HTF DVD Review: The Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It

Studio: Universal Studios Family ProductionsYear: 2007US Rating: PG - Scary Content And Thematic ElementsFilm Length: 1 hr 27 MinsAspect Ratio: 1:78.1Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1Subtitles: Optional English SDH, French and Spanish





R.L. Stine is a prolific author of scary tales for children. Perhaps most famous for his GooseBumps series, he has penned over three hundred books filled with plenty of scary, creepy and frightening things that go bump in the night and a slew of children smart enough to overcome them.

Don’t Think About It is set around Halloween and tells the story of a suburban family of four who have just moved to a new town. The parents feature very little in the story as this is all about their children Cassie (Emily Osment) and Max (Alex Winzenread). Cassie is thirteen years old and is a somewhat brooding teenager, complete with gothic clothing and a penchant for scary tales (Edgar Allen Poe is a favorite of hers). Cassie’s younger brother, Max, is afraid of everything. His annoying and ‘scared-y-cat’ ways are a constant source of frustration for Cassie and she revels at getting back at him by scaring him.

Cassie feels out of as she tries to fit in to her new school. A handsome young boy, Sean (Cody Linley), catches her eye but when she tries to offer him help in writing a paper on an Edgar Allen Poe book, the popular but manipulative Priscilla (Brittany Elizabeth Curren) slides in, not liking what she saw, and manages to embarrass little Cassie. And a rivalry is born.

One evening while she is out for a walk in the town, Cassie’s attention is drawn to a hidden little Halloween store at the end of a thin alley. In the store, she meets the Stranger (Tobin Bell), a creepy white haired old man who sells her a book called ‘The Evil Thing’. This locked book comes with a distinct warning on the first page that reads – “DO NOT READ ALOUD”. Without a cardinal rule being broken, there could be no story – and so Cassie inevitably breaks this ominous rule about reading the book aloud in order to scare her younger brother. After she finishes reading, ‘the evil thing’ is born; quickly snatching up Max and Priscilla (who was nearby after playing a mean prank on Cassie). With her parents away at a Halloween party, Cassie and Sean must work together to destroy the monster and rescue poor scared little Max and the bratty Priscilla

One of the most enjoyable aspects of this scary tale for children is that it is actually quite scary. It certainly doesn’t ‘go for the gut’ with its creeps and chills, but there is a solid sense of what makes you jump or has you biting your fingernails that makes the film a nice little success. The characters are all given time to be introduced, rounding them out quite nicely before the action really starts.

While the family oriented nature of the production takes the story in a safer direction most of the time, it makes sense given the target audience. The fun story and young cast that many children will quickly recognize from Kids programming, has quite a bit going for it.

The story is simple and completely familiar but the execution of it all allows the film to be a pleasant enough distraction for someone like me, who fires up a copy of John Carpenter’s The Thing every October 31st. The acting from the popular young cast is suitable for the material and audience, and the production value reasonably good. The creature effects also serve the film nicely, with a fairly good design concept that has just enough of the ‘man in the rubber suit’ quality about it not to make the material too dark. The excess of purple-ish goo found where the creature has clearly been and again in its lair are another reminder that this is clearly a film for teens and younger.

Overall, a fun little story that carries enough creepy moments and jumps to have credibility, but never too much that it risks being anything other than a good scary film just for kids.






Universal Studios Family Productions brings us this scary little film in anamorphic widescreen 1.78:1. The image is exactly what you can expect from a direct to video release of a children’s film. The image is clean and relatively free of artifacts while the lighting is fitting of cable TV programming. The night scenes are all suspiciously well lit allowing the movie not to suffer from being overly dark. Overall, the image is appropriate for the production.






This film comes with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. It is very front heavy, with most of the sound coming from the center channel. It misses some good opportunities to have the surrounds provide a creepier ambience and the bass level is dialed way down. It’s clean but in the end, merely adequate.




The Making of Haunting Hour : - (8:09) – A high level look ‘behind the scenes’ consisting mainly of cast interviews and a few shots of the filming.

Think About It: R.L. Stine’s Journey of Imagination : - (4:57) – An interesting conversation with the Author in a sort of Q&A session. Stine clearly has a dry wit.

Interactive Scare-O-Meter: – This is an interactive feature, where you can answer some silly questions and have your score tallied to see which of the cast members you are most like when it comes to being scared. Apparently, I am ‘more brave than scared’!

I Don’t Think About It – Music Video by Emily Osment: - (3:02) – A cute video with Emily Osment singing a catchy pop-tune that will have pre-teen girls across American dancing up a storm in front of the TV.





It’s nice to see an earnest attempt to make a scary little monster flick that is accessible to the young and very young. There are good lessons for the kids to learn and the attention to building relatable and genuine characters goes a long way to helping the audience care about them when they are face to face with the darker side of night.

A familiar story told with a sense of fun and appreciation of scary movie tactics, the film really does work. Recommended for the family.








Neil Middlemiss
Kernersville, NC