Struggling with an annoying brother and a new school, Cassie Keller visits a strange shop and accidentally incurs the wrath of the bloodthirsty "Evil Thing."
A stormy night startles Max Keller (Alex Winzenread), who cries out for his tired parents (Michelle Duffy, John Hawkinson), whom he's called for multiple times.
He complains about a toy and the shadows from his curtains, so they fix them and his dad promises to buy him a new game if he goes to sleep. He agrees, but fails after his sister Cassie (Emily Osment) lures him to his closet and grabs his arm as revenge for him breaking her dvd player. She lies to her parents but he calls her out, so they tell her he just wants to be close to her and is having a hard time adjusting to moving. She demands to know why everything has to be about him and storms into her room. As she organizes her books, a man in dark clothes watches her window, but he disappears before she looks outside. The next day, her mom tries to help her get ready, but irritates her by criticizing her goth fashion and inability to make friends. Her mom says things will get better, but she's unconvinced. At her school, Cassie skulks to her locker as others stare and bump into her, and she becomes interested in Sean Redford (Cody Linley). At lunch, mean girl Priscilla Wright (Brittany Curran) gushes about her impending win as the "Pumpkin Queen" with her clique, claiming Sean will ask her to the dance. He can't eat and explains to his friend he's struggling to finish an Edgar Allan Poe book for a report, and his dad won't let him play ball if he gets another D. Cassie chimes in that she's read all of Poe's works and quickly surmises the author, and Priscilla's friends notice Sean listening with interest. Cassie reminds him they sit together in English and offers to help, but Priscilla steps in and convinces him to let her be his tutor and take her to the dance. Priscilla mocks Cassie's style, prompting the girl to leave, but a collision with another student spills food on her, so everyone but Sean starts laughing. She thinks on the moment at home, but Max interrupts to excitedly show off his pirate costume. Ignoring Cassie's sour attitude, her mom suggests she go to the dance, as she had a great time at her own despite also having no one ask her to it. Cassie later asks if the others want anything as she goes to the library, and is upset to learn she has to take Max trick-or-treating while her parents attend a work party. On her way to the library, Cassie spots a "Halloween Store" tucked in an alley, and finds all sorts of creepy trinkets inside before meeting the shopkeeper (Tobin Bell). He says they're only around for Halloween and calls himself a collector, and she decides to leave as his mannerisms unnerve her. To her surprise, he appears in the next room when she tries, and suggests she browse the "Books" section, which has only a single book: "The Evil Thing." She inspects the book but discovers it's locked; he says she'll get the key after buying. He asks how much she's willing to pay, and doesn't hesitate to accept only $5. She tries to unlock the book, but he says she can't do so in the store and forces her out, flipping the sign to closed. After opening it, a storm whips up and a warning appears on the first page telling her not to read the book aloud. Of course as anyone can guess, Cassie seems to have no real reason to obey the warning, and the Evil Thing will soon rise for blood and meat.
As a kid, I really enjoyed this movie, especially because I was surprised as R.L. Stine's works never scared me; they always just seemed to have twists.
