R. L. Stine's The Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It is a 2007 live-action direct-to-video children's horror movie and it's routinely shown on Cartoon Network during October.
Cassie is a thirteen-year-old Goth who just moved to a new neighborhood. She finds a mysterious Halloween store down an alley, and buys a book called The Evil Thing, which contains a warning on the front page: "DO NOT READ ALOUD!"
After doing just that, The Evil Thing is brought to life, and it captures Cassie's brother Max, the Alpha Bitch Priscilla, and a Papa John's delivery guy. It is then up to Cassie and Sean to stop The Evil Thing.
Later on, R.L. Stine created a TV series of the same name that isn't related to this movie.
This film provides examples of:
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Cassie and Max have a moment of this when she rescues him.
- Eldritch Abomination:
- The Evil Thing fits this pretty well. It is slimy, has tentacles, a giant gaping maw, and can split its one head into two.
- Not to mention the fact that it's only real so long as you think about it. And death is a minor inconvenience for it.
- The End... Or Is It?: At the end of the movie, Cassie pitches the book into the fire to dispose of it, but the parents take it out...and start reading it. OUT LOUD. Then, the power dies...and the movie ends.
- The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: The shopkeeper there sells the book about the Evil Thing. Oddly it disappears later on and the store owner says he doesn't even know about the store.
- Made of Indestructium: The book survives being tossed into the fireplace.
- Pair the Spares: There's a random Ship Tease of sorts between Priscilla and the pizza delivery guy.
- Plot-Triggering Book: The movie is kicked off when Cassie purchases a book titled "The Evil Thing" from the Halloween Store. She reads it to her little brother Max as a bedtime story, just to get even with him for turning off her computer and deleting her homework. The Evil Thing was brought to the real world then to kidnap Max.
- Product Placement: A ridiculous amount of it for Papa John's Pizza (the delivery guy is from Papa John's and Cassie's mother comments on how good the pizza is after he finally gets it delivered) and Aqua Pods (round bottles of water, which a cutout for is displayed prominently in the school cafeteria).
- Too Dumb to Live: So, you go to this creepy shop, with an owner who, quite frankly, is creepy as all hell, and buy a creepy looking book, which you are warned that you should never, under any circumstances, read aloud and you decide to deny the warning (and the aforementioned creepiness of the situation) and do it anyway, based solely on the fact that your admittedly annoying little brother accidentally deleted your assignment. Wow, Cassie.
- Winds Of Change: Cassie buys a book called "The Evil Thing" from a mysterious shop with a key to open it. She's about to open the book with the key, the wind started blowing just to let her know that change is coming.
