Headscratchers / Goosebumps (2015)

• So, Stine has been allowing Hannah to pose as his daughter in the real world. If he's keeping all the other monsters locked away in their manuscripts, why would he keep the extremely dangerous Cuckoo Clock of Doom in his basement? By the way, stay out of there.
  • Because the monsters are actively malicious, but as long as you don't mess with the cuckoo, the clock will just be a clock.
  • If nobody messes with an Artifact of Doom that has a condition to trigger the doom, doom won't happen (at least from that item).
• Okay, so Stine's stories are a way to keep his monsters from menacing the world. But just what is the definition of "monster" in this case? Hannah is a protagonist who turns out to be a ghost, making her a supernatural creature. What about the other guys who don't stay human, like Erin, Grady, Larry, Ricky, Gary, and Lucy? Are they in the same situation as Hannah? Furthermore, what about the books where there's no definitive monster or creature, like How I Learned to Fly, My Hairiest Adventure, Welcome to Camp Nightmare, or Don't Go To Sleep?
  • Welcome to Camp Nightmare had Sabre and Uncle Al, and Don't Go To Sleep had the Reality Police.
  • Maybe ghosts count as monsters, and Stine was just particularly fond of Hannah, hence keeping her outside the book. And if we're being slightly fair, Don't Go to Sleep has the creepy reality police (which in and of themselves can be terrifying with reality being re-written because now fictional monsters are out and destroying the town), but the others, I have some thoughts:
    • If the Reality Police are out, they probably wouldn't be helping the other monsters. They'd be trying to get rid of them so that they don't throw the world into chaos.
    • Which is precisely why Slappy wouldn't have released those particular creations of Stine's.
    • There was a Goosebumps prequel game released on Steam not too long ago, where the house from Welcome to Dead House replaced the protagonist's. With that in mind, maybe in the cases of the books that lack monsters, their stories would force their version of reality onto the world. So, for example, Welcome to Camp Nightmare might take over an actual summer camp in our world and turn it into a terrifying training camp.
    • Alternatively, since those books lack actual monsters, they need to be locked so their protagonists aren't unwittingly revealed as non-humans, like Hannah. Imagine if someone from one of those books says got shot in front of a lot of witnesses and reformed. That's begging for an investigation, which in turn could lead to the discovery of the actual monsters.
  • The human characters seem to use the term "monster" to refer to any non-human, supernatural creature — an inaccurate term, some may argue (insulting, others may argue), but not farfetched or unheard of before (and what fun is it hearing characters run around saying "non-human, supernatural creatures" all movie?). As for why they're all locked up — the cast of supernatural creatures may include some who don't pose an inherent threat to humanity, but pulling them out of their reality into another that's not built to deal with them would still be a bad idea; Refugee from TV Land situations shouldn't be encouraged or sought simply because said refugee might not be very mean or dangerous. The portal that can pull non-malicious supernatural creatures out of their world should still be closed for the sake of stability if not for an instant, severe threat to human life and society. Hannah was a major exception because Stine grew to care very deeply about her (after reading her story, who didn't?) and she could blend in among regular humans without causing mayhem (as long as she stayed out of the moonlight...). As for books without a physical being who could travel through a portal, maybe nothing would come through if they were unlocked — Slappy is never shown unlocking/opening/burning, for example, How I Learned to Fly or Welcome to Camp Nightmare.
• Zach being in a relationship with Hannah gets more and more squicky if you give it too much thought. First of all, Hannah isn't real. Not only that, she's specifically a creation of R.L. Stine's imagination. So how much of her thoughts are her own? How much of her is influenced by her "father"? Is she a glorified AI who can't technically make any decisions that aren't based on How she was written?. Second, Hannah explicitly states that she doesn't age. So in two years, if they're still going out, Zach runs the risk of going to jail for statutory rape. That is if fictional characters brought to life even count as real people in a legal court. Of course, all of that I can forgive, except for the ending, which has R.L. Stine dating Zach's Aunt. So, if they get married R.L. Stine will be Zach's uncle, and Zach will be dating his cousin/step-cousin. Why? They could have just as easily had his Aunt date ANYONE ELSE.
  • With regards to the aging thing, I think that Stine got around that. It's implied that Hannah's creation was just as accidental as the other monsters and that Stine only wrote her as a teenage ghost the first time. But now that he knows what she is and what her life was like, and what it needs to be, he would have written her as a "real" person who can age and isn't stuck as a single teenage character. And she must have thoughts of her own because she often tries to rebel against her dad's wishes; if he could control her then she would just go along with everything he asked of her. I got no answer for the aunt thing, though.
  • If Stine's creations were mindless A.I.s with no free will or thoughts of their own, the plot of the film couldn't have happened — Hannah's as much of a free agent as Slappy and the rest. She's also not biologically related to Zach's possibly future uncle in any way ... and even if she was, a step-cousin isn't exactly a sibling.
  • And if Hannah not aging does prove to be an issue, Stine could always write an epilogue for the book she appeared in. Not for publication, just to reference how she's growing up normally now.
• What happened on the night Zach saw Hannah and Stine arguing? It's never brought up again or explained, but it raises some unfortunate implications given how violent the argument sounded. Why does Stine lie to the cops instead of bringing Hannah herself down to tell them what happened if it was just a misunderstanding and she was never really in any danger? Why doesn't she tell Zach and Champ as much when they break into her house? I can't be the only one who thought that scene was really out of place and a little too on-the-nose for what was mostly just a horror-comedy.
