Family-Friendly Freaky Fridays: Ray J's Review - "Girl Vs. Monster"

Happy October everyone! Spooky Szn is finally here, and so is the first ever installment of my "Family-Friendly Freaky Fridays" film review series🎬👻🎃

Kicking things off is my review of the 2012 Disney Channel Original Movie 'Girl Vs. Monster"! A fast paced, and super fun mix of Ghostbusters, and Hocus Pocus, that pushes a really important message of facing your fears, but in a somewhat clever way🙂

Skyler (played by Olivia Holt) is a spirited soon to be sixteen year old high schooler, and also a singer! The film kicks off as Skyler and her friends, Sadie (played by Kerris Dorsey), and Henry (played by Brendan Meyer) are helping their classmates decorate for a halloween party that is being thrown by a boy named Ryan (played by Luke Benward) at the super spooky McQuarry Mansion. Skyler is really looking forward to going to this party, plus Ryan has asked her to sing with his band on stage... unfortunately for some annoying reason, her parents (who work during the day as mold specialists) won't let her out of the house after a certain time around Halloween time. Turns out that reason is because Skyler's parents are actually monster hunters, and of course halloween is when the monsters come out to lurk the most. Frustrated with her parents, who have left her at home with their assistant, Cobb (played by Adam Chambers), Skyler decides she is going to sneak out of the house by sneaking down to the basement to cut the power (which is where her parents pretend to work on mold stuff, but actually they have a chamber filled with monsters they've captured, and other monster hunter related supplies). Not knowing what in the world she's doing, Skyler flips a bunch of switches, and accidentally lets the monsters loose. After she and Cobb, run outside for cover, they are confronted by a devious in red looking woman/monster called Deimata (played by Tracy Dawson), and as Sadie, and Henry, make their way into Skyler's backyard (on their way to pick her up for the party) they are confronted by two more monsters. As these monsters escape to wreak havoc, Skylar finally learns the truth from Cobb that her parents are monster hunters, but little miss "fearless" may be in denial. In the meantime, Deimata, and the other two monsters (a gothic mother goose looking witch named Theodosia, and an actually pretty creepy scarecrow named Bob) trick Skyler's parents into thinking they have kidnapped her, but end up capturing them instead. Thinking that Skyler is probably safer at the party then at her own home, Cobb hands over some Ghostbusters like arsenal over to the shook teens, so they can make their way over to the party, and capture any monsters if need be.

While some of the acting is not the greatest, "Girl Vs. Monster" is quite fun, the mildly quality effects are nostalgic, and as I mentioned above it spreads a nice message of facing your fears in a unique, and kinda clever way😄 Each of the three monsters feeds off of the different fears of the characters. Skyler's fear being stage fright (Deimata), Sadie's fear being failure (Theodosia), Henry's fear being bullies (Bob the scarecrow), and Skyler's parents fear being her growing up (also Deimata).

This film also features a few songs (3), and while it isn't much, I enjoy them🎶 As I mentioned, Skyler is a singer, and ends up getting stage fright....once a realization comes into light, she sings a really awesome pop/rock/dubstep song in the third act about being, well, "Fearless". That scene is personally one of the highlights for me, especially since how much you all know I love music performances in movies🎤

All in all, "Girl Vs. Monster" is by far one of the more fun Halloween themed DCOM's! Even if some of the ideas in it aren't all that original, it does have plenty of winning moments, and is very entertaining!

The Ray J's Review's Rating is

4.5 out of 5 lime green hearts and pumpkins

💚🎃💚🎃 & 1/2