Sketch

In what feels like a special extra-sized Goosebumps story, writer/director Seth Worley expands on his own short film to deliver a tale of a child's grief brought to life in vibrant color. Following the death of his wife, Taylor Wyatt (Tony Hale) struggles with raising his two children alone. While Jack (Kue Lawrence) buries his grief like his father, his sister Amber (Bianca Belle) puts her dark thoughts into drawings of monsters in her private notebook allowing her to release her grief on to the page rather than hold it inside. However, when her notebook falls into a magical pool (don't you just hate it when that happens?), and those creatures come to life, the entire town is attacked by bizarre monsters from a young girl's imagination created from marker, ink, graphite, and chalk.

Wrapped in a something that's part not-too-scary child horror and part oddball comedy, Sketch is about how we deal (or fail to deal) with grief. The vibrant monsters feel like they all could be pulled directly from a child's imagination and there's plenty of fun watching Amber, Jack, and  the boorish Bowman (Kalon Cox) both run from and attempt to battle them. The never-explained magic pool is a bit of a cheat in some ways, giving it that Goosebumps idea that in this world weird things simply exist, and, while convenient, the script ultimately makes the right decision in wrapping up the subplot of Jack's dilemma on whether or not to throw one more important artifact into the pool. 

In what really is a kid's movie, Bianca Belle is the highlight of the young actors capturing the various layers of Amber. Hale is interesting as the lackluster dad who, because of the actor's career, we can still see easily fitting into this kind of unbelievable reality. And D'Arcy Carden offers a bit of fun as Taylor's sister and realtor who, in the film's running gag, can't get through a single showing for the home without him bursting in and making a scene.

The look of the film, with monsters made to resemble those pulled from an artist's page, that are at both times creepy and beautiful, is something Worley and his crew can hang their hat on as Sketch is, in its own way, a feast for the eyes. While it lacks the emotional gut-punch of Bridge to Terabithia (a movie I think ultimately is also more likely to stay with you), Sketch would make an appropriate companion for a double feature as both explore themes of childhood and grief in worlds of bright colors where monsters are pulled directly from a child's imagination.

Watch the trailer

• Title: Sketch
• IMDb: link