Goosebumps young adult horror fiction series comes alive on the big screen with a lovable cast lead by Jack Black and Dylan Minnette, that keeps the creepy and kooky mix intact in a frightening and entertaining one hour forty three minute successful romp.

Teenager Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) was not exactly happy about having to relocate from New York to the small town of Madison in Delaware, when his recently widowed mom (Amy Ryan) accepts a job as a high school vice principal. Zach brightens up immediately after he meets his perky next door neighbor, Hannah (Odeya Rush) but her reclusive dad, disguised as "Mr. Shivers" but no other than R.L. Stine himself (Jack Black) is an evasive character who doesn't want her to have anything to do with the outside world and forbids Zach from coming around Hannah. This makes Zach too curious to stay put so he recruits his new pal, super socially awkward kid, Champ (Ryan Lee) to go with him into his neighbor's house to investigate further as he's suspicious of "Mr Shivers" and also fearing Hannah might be in danger.

They get more than what they were looking for when they discovered Stine's collection of monster books, that Champ knew all by heart as he was a super fan of the Goosebumps series, and they find out the hard way that the creatures in the books have a tendency of coming to life if the original manuscripts containing them are unlocked.

First the Abominable Snowman manuscript is unlocked and then the Night of the Living Dummy is accidentally unlocked as well, ensuing chaos as Slappy the Dummy, Stine's evil alter ego which is obsessed with making Stine's life a living hell, unleashes and leads an array of otherworldly characters with a "the more the merrier" philosophy directed by Rob Letterman (Gulliver's Travels) and with a beautiful orchestration of CGI monsters and stunning cinematography from Javier Aguirresarobe (Poltergeist) you can imagine, there are a lot of frightening chill and spill moments and chaotic fun is never missed from this witty screenplay by Darren Lemke (Jack the Giant Slayer).

Entertainment Affair had the chance to attend a recent press conference for the film where Black, who may be very hard to upstage, shared the stage with Slappy the Dummy and the two argue over everything from Black's choice of his favorite scene in the film to his treatment of Slappy at the end of each shooting day at which time Black would return Slappy to his trunk; all the arguments made for a beyond hilarious press conference.

Slappy after showing some beef with Chucky from the Child's Play series, denies himself as a puppet saying to one of the reporters, "What makes you think I would know anything about puppets? I'm just an actor trying to make a living. I have an audition next week to be an Ewok."

When asked about the process of interpreting a real person Black insists that, "He (Stine) loved the script, and he didn't mind that I was doing a much different characterization of him. He has this great sense of humor, so he was fine with me portraying him as an antisocial grouch. He understands drama and the necessity to take liberties."

When asked about deviating from his usual films tailored to more mature audiences he explained that he is not new to doing children films citing his work in School of Rock from 2003 and saying that, "I am no stranger to entertaining kids." Black, who is also the voice of Po in the animated children's movie Kung Fu Panda, adds "I have been doing that for almost a decade now. I think it is just because I have a lot of childish qualities myself. I am still a big man-child so I relate to what kids think is funny." What was a change of pace, according to Black, was the fact that he wasn't playing a lovable character as most of his characters are, "a squishy, loser hero" as he puts it, but rather a dark, brooding genius as he referred to the character of Stine.

In order to capture the genius of his made-up Stine, Black, who admits is no Daniel Day-Lewis, turned to another on-screen genius for inspiration. "I wanted to give [my Stine] a little extra gravitas," he says. "I couldn't just be good, old Jables playing the genius writer, so I wanted to do someone who was considered a genius and maybe had a dark secret. It seemed like Orson Welles filled the bill. So I literally watched Citizen Kane forty times and then went to the set. That was my preparation."

As funny as Black always is he flexes his comedic improv skills at the press conference while responding to the question of what things give him goosebumps.

"The size of the universe, and the survival of the human species," Black shivers as if the thought of it it's already giving him goosebumps and expands on his progressively absurd answer adding "I think about the inevitable death of any human being. Is there any hope? I mean, it would be sweet if we lived all the way to infinity, but we're going to have to build a Death Star, because the sun at some point is going to engulf the planet, but that's not going to be for a billion years, and we'd be lucky to live that long. So anyway we have to build a couple of Death Stars, I would build a billion of them and spread them over the galaxy."

His wacky response impresses everyone but Slappy, who cuts Black short saying "Where is this going?" before Black could theorize anymore he is forced to handover the spotlight to Slappy asking him "What gives YOU goosebumps?" to which the puppet responded in a brass tone "Termites" as that it's the most terrifying thing is you are not made out of blood and skin but wood.

Goosebumps in theaters October 16.