As a matter of fact, I started to feel over time that in my head, R.L. Stine was sort of like M. Night Shyamalan for kids, just always having a twist ending. This movie I actually felt like had a good scare factor for kids, along with having some well-written aspects and a creative way of defeating the monster, which I'll get to. Unfortunately, now that I'm older, I definitely see a lot more of the flaws as well, but mostly in a way that I'm just laughing at the movie, not hating it. Max is the biggest offender of this, right at the start of the movie, as the most irritating, whiny character who refuses to stop. I know actors tend to be older than the characters they portray, and you can see that here with 13-year-old Cassie, played by a then-15-year-old Osment, but come on. Max seems to be around 10, but his fears rank him around 5, as he is scared of everything and won't stop whining about it. He's a young kid in a new house, which can understandably be creepy, but his complaints are just strange, needing someone to move his action figure, but in just such a way that he can still "tell what he's thinking." Later on, his parents play a cartoony game that is literally just one person as a bird on the ground, and the other is a squirel dropping explosive acorns, and this scares him. I was shaking my head at how scared this kid was, and at this point told my brother I felt like the character couldn't even make it in Spongebob's Super Weenie Hut Jr.'s. Max is forced into a brave act at the end of the movie, but it feels more of a thing that had to happen, while Cassie is actually being brave. He also has a scene where he eats a cookie after brushing his teeth, and such a gross act makes this boy someone I can't trust. There's a point in the movie where Priscilla, who read The Evil Thing after having Sean swipe it from Cassie's bag, pulls a prank on Cassie with Sean's help. After she mocks the girl, having recorded it, she leaves, and Max drones on and on about what a "chicken" his sister was. I get that he's a kid and would fail to see that he's just being obnoxious, but come on, this kid could probably scare himself by looking at his shadow the wrong way. Priscilla is a similarly obnoxious character, though more in just that she's a classic mean girl stereotype, walking around school with her posse. She feels threatened when Cassie enters the scene and causes the moment the girl gets food all over herself, which of course leads to everyone in the cafeteria laughing. Similarly, Cassie later gets revenge by putting roaches in the dance's pinata, and the next day everyone is making fun of Priscilla, now dubbed the Insect Queen. I get that scenes like this are often to show how fickle high school life and popularity is, but it's really taken to the extreme how comical they found the cafeteria incident, then how quickly they turned on Priscilla, whom they'd voted as Pumpkin Queen.
More on stereotypes would be Cassie herself, who is the human form of teenage outcast angst as she skulks around clinging books to her chest.
Cassie's first scene at school has people staring at and bumping into her, which really doesn't happen, and there's really not a single person who would talk to her? Sure. During scenes like this, we get an incredibly angsty score, with songs about being along and different, often right after Cassie feels she's been wronged. These had me laughing, especially right after the cafeteria incident, which she for some reason is flashing back to when we saw it moments before. Cassie is the stereotypical definition of a simple "goth," and watching her mope along with this music had me laughing and thinking she could experience a small "tragedy" and cry herself to sleep listening to "CRAWWWLING INNNN MY SKINNNN..." She also gets cringey moments with her Halloween love, like when she stares creepily at Sean while going into an analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's writing style. This happens again later, as she explains aspects of Halloween in class using a strange, hypnotized-sounding voice. Sean is a bit of a stereotype with how dumb he is, even taking immediate joy in repeatedly shocking himself after his friend tricks him with a shocker pen. Despite this, he shows more than just being a dumb jock, obviously being aware of how others see him and still having a good heart. When everyone laughs at Cassie, he is of course the only one who doesn't laugh, and similarly stares in horror after her own prank on Priscilla. He agrees to take part when Priscilla scares Cassie, but even before this you can see him feeling guilty about helping her in exchange for term paper assistance. Sean also gets some pretty funny moments, like when Cassie arms them with a fireplace poker and a walking stick, and he moans "Are you sure your dad doesn't have like a shotgun or something?" Everyone is a fun enough character to watch, and of course the one who steals the show is Tobin Bell, who by this movie's release was known for John "Jigsaw" Kramer. Bell shows off his creepy charisma in this movie, bringing the spooky atmosphere to his already Halloween-themed store. Before the monster arrives, we see the shopkeeper multiple times as he creepily watches Cassie, seeming to judge the girl's behavior. When they finally meet, you can tell he holds all the cards, with retorts for everything Cassie says. One example of this is when she points out his "Books" station only has a single book, and he shrugs that he'll have the 's' removed. My favorite moment in the movie is when Cassie, distracted looking at some fake spiders, is surprised when one turns out to be a real tarantula. This by itself is a pretty good scare, but the best part about it is the shopkeeper is already silently watching her as she browses. After the spider scare, he asks if he can help her, and after she fails to spot him where he should be, he appears behind the counter. However, if you look at the mirror she sees him in as she approaches the spiders, you can already see his face reflected and watching. This is the part where I warn you of spoilers ahead in case you don't want to know about later parts of the movie!
Tobin Bell gets even more great moments later, when Cassie demands answers for how to defeat the Evil Thing, and he treats it as a game.
