YMMV / Goosebumps (2015)

• Alternative Character Interpretation: With an emphasis on monsters (which weren't necessarily in every single book), and some inconsistent characterization, some fans have noticed the film could easily be about the book covers coming to life.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: The movie was surprisingly warmly received by film critics.
• Broken Base: The premise is either a great way to examine Goosebumps in a meta sense, or it's robbing us of the anthology film that was originally announced.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: It isn't that shocking to know that Hannah is actually the main character of The Ghost Next Door if you already picked up the subtle clues about her.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Stine says he started writing his Goosebumps stories to live out his revenge fantasies against a whole neighborhood of kids who bullied him. This means that the books' protagonists that are constantly tormented by monsters, whether they deserve it or not, were inspired by those bullies in the film's universe.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The movie was frequently compared to Jumanji, a few years later Jack Black would star in a Jumanji film
• Ho Yay: This exchange between Zach and Champ, regarding an upcoming school dance.
  Champ: Hey, we should go together.
  Zach: ...Together?
  Champ: Oh, not like "together" together. Dance together or anything.
• I Knew It!: Anyone familiar with the Goosebumps books probably saw The Reveal about Hannah coming a mile away, given that she shares her name with the protagonist of The Ghost Next Door.
• Jerkass Woobie: Slappy. That doesn't excuse the destruction he's caused, but you do pity the fact that Stine locked him away along with the other monsters in the manuscripts. Though considering that Stine probably locked them in there because they were evil, it's more or less justified. But at the same time Slappy was, according to him, Stine's best friend and he was never explicitly stated to have done something villainous to deserve being locked up. It's also worth noting even if he did do something evil to deserve getting himself locked up since Stine wrote him to be evil he really can't help it for what he does.
• Narm: The official music video tie-in, "Bumps Gonna Goose Ya!", looks and sounds like it was plucked straight from The '90s, and is subsequently full of this. In particular, Slappy's rap sounds like he was put on the spot and didn't know what to say.
• Narm Charm:
  • Featuring a remix of the show's theme song and incorporating dozens of book titles into the lyrics (not to mention being cheesy as heck), some fans might think the music video actually represents the books better than the movie.
  • The movie treats the book series as rivals to the work of Stephen King. Laughable though it is, they sure as hell felt that way as a kid.
• One-Scene Wonder: The overzealous policewoman-in-training and her more level-headed partner.
• Questionable Casting: Of all people to portray R.L. Stine, it's...Jack Black. However, Black manages to make the film character's take of R.L. work by balancing rather dramatic scenes with hilarious moments.
• Tainted by the Preview: Some fans took issue with the movie's first trailer using the very non-creepy "Break the Rules" by Charli XCX, instead of the TV show's memorable theme song.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Most of the monsters have absolutely nothing to do besides serve as Mooks for crowd shots. Slappy ends up being the only one with a distinctive personality or screen time.
  • Popular and memorable antagonists, such as Monster Blood or the Haunted Mask, are either delegated to easily missed cameos, or are not featured at all. Even the monsters that do get the most screen time consist of fairly stock monsters such as giant insects, werewolves, and zombies, the main exception being the Lawn Gnomes. Their use in the movie robs them of any context that made them unique in the books.
  • The idea of fictional villains becoming real was the premise of the book and episode Attack of the Mutant. However, despite the easy connection, the Masked Mutant never appears nor is he even mentioned, nor does Stine make a connection to the book. (Dr. Maniac doesn’t appear either, despite being a Suspiciously Similar Substitute of him and being an Arc Villain in the latter half of the Horrorland books. Although he is mentioned in the introduction of the novelization.)
  • There's a case to be made that Hannah would have been better served as the protagonist, rather than in the supporting role she ended up with. In particular, her Tomato in the Mirror moment could have had a lot more punch if the story had been told from her perspective (as was the case in The Ghost Next Door), although she makes it clear that unlike in the book, she's aware that she's a ghost.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some reviewers have said they got the idea during the film that it would turn out Slappy is actually the real character, and created R.L. Stine as a way to bring the other monsters into our world. After that potential, the film's real twist became pretty underwhelming.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Most, if not all, of the Goosebumps monsters look quite fantastical in this film, from the creepy-looking prosthetic effects used for Murder the Clown and the Bog Monster, the costumes used for the Pumpkinheads and the Haunted Mask, and the CGI creations of the Abominable Snowman and the Werewolf; but special mention goes to Slappy the Dummy. Instead of using CGI to create the dummy, the movie makes full use of an actual puppet to bring him to life. Usually, operating a ventriloquist's dummy would involve simply moving his mouth and keeping him in frame, but Slappy's puppeteers, Avery Lee Jones and Jake McKinnon, have him move in subtle enough ways that he seems like a fully-fledged villain rather than a simple puppet.