DVD Review - R.L Stine's The Haunting Hour: The Series - Volume 2

R.L Stine's The Haunting Hour: The Series - Volume 2
Directors: J.B. Sugar, Neill Fearnley, Michael Scott, Terry Ingram, 
Starring: Thomas Robinson, Bobby Coleman, and Grayson Russell
Studio: Shout! Factory
ASIN: B0089BSLIK
Release Date: September 4, 2012
Running Time: 140 minutes
Rated: NR
Bonus Features: A Look Behind The Screams; Original Promos

Shout! Factory is on a roll by releasing not one but two volumes of R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour: The Series - Volume 2 to DVD this month. I grew up reading R.L. Stine's books and over the years I have collected almost every DVD of Goosebumps the series that aired during the mid to late 90s on Fox Kids. Goosebumps had a low-budget that resulted in bad acting, cut-down scripts based on the books, and cheap special effects. In other words the series was campy! Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the Goosebumps series for what it was - pure fun.

The Haunting Hour seems to be avoiding the flaws in the Goosebumps series by having better actors and directors, higher quality special effects, and complete scripts. Each episode is not based on an entire book but on short stories that appeared in the two anthologies, The Haunting Hour and The Nightmare Hour.

Here in Volume 2 we get five episodes that aired in early 2011.

In The Red Dress, Jamie doesn't have enough to by the dress that she wants to wear to the dance, so she steals the red dress from The Raven's Chest. The store's blind owner (played by Emmanuelle Vaugier) find the girl and the owner wants to be paid, but not in cash!

In Ghostly Scares, Lauren likes to visit the cemetery to do grave rubbings and she brings along her brother, Mark, who happens to fall into an open grave and a ghost possesses his body. It is up to Lauren to try to get her brother back.

Jeffery thinks his new house is strange in The Walls. He starts hearing strange noises from inside the walls and he sees freaky shadows. There is actually a klemit living in the walls that gives the owners good fortune, but this creature has a sweet tooth!

You'll think twice about playing a video game in Game Over. A stranger called the Game Master gives Kelly and friend Gooch a video game called Zee Town, but this is not a normal game. They are both brought into the game where they team up with two other teenagers to fight off the zombies.

Alien Candy involves two kids, Walt and Tim who are obsessed with aliens. Two new classmates, Greg and Bonnie, invite them to join their alien club, and of course Walt and Tim join. The twist is that Greg and Bonnie are really aliens and Walt and Tim are their next meal.

The Haunting Hour airs on The Hub, which I don't get, so I eagerly awaited for Volume one and Volume two to be released to DVD. The show is made for kids, but I was instantly hooked into this Twilight Zone type episodes. Ghostly Stare and The Red Dress are my favorites from the volume as they both have really twisted endings. I enjoyed watching the other three as well. With Halloween coming up, this would be a great DVD to watch and get goosebumps!