Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Madilyn Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

TheBlueHairedLawyer Cassie is a thirteen year old goth girl attending her new school where a preppy and rich snot named Priscilla goes out of her way to make Cassie's first days a misery. Meanwhile at home, Cassie has to try and convince her parents to accept her Gothic lifestyle, and also enjoys scaring the head off her little brother, Max.One day while going to the local library, clad in the stereotypical goth black cloak and carrying an armload of horror novels, Cassie comes across a secluded Halloween store and her curiosity gets the better of her. She meets a creepy old salesman who sells her a book called 'The Evil Thing', and she also gets her revenge on Priscilla at the school dance by filling Priscilla's pinata full of cockroaches. Everybody begins calling Priscilla the Cockroach Queen, so Priscilla dares Cassie's crush, Sean, to read her diary.While babysitting Max on Halloween night, Max accidentally deletes Cassie's homework (kids, write by hand, you'll save more time), and to scare him she reads him 'The Evil Thing'. Sean apologizes for Priscilla's jerky behavior but it isn't long before the Evil Thing monster comes to life... can Cassie and Sean rescue Max, Priscilla and the local pizza dude from becoming food for a monster's newborn babies? For kids this certainly isn't a bad movie. It's a horror movie but no one dies aside from the monster, there is very little, if any, gore and it isn't very scary. Of course, this probably varies by the audience. The soundtrack is excellent and the acting was okay, and it has the name of the kids' horror author R. L. Stine attached to it, the creator (or at least inspiration) for Goosebumps, the Nightmare Room, Fear Street, and recently a Haunting Hour TV series.The pros? Original plot, great and catchy (yet sadly unreleased) soundtrack, no swearing or sex jokes, creative characters.The cons? Well...Alright, there's the matter of Cassie herself, her character is highly unrealistic. Not only did they hire a well-known actress/singer to play her role, but they try to pass her off as a thirteen-year-old. Cassie, Sean and Priscilla all look to be high schoolers, not to mention the school itself has a high school appearance. You can't tell me that these characters are thirteen, they don't look the part. The scenes at the school are like something out of a Lifetime anti-bullying film, and Cassie is too stereotypical, as if all goths do is act depressed, hate their parents, throw on a pair of headphones to listen to alternative rock, borrow horror novels and constantly think of death and creepy things. And if you think I don't know what I'm talking about, I only graduated high school a year ago so I definitely know what real kids act like, it most certainly isn't this. The acting was okay but they hired well-known actors/actresses, giving the film an unrealistic feel. Priscilla's snob personality was way too overdone, as was Cassie's goth personality, to the point where both characters seemed incredibly fake.That being said, The Haunting Hour isn't a bad kids' film, although I liked R. L. Stine's two-part TV movie Goosebumps: Welcome to Dead House (1997) much better. If this movie was ever remade, I think they should tone down the Wednesday Addams act from the role of Cassie. Either way, check it out, it's not too bad and for kids who like horror but you're afraid Stephen King or George Romero might be too much for them to handle, this is a great compromise.

GL84 After trying to scare her brother with a tale of a monstrous creature, a teen finds that the titular creature has been released into the world and must try to stop it before it consumes more people from their town.This one ended being a pretty interesting teeny-bopper horror film that's quite fun. This is mostly due to the fact that it's more of teen drama in the first half before it focuses on the book and the creature being released, yet strangely none of this is really all that bad or boring. Though a majority of these scenes serve as the building of their relationship and home-life that gives their relationship a nice touch with all their teasing and tormenting, and the school troubles thrown in there's a great balance here of acceptable teen melodrama with the flirtings of a decent horror story. However, once the switch-over occurs, it's a lot more enjoyable here, starting with a creepy legend at the center of the film told within the book that's all quite fun overall. Moreover, this lead-up into a fantastic creature back-story allows for some highly enjoyable attacks scenes here which enable this one to really become worthwhile here, as the initial attack on the delivery-man and the later encounter in the park where it captures her friend with a rather tense and chilling stalking scene amidst the wooded area surrounding the park all coming off as pretty fun encounters. The creature' stalking them in the house is even more fun with some great stalking and a couple close-encounters while setting up the manner of defeating the creature found in the finale in its sewer-cave underground which is quite fun with the chilling crawl through the webbed tunnel the creature left behind, the confrontation in the pit with the hatched infants and the big confrontation with the creature that puts their knowledge learned earlier that gives this quite a fun amount of action. Along with a main creature that looks fantastic and has a lot of realism to it being a live-action creation and an overall sense of fun that arrives from the whole affair, there's not a whole lot to dislike here. However, due to the teen appearance and all of the focus surrounding them still making it entertaining despite the lack of focus on the horror angles, it doesn't have the air of danger it really should since nothing's going to get too frightening or dangerous for them and it won't really wallow in the usual trappings the genre normally dishes out, which makes for the film's one big flaw. It might make for a strained viewing getting past that once those get brought out and start holding up the plot somewhat. Otherwise, it's still not all that bad of a film.Rated PG: Violence and children-in-jeopardy.

hawk-58 I happened to catch this movie on the Cartoon Channel - a first for me -when it first came out. I remember buying the R.L. Stine books for my daughter when she was a teenager, but had never read any myself. I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. Okay, I had never seen Emily Osment, either (although I knew she was Haley Joel's sister, for which I should be awarded some points, I think), but I thought she was excellent, as was all the cast.Guess what: when Halloween came around this year, I found myself looking for this movie again! It is silly, fun, and definitely has its scary moments. It is entertaining for kids, older kids and adults, and I recommend it highly for just about any age group (the icky monster stuff may be too much for really small kids), and as a family watch-it-together movie. I rate it 8/10 and have just bought a copy on Amazon just in case the Cartoon Network has moved on to other things in October 2009.

Jason B The cartoon network is not my normal source for Sunday night movies but when I saw the previews for this new movie based on the R.L. Stein book it reminded me of my days of reading Goosebumps and decided to give it a try. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised as it was a fun movie with its share of spooky moments that children will love around Halloween time. The acting by the kids is well done, and Emily Osment (of Hannah Montanna) is great in the lead role. I recommend this to all parents wanting to watch a spooky movie with their kids. The version of the movie I saw was a special version in which Emily Osment did commentary along with the movie so that was pretty interesting too..I am not sure if this is on the DVD version but if it is it's an added bonus.