VIDEO Goosebumps movie trailer - this actually looks good!

R.L. Stine is just a bit prolific, with the 71 year old American author publishing more than 400 books in his long career. Without a doubt he's best known for his Goosebumps series, which includes 62 original books and over 100 overall.

It's a long-running series of child-friendly chillers - and some of them are pretty chilling indeed. The books spun off into a successful TV series in the mid 90s and a movie version has been in the works since at least 1998. Now its here and, suprisingly, it looks like a lot of fun.

The first trailer for the Goosebumps movie starring Jack Black is below.

Rather than a monster of the week setting, the story sees a reclusive author (Black) as the gatekeeper of all the horrors he's managed to trap in his books. That's a great premise for an adventure film, as a team of kids rush to recapture the escaped nasties. It gives a lot of scope for multiple monsters and adds a biographical element which gives the story some interesting twists and turns.

The monsters look great, benefitting from a properly blockbuster budget, and Black seems on fine more, reuniting with his Gulliver's Travels director Rob Letterman. The film also stars Dylan Minette and Amy Ryan and there might even be a cameo from Mr. R.L. Stine himself.

Goosebumps is set for release in October 2015.