"In the jungle you must wait,
'Til the dice read five or eight."

Part board game, part theme park adventure ride, Jumanji proved you should always read the instructions before rolling the dice. Based on the popular picture book by Chris Van Allsburg, the film had a darker edge than most holiday family treats, but that didn't stop audiences from strapping in and enjoying the thrills and chills.

In 1869 New Hampshire, a pair of terrified boys bury a locked box in the earth, praying for the soul of whomever digs it up. That unlucky soul is Alan Parrish, a twelve-year-old boy in 1969. Lonely, shy Alan unearths the box at a construction site near his father's shoe factory, and when he opens it, he finds inside an elaborately-carved board game. Alan invites schoolmate Sarah Whittle over to play, but one roll of the dice is all it takes to prove this is no ordinary game. Cryptic messages appear on the cloudy green centerpiece, Alan gets sucked into the board, and Sarah is besieged by a horde of bats.

Twenty-six years later, orphaned kids Judy and Peter Shepherd move in with their Aunt Nora, who lives in the old Parrish place. The beating of drums draws Judy and Peter up to the attic, where they discover the dusty Jumanji board. Intrigued, Judy and Peter start their own game, unleashing wild jungle creatures into the old house. On Peter's turn, Alan is released from his imprisonment, now grown into a shaggy survivor (and played by top-billed Robin Williams). Together, the three realize the only way to undo the damage done is to finish the game-both the Shepherds' and Alan and Sarah's.

It won't be easy. Sarah's been a wreck since that fateful night, and every roll of the dice unleashes a new horror from the bowels of the Jumanji jungle-giant mosquitoes, a hungry lion, evil monkeys, the man-hunting Van Pelt, snakes, spiders, giant strangling vines and more.

The extensive special effects required to pull this exotic fantasy off were nothing new to director Joe Johnston, who honed his skills on the original Star Wars trilogy's effects team before taking the director's chair on 1989's Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Loud, scary and always moving with a manic energy worthy of its star, Jumanji turned into a worldwide blockbuster. A cartoon spin-off debuted in 1996, and a feature sequel is planned for release sometime in the relatively near future.