If your children are big fans of R.L. Stine’s “Goosebumps” books or if you want to slowly introduce your children to horror/suspense, you can’t go wrong with “R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: The Series – Volume Four”, five episodes that will give kids a little scare.
© 2013 The Haunting Hour. All Rights Reserved.
DVD TITLE: R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: The Series – Volume 4
AIR DATE:Â 2010
DURATION: 132 Minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Full Screen, 1:33:1English Dolby Digital, Closed-Caption
COMPANY: Shout! Factory
RATED: NOT RATED
RELEASE DATE: February 5, 2013
Directed by Neil Fearnley, James Head, Terry Ingram
Written by Dan Angel, Jed Elinoff, Scott Thomas
Based on the books by R.L. Stine
Executive Producer: Harvey Kahn, Dan Angel, Billy Brown, Kim Arnott
Co-Executive Producer: Kim Arnott, Jane Stine
Supervising Producer: Charles Lyall, Dawn Knight
Associate Producer: Oliver De Caigny
Music by John Sereda, Paul Michael Thomas
Cinematography by Michael Balfry
Edited by Lisa Robinson
Casting by Stuart Aikins, Sean Cossey
Production Design by James Hazell
Art Direction by Teresa Weston
Set Decoration by Gail Luining
Costume Design by Farnaz Khaki-Sadigh
Children’s own horror master R.L. Stine (Goosebumps) returns with six creepy, crawly episodes of the Haunting Hour. Join special guest stars Debby Ryan (The Suite Life on Deck), Jake Cherry (Night at the Museum), Booboo Stewart (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn), Gabriel Basso (Super 8) and Landon Liboiron (Terra Nova) as they take you through five more bone-chilling tales of the Haunting Hour’s first outrageously fun season!
R.L. Stine is well-known for his scary stories for children. From the popular horror popular horror fiction “Goosebumps” novels published by Scholastic Publishing and a Canadian TV series adaptation on the novels and from 1995-1998, “Goosebumps” would air in the US on FOX Kids, followed by the Cartoon Network in 2007-2009 and most recently through the Hub starting in Sept. 2011.
While R.L. Stine will always be known for his “Goosebumps” work, he also wrote anthology books titled “The Haunting Hour” and “Nightmare Hour” in 1999-2000 and the anthology would inspire a 2007 horror fantasy film “R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: Don’t Think About It” and in 2010, some stories from the book and stories written by other writers would eventually lead to a TV series which would be broadcast on “The Hub”.
While the series is on its third season, Shout! Factory will be releasing volume 3 and 4 of the first season on DVD in February 2013.
“R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: The Series – Volume Four” features the following five episodes:
- Wrong Number (Episode 16) – Debby Ryan (“The Suite Life on Deck”) stars in this “Mean Girls” story of selfish and rude teenager Steffani (portrayed by Debby Ryan) and Taylor (portrayed by Sarah Dugdale) makes everyone feel worthless and bad about themselves. But what happens when these Mean Girls push their apartment neighbor, Mrs. Biazevich so far that she dies and comes back to haunt them.
- Afraid of Clowns (Episode 14) – Chris (portrayed by Jake Cherry of “Night at the Museum”) has a fear of clowns but when the local carnival comes to town and his friends feel that Chris should get over his fear of clowns by going the carnival, will it help Chris?
- Pool Shark (Episode 18) – Kai (portrayed by Booboo Stewart) has a fear of the water and his fear that a Nanaue creature swims in the pool. But is Kai losing his mind or is there a real Nanaue in the water?
- Light’s Out (Episode 19) – Teddy (portrayed by Gabriel Basso) doesn’t believe the ghosthunting shows on television, but his sister Haley and friend Sean do. So, what happens when the three go on a real ghost hunt inside a haunted asylum which is said to be haunted by the evil doctor, Dr. Sturgess.
- The Perfect Brother (Episode 20) – Josh (portrayed by Landon Liboiron) and Matt (portrayed by Gregg Sulkin) are brothers and while Matt is seen as the “perfect son”, things start to happen with Matt and his extreme parents appear to be trying to get rid of Matt.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
“The Haunting Hour” series definitely fares much well over its “Goosebumps” counterpart, for the fact that it was filmed in 2010. Picture quality is good as one can expect on DVD and dialogue is clear and understandable.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: The Series – Volume Four” comes with the following special features:
- Behind the Scenes: Wrong Number – (2:17) Debby Ryan talks about bullying.
- Original Promos – Featuring promos for “Afraid of Clowns” and “Lights Out”
For many children, “Goosebumps” was their first introduction to horror and suspense.
My son is practically scared when it comes to the horror genre or anything remotely scary on television. But when he turned seven years old, he was introduced to R.L. Stine’s “Goosebumps” books and he would continually check them out from the school library and loved it. It was a nice blend of horror, but not to the point where he would freak out.
He’s a bit older now and while he still reads the “Goosebumps” books, R.L. Stine’s “The Haunting Hour” features more modern stories than the ’90s television series and the scary factor is slightly elevated, so it’s targeted towards children who are slightly older.
“Wrong Number” is probably the worst you can see of a teenager in terms of how they treat others, especially those older than you. The character of Steffani is a good example of teenagers who bully and like to make people’s life miserable. Spoiled and rude, it was good to see a karma-based episode. For “Afraid of Clowns”, for those who are scared of clowns period, will probably be scared by this episode.
“Pool Shark” is a more fantasy-based episode while “Light’s Out” is an interesting spin on the ghost hunting shows that are on television. What happens when a non-believer goes searching for ghosts to prove they don’t exist inside a haunted mansion? And “The Perfect Brother” is rather interesting because of it’s sci-fi twist.
So, you get five episodes that may or may not scare children. Having reviewed the older “Goosebumps” series, I do feel the “Haunting Hour” is slightly more scarier and for today’s audience’s, probably more relevant in terms of today’s technology and what they probably see on television right now. Also, with these episodes, most of the people featured in each story are older teenagers, as opposed to younger kids.
Other than that, “R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: The Series – Volume Four” is a safe horror series for children. There is no blood, there is no gross situations for this DVD at least. The acting is not always the best but for children, I don’t think they will care. If anything, they know what to expect from the R.L. Stine (or writers taking on episodes in an R.L. Stine kind of way) and if they are wanting a little scare, then “The Haunting Hour” is a series that they will enjoy.
Overall, if you have been wanting to get your children into watching horror/suspense or if they are really enjoying the R.L. Stine books, then definitely give “R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: The Series – Volume Four” a chance!
