Gruesome School Trip

For a Dutch movie, this is great! It's very well filmed, the props are nice, the sets are nice, the effects are nice, everything is very nice. Also, for a kids film, this movie is dark! Skeletons, vampires, cemeteries, a rat monster and a guy ripping his skin of! This film challenges its audience for sure by terrifying them badly. Even though this movie is much better then most Dutch kids movies, there is no other country that could have made this. Kids flip eachother of in this film. But, this movie does also have a lot of problems. A lot of the child actors are very unbelievable, some scenes are very awkward, cheesy or cringe and the ending is the definition of disappointing. But this is the perfect Dutch film to watch on halloween!

Onnoval rather is the nerd of the class. Gino is the most popular boy and picks on Onnoval to bully him around. Onnoval however likes to write stories. In one of these he takes his revenge on Gino. Then the Buss of Horrors (=griezelbus) arrives to take the class on a school trip and suddenly Onnoval's story turns into reality...

This movie is based on the book by Paul van Loon and is aimed at children aged 8 to 14. There are certain similarities with the Potter-stories, even though Van Loon's book was published long before Rowling's. And children do love the movie indeed. Yet, this film doesn't reach the standards of the Potter movies, for the budgets were obviously much smaller, the special effects are clumsy and some actors terribly overact, such as Onnoval's parents and the teacher. The overall acting however isn't bad. Nijholt overacts as well, but in his case this is done with care and fits very well into the story. This is a lovely film for members of the targeted group and their parents will be thrilled as well, when not expecting too much. It certainly is not the bad movie some people tell us it is, but it is not an Oscar winning movie either.

The sensitive Onnoval (Serge Price) is the best student in his class and he loves Liselore (Lisa Smit), who was the girlfriend of the bully Gino (Jim van der Panne). His teacher Meester de Vriend (Romijin Conen) believes he is a promising writer and poet. Gino picks on Onnoval all the time, but Onnoval does not fight against Gino because he believes he is a werewolf. When the successful writer of horror tales Nol van Paulo (Tom Jansen) comes for a lecture in his class, he advises Onnonval to never write a story for the evil Ferluci (Fred Goessens). However, Onnoval is humiliated by Gino and very upset and jealous he writes a story about a class excursion in a horror bus to a horror park, where Gino is killed by a vampire, and gives his story to Ferluci. Later he regrets, but Nol van Paulo tells him that the only way to fix the situation would be stealing his note book and rewriting the conclusion.

I have never heard anything about this character or this novel, apparently very well-known in Netherlands, but I really liked this enjoyable movie. The special effects are weak, probably due to a restraint budget, but never depreciate the story, since the screenplay is original, funny and full of action. Viewers that like the genre of fantasy and fantastic stories will certainly love this delightful film. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Viagem Fantástica" ("Fantastic Voyage")

Anyone that expects a one to one transition of the books, will feel cheated. However, the viewer that just keeps the general atmosphere of Paul van Loon's novels in mind and sits to enjoy a movie, not a book, will be thrilled. The movie breathes the original combination of humor and horror even though the story is utterly new and has little elements from previous stories, it is worth having the title of Griezelbus.

Especially the kid actors are fit for the job and Willem Nijholt as Reisleider and Count Vlapono is truly magnificent. The only thing I didn't like too much were the special effects. They seemed a little cheesy at times. Not bad, but cheap. But I doubt the target group will be bothered with that at all.

Fans of the genre and especially of Paul van Loon, it's a must see!