  • I originally assumed they were arguing when some monster happened to get loose and the struggle ensued, that Zach assumed Hannah's father was attacking her but they were both being attacked by something else; I spent some time waiting for Zach to find out or Stine to reveal what monster(s) got out earlier, but since nothing like that ever came up, I've got no other theories. As for why Stine hid Hannah instead of having her explain things to the cops, it's probably because she doesn't legally exist — she probably has no birth certificate, no Social Security number, there's probably no legal record of her birth or existence, meaning he doesn't officially have a daughter, and suddenly claiming he did would only lead to awkward questions, the cops digging into his background... better to just make sure no one believes Zach, as no matter how suspicious one kid gets if he can't prove anything, what's the harm? Not the smartest plan, but understandable given his situation.
• Who would come out if you unlocked Deep Trouble — mermaids, a shark, a sea monster, or the four masked thugs who were the actual villains?
  • Given the movie's everything-including-the-kitchen-sink Monster Mash approach? Probably all of the above.
    • Concept art reveals that the sea monster is your answer.
• Who would come out of How I Learned To Fly — Wilson, or all the media/government people who hound him and Jack because of their flying powers?
  • In response to both the above, I think "monster" in this case means either a supernatural entity or someone altered by or wielding magic (The Executioner could be considered a spirit from ancient times who knows time travel). The human villains we see in Slappy's army all have powers in some way. Therefore, in cases like those, we'd probably see Jack, Wilson, or the Mermaid, and not regular human villains like Spidey, Dr. Gray, or Alexander.
• We saw the Shock Street mantis, the Blob That Ate Everyone, and Dr. Brewer's plants, but where were the rest of the larger monsters, like the giant worm, Cuddles, King Jellyjam, Monster Blood, the beasts, etc.? Are those maybe being saved for the sequel?
  • At least, King Jellyjam was probably stuck in a loop of suffocating to death from his smell and healing
• Most of the monsters we see in this film are powerful enough at least to level city blocks. The Abominable Snowman can generate magical cold and snow. Clarissa can bend the world anyway to grant ''one'' wish. The Jack-O-Lanterns can Levitate, produce flame and shape-shift. The Creeps are fierce Reptoids that can turn people into more Creeps, and shift into human forms. So...why the hell are they acting as docile Mooks to a loud-mouthed dummy whose only three feet tall, has no real magic, hasn't succeeded in killing anyone, and repeatedly gets his ass kicked by 12-year-old girls? Borders on obnoxious character shilling, considering Slappy is probably the weakest guy there.
  • Slappy released them, so there's a sense of gratitude and camaraderie. He even explicitly and sincerely refers to the other monsters as his friends. What he lacks in supernatural powers, he more than makes up for in terms of strategy and organization (taking out the cell towers, freezing the police, using the Werewolf of Fever Swamp to sniff out Stine, etc.). Slappy is also Stine's most personal demon, which could also grant him a little more leverage and credibility. The movie directly pointed out that being his most feared and personal creation, Slappy has an advantage over the other monsters in that he knows how Stine thinks and takes full advantage of it, which is why he took down the cell towers, to begin with, and how he was able to track him in the school's auditorium.
  • Also, the stupider ones probably acknowledge that Slappy has better plans than they do, and the smart ones figure they may as well follow the dummy's lead for now because he's the one who's got all the remaining books at his disposal: an extreme tactical asset.
• Putting aside things like "condensing things down for a general audience who may not be familiar with the books" and Popularity Power because Slappy is both more well-known and appears in three books in the main series...where is Mr. Wood? He was the primary antagonist in the first Night of the Living Dummy book (again, understandable they'd just show the first one and not a sequel as part of condensing things down a bit), and he doesn't even get a cameo? You'd think he'd at least get an offhand mention.
  • He appears in the game and is used for the post-credits scene. Close enough I suppose.
• Actually, that brings up another point: in the few books (like Monster Blood, Haunted Mask, Night of the Living Dummy, Deep Trouble, etc.) that have sequels, can you use any book in that character's series to trap them without having to do anything else to the other books? Do the sequels not count (or, in Slappy's case, would a book where he has more of an effect on the plot be more powerful to trap him than one where he's just kind of there for a punchline)? Or would it be a case of if ALL the books in that continuity were unlocked, would the monster still be free somehow if you closed one to trap it, but because the other books are still open, it still exists in some form until all the books it's a part of are sealed? Like, we see one "copy" of Slappy, but if you sucked him into one of his books and succeeded in locking the book, another "copy" takes his place until you've caught them all?
• What happens if you burn a book while the monster is *inside* it?
• Why are the monsters/villains the only ones who come out of the books when you open them? Why don't the protagonists ever come out? You'd think they'd be useful to help take the bad guys down adding a little extra heavy artillery.
  • Well, for one, the bad guys are much more memorable than the good guys and number two, they see Stine as the hero, given he wrote the books and imprisoned them.
• Why did Hannah need to be written into the manuscript at the end? Sure, Stine released her later, but he easily could've kept her name out of it. Apparently, that's how the invisible boy managed to stay out.