R. L. Stine is a well-known name in children's literature. Over the last couple decades, his name has become synonymous with kid horror thanks to book series like Goosebumps and Fear Street. I suspect I would have been a big fan of Stine - given my interest in scary stuff as a child - had I been born about a decade later than I was. And so, it was with some curiosity that I approached R. L. Stine's Mostly Ghostly, an unrated but clearly made-for-children direct-to-video production, to review for DVD Talk.

Well, as the saying goes, curiosity kills the cat, and this morbidly unfunny exercise in juvenile storytelling is woefully dreadful.

It's hard to judge where to start in explaining what went wrong with this film. R. L. Stine's Mostly Ghostly: Who Let the Ghosts Out? (the complete title at the start of the movie) seems to have a premise that would appeal to kids (and to kids at heart). The main hero is an awkward 11-year-old named Max who is interested in magic and has the ability to communicate with the dead. It's like a puree of Harry Potter and The Sixth Sense for the little ones and holds promise.

However, the characters in this movie are uniformly obnoxious and over-the-top. It doesn't help that the acting is melodramatic and hammy - or that the inane script has dialogue that actively encourages these bad attributes.

The aforementioned hero is Max (played by Sterling Beaumon), a cape-wearing and awkward-looking boy who throws out one-liners that will seem tired to even the youngest of audiences. His interest in magic is actively discouraged by his sports-obsessed Dad (David DeLuise) and his sports-obsessed older brother Colin (Adam Hicks). In case you forget that they're sports-obsessed, the dialogue will remind you - every time they're on screen. Max is picked on at school by the prototypical bully and interested in super-hot Traci (Ali Lohan - Lindsay's little sister) who seriously looks both too old for him and way out of his league. It's a little creepy seeing them together.

To complicate matters further, two bratty child ghosts Tara (Madison Pettis) and Nicky (Luke Benward), who claim they are brother and sister even though they look nothing alike, appear. Only Max can see them - and endless merriment ensues as the ghost duo pull all sorts of unfunny pranks on people while simultaneously being worried about where their parents are. Oh yes, there's also a demon of some kind who keeps popping out every 5 or 10 minutes only to return to his underground lair filled with extras in masks that are supposed to be ghouls.

With a runtime of 98 minutes, R. L. Stine's Mostly Ghostly is a concoction that seems interminable. I know I'm a jaded 30-something and that this movie is meant for kids 1/3 my age, but even at ten, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed this bloated affair. As a primer on R. L. Stine, I suspect this was not the place to start. I don't blame the underlying story - it's the execution of it here that seems uninspired. Even the special effects look cheap and unconvincing (and largely of the green screen variety).

This is a film I feel confident in saying skip it to moviegoers of any age.

The DVD

Video:

R. L. Stine's Mostly Ghostly is presented in two different formats: its original 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio and an altered full frame 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Oddly, on the disc itself, a rectangle of the same dimensions is used to illustrate both aspect ratios - an inaccuracy unusual for DVDs that present dual versions of the same film. In any case, the widescreen option is anamorphic and the version I watched. Given how bad the movie was, at least one can praise its video quality. Colors were strong and details fairly sharp.

Sound:

The sole audio track - an English language Dolby Digital 5.1 - also sounds surprisingly good, with dialogue, sound effects, and music well-mixed, although the mix itself isn't particularly dynamic.

Subtitles are available in English, Spanish and French.

Extras:

Trailers for R. L. Stine's Haunting Hour and Beethoven's Big Break precede the main menu. And that is it for extras. I guess R. L. Stine would describe this as a "bare bones" release. Ahem.

Final Thoughts:

Insipid and obnoxious, R. L. Stine's Mostly Ghostly is a DVD title best left alone. Just skip it.

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