She is confused as he tells her she summoned him, and he explains he looks for someone each year who loves scaring others, and this year chose her over "A 9-year-old in Detroit." You can tell the old man is toying with her, as he speaks in riddles and constantly gives her the smallest of smirks or the largest of grins. She should've known there'd even be an issue pointing out his store at number 13 1/2, which disappears when she mentions it, with the alley itself going away soon after, all while he climbs into a hearse to leave. He provides a creative way of defeating the monster, which uses a phrase I mentioned in another post that if you have a gun in the final act, establish it in the first. He gives Cassie a riddle that "Two heads are better than one, that's the way to get the bloody job done, an obvious reference to the twin-headed Evil Thing. As Cassie struggles to understand what the bloody part could mean, simple Sean points out the obvious, that they need blood. Cassie, remembering her mom left a roast out, drains the meat of all blood to toss on the Evil Thing, as the bloodsucking head will attack the other. Another things established early was the shocker pen, which has a smaller role but saves Sean, as he uses it on the monster when he's in its grip. Priscilla gives some good performance sin later parts of the movie, especially when the Evil Thing finds her and she lets out multiple realistic screams. There's a few moments where the characters honestly seem bored with the terrifying situation, and don't give their screams much effort either, but this girl seems truly terrified as she runs from the large creature. Another moment with Priscilla worth mentioning is when Cassie gets her with the roach pinata, as it seems to be a reference to Stephen King's "Carrie." In this popular horror story, a budding telekinetic is the subject of torment from both her religious mother and bullies at school. At her prom, Carrie is surprised to be voted queen, only for her joy to disappear when the bullies dump pig's blood on her, which sends her into a rampage.
The Evil Thing is worth mentioning both for how it's described and what we get to see in the movie, which actually isn't very much.
When Cassie reads the book, we learn the creature has one bloodsucking head and one carnivorous one, and it carries its babies on its back. There's more to the razor-toothed creature, but suffice to say I think Max's horrified face after she's done is an excellent reaction. The Evil Thing is made to worm its way into your mind, which of course counters the challenge of not thinking about it. Another movie that used this concept was the Bye Bye Man, but that ridiculous experience is based solely around a silly name. I highly recommend Ralph The Moviemaker's review of it, with his intense hatred for creepy background coats. The puppet and movements of the Evil Thing aren't really anything particularly impressive, but the movie wisely understands this and uses good camera tricks. We only get flashes of the Evil Thing unless we're watching its heads split, and these flashes generally only show a single part of the creature. I was reminded of Alien, where the older movie used puppetry that, while dated now, still uses an impressive puppet and rig, and is loved decades later. Much of the horror in that movie comes from the unseen, as the deadly creature sneaks through the ship undetected, killing people one by one. Without seeing the entire creature, your own mind scares you as it completes the image of what the monster must look like. Even after it's summoned, the creature is hardly shown, which I thing works well for both the weaker puppetry and to get the fear of the unknown in us. Of course, it helps that its first scene has Max unable to see it hiding under his bed, and doing a poor job of it at that. The boy's feet are poking out, for goodness sake, and for some reason he tries to retrieve the severed head of his monkey doll.
Despite noticing the flaws with this movie, I still enjoy watching it, and I noticed plenty of good things as well.
It was strange for me in college to realize Jigsaw was in this movie, but now he's really my favorite part about it. Scenes with Tobin Bell are perfectly written for his spooky charisma, and that shot of him staring at Cassie in the mirror is excellent. Max is an irritant throughout the movie, whining about everything, but Cassie isn't too much better at times, complaining her family. A simple request gets her rolling her eyes, though her parents really do baby her brother to a pretty ridiculous point. For a direct-to-dvd kids horror from R.L. Stine, I'm still pretty impressed how much fun I have enjoying this movie for more than just something to laugh at.
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AuthorI love the entertainment side of things. Video games, tv shows, superheroes and movies are my passion and I'd love to get the news out for things I enjoy. My contact page has links to my social media, so if you enjoy what I have to say, likes, shares, comments, and follows are always greatly appreciated! Archives
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