Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a film from 1989. That movie is "Little Monsters".
Now, unlike previous films that I've covered for this series which involved movies from my childhood that I hadn't seen before, this is one of the movies that I have no recollection of at all. Now that's partially because this movie was a little before my time. But also, even when I was growing up, I had never heard about this movie before, nor have I ever watched it on any TV station that would air it. That said, I decided to finally get around to watching it since one of my local video stores was selling it for dirt cheap.
The only things I can tell you guys, going into this movie, is that it stars a young Fred Savage, and it also co-stars Howie Mandell, who you see in that creepy-looking blue makeup of his on the cover. Seriously, guys, that makeup on him is the stuff of nightmares. At least from the cover that I picked for this Reaction & Review anyway. I'm hoping maybe that I'll eventually get use to it once he appears in the film and all.
Really, guys, I have nothing else to add here. I'm just gonna hope for this movie to be decent. I'm not sure if it will be or not, but I'll never truly know that answer unless I shut up and push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Little Monsters".
4 minutes later
Did he seriously just put onion on a peanut butter sandwich before eating it? Who the fuck does that!? I figured he would just do the classic PB&J, but no, apparently, he puts onion on his sandwich. That is just fucking disgusting, dude.
7 minutes later
I swear to god, guys, the acting from Eric's child actor is fucking terrible. Mind you, the acting hasn't really been good so far, but his acting is probably the worst right now. And I'm probably gonna have to put up with his shitty acting for...fuck, an hour and a half?! This might be actually suck, guys.
16 minutes later
So, guys, not only is the makeup on Howie Mandell still creepy-looking. But he's also kind of annoying, too. That's not really a good first impression to make, I'll just say that right now.
10 minutes later
So, Maurice's home world is basically just a bunch of wooden stairs and pillars, along with some dark lighting. Gonna be honest, guys, it looks kinda dreary and somewhat shit, really. I would probably want out of there as soon as possible. But perhaps that's just me.
2 minutes later
OK, I had to assume there was a little bit more to this world, as, apparently, I'm now seeing kids playing arcade games and it's filled with, I'm going to assume is suppose to be Christmas lights of sorts. But wait a minute, I thought Maurice stated earlier that bright lights harm him. So why are there so many lights hanging around this area if he's suppose to be negatively affected by them? Guys, this movie's already running into a bit of a logic issue, and I have a feeling that the movie's not going to answer that whatsoever.
4 minutes later
You know, guys, a thought just occurred to me. So Brian and Maurice are just in other people's houses pulling off stupid pranks while the people are asleep. So what happens if, by some chance, that the sun comes up and Brian's unable to get home via under the bed? That means he's going to be in a whole world of trouble because of all the stupid crap he's been doing. And the worst part about it for him is that if he tries to pull the argument of 'well, it was Maurice's fault' I guarantee you that Brian's gonna end up being in a mental institution because of that. I understand the movie probably would not go *that* far, but I would be shocked if any part of that scenario I brought up doesn't happen.
2 minutes later
Oh, and I just saw Maurice pissing inside one of the kids empty bottle of apple juice to disguise it as apple juice. Thankfully, we don't actually see him do this, as his back was turned a moment ago. But still, that is probably even more disgusting than Brian putting onion in his peanut butter sandwich. Granted, it's creative...but still, what the fuck, man?
10 minutes later
Well, guys, I believe I just found my favorite character in this entire movie so far. I believe his name is Snake, and he's already more likable than any other character I've found in this entire movie, and that includes Maurice, too.
19 minutes later
You know what, guys? This movie started off kinda shit, and it hasn't exactly gotten any better, especially now that we're in the third act of the movie. Granted, there are a couple of things here and there that I sorta like, but I'll talk about all that later once I get to reviewing this movie. Just wanted to let you guys know that ahead of time.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Little Monsters". Thank god, it's over. I'm gonna shut the movie off now...OK. By the way, I should make one quick correction on my part. The villain's name isn't Snake, it's Snik. Granted, it's kind of a stupid name, but that's the least of this movie's problems. Still, I got his name wrong and I just wanted to correct it is all. But yeah, "Little Monsters"...it certainly was something. It's not really a good something, but at least it was something sorta unique. And also really kinda boring, too.
Let's just get right into this film here and talk a little more about it. Let's start with writing. Writing in this movie is just kinda shit and very stupid. Now yes, I know there are some people who grew up watching this movie as part of their childhood and still love it to this day. And that's totally cool. I know some people are very protective when it comes to movies that people grew up with in their childhood. I, myself, am no different from this. I love of plenty of movies that I grew up with and, even though I'm an adult now, I can see some of them are flawed in their own ways, be it minor or major. However, being that this series focuses on movies I haven't seen before, I go into them with fresh eyes and I see if they're good or not, and also, whether or not they're entertaining. And I will say that, while this movie does have a couple of rather interesting moments, those moments are few and far between., and the content of the writing isn't really all that better.
To start with, the story here borders on being plotless. There really is not much of a story here, other than our main character, Brian, befriending a blue monster by the name of Maurice. And from there, they end up doing stupid stuff like pulling pranks in various kids homes and...that's really kinda it. By the way, I should quickly mention something I brought up earlier. That whole theory I brought up in regards to Brian being discovered by somebody in another person's house when the monsters aren't around never actually happens. It didn't even happen during a