2008)
“A very cheap, very low-budget Canadian black-and-white horror film. It just takes place on one set, a radio station morning show. They start to get calls about horrible things happening in town, and at first they think, ‘Oh yeah, very funny’ … but then ‘they’ start tapping on the walls and are outside, and it’s really happening.”

R.L. Stine's book shelf

 
As a follow-up to our interview with R.L. Stine, creator of Goosebumps, we wanted to provide a list of the author's recent reading list ...

61 Hours: A Reacher Novel
By Lee Child

A Question of Belief: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery
By Donna Leon

Strip
By Thomas Perry

The Hunger Games trilogy
By Suzanne Collins

R.L. Stine on being the man behind the boogie man

R.L. Stine, photo by Dan Nelken

When one enters the lair of a master of fear, it’s reasonable to expect a skeleton, perhaps an evil ventriloquist dummy or even posters of creature feature giants like Bela Lugosi. But probably not a cute little pup.

Yet the “lair” of Robert Lawrence Stine - more famously known as children’s author and Goosebumps creator R.L. Stine - is actually a sunny Upper West Side home in New York City with a gatekeeper in the form of his King Charles Spaniel, Minnie.

Instead of haunting, mauling or tormenting, she yips, licks and cuddles in decidedly non-frightening manner. But to get to Stine in his inviting home office filled with books and memorabilia, one must befriend the Minnie beast, which it turns out isn’t all that difficult if you’re any good at petting.

Stine himself is even less frightening than Minnie. A 67-year-old Columbus, OH, native with a relaxed demeanor who laughs easily and readily shares anecdotes, and earned his other pseudonym of Jovial Bob Stine, he is not what you might expect from a guy who spooked out an entire generation and sold more than 300 million books in the process.