Entertainment
‘Goosebumps’ – Contrived, yet entertaining
By Troy Ribeiro
Film: “Goosebumps”; Director: Rob Letterman; Cast: Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush, Jack Black, Amy Ryan, Ryan Lee and Jillian Bell; Rating: **1/2
This metafiction, based on R.L. Stine’s eponymous bestselling horror tales for children, is a delightfully old-fashioned, monster pastiche, adventure film that is too frivolous and contemptuous to actually terrify anyone.
The film begins with, the not-yet-18 Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) and his recently widowed mother, Gale (Amy Ryan) relocating themselves to Madison Delaware from New York, where she takes up a new job as a vice principal at the local high school.
Gale hopes that “a change of scenery will help” her son.
Zach soon strikes a friendship with his next-door neighbour, Hannah (Odeya Rush), a sweet girl who is closer to him in age. But when Hannah’s father (Jack Black) catches him talking to her, he warns Zach, “stay away from us or something very bad will happen to you”. Zach is baffled and finds her father’s behaviour obnoxiously weird and unwarranted.
It is after he suspects Hannah screaming after her father grounds her, he calls the police thinking that she is in dire-straits and is in need of help. The police arrive and Zach is proved that he is wrong.
Not convinced, he ropes in his friend, Champ (Ryan Scott Lee) to investigate Hannah’s house, where they inadvertently unleash terror, when they open up the locked manuscripts. The monsters tumble out of the pages and create pandemonium in town. It is then that they learn that the author of these manuscripts is none other than Hannah’s father, the recluse Mr. Stine. And the monsters are the creation of his writings, a gift which he claims “is a curse”.
The monsters include; a mutant praying mantis, a horde of ravenous zombies, a teenage werewolf, an army of garden gnomes wielding pickaxes, the vampire poodle, the abominable snowman of Pasadena, all led by a vengeful ventriloquist’s dummy named Slappy, who gleefully masterminds the massacre in retaliation for being imprisoned in the pages of the manuscript.
Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush and Ryan Scott Lee, are charming and they make a fine trio in helping Jack Black find a fine balance between being seriously grouchy and going over-the-top. Jillian Bell as Zach’s Aunt Lorraine in a miniscule role is simply attractive and funny. And Amy Ryan as Gale, is a stock character hardly contributing to her role and narration.
The concept of the tale is not only interesting but it is also beautifully woven by storywriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaaszewski, and given shape by screenwriter Darren Lemke. The fantasy twist in the narration is what makes the film fascinating. But unfortunately, the characters are cardboard thin, the sub-plots are not well-explored and the humour seems forced.
On the technical front, the computer-generated monsters are neither spooky nor menacing and the 3D special effects are elementary. Also, the stunningly choreographed mindless-pandemonium flies in a flurry, leaving you hoping for more teeth-biting action and jaw-dropping scares.
Overall, director Rob Letterman’s “Goosebumps”, with some fine nuggets of direction, is a contrived tale, targeting the family audience this Halloween weekend. It is not too scary for children, but not too tame for the adults either.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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