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Stine is fine as a movie

A tongue-in-cheek love note to spook stories of yesteryear, "Goosebumps" (Sony, PG) is a kid-friendly crowd-pleaser that adults can love, too. It reworks R.L. Stine's scary novelettes into a wildly clever fusion of yuks and yikes. Jack Black plays Stine with peevish gusto. Mike White, who scripted Black's sublime sugar rush "School of Rock," is responsible for massaging "Goosebumps." The movie is a delightful exception to the view that the source material always tops the film version. Extras include the featurette "Beginners Guide to Surviving a Goosebumps Creature," and the Blu-ray offers an alternate opening, alternate ending, deleted scenes and cast blooper reel.

Colin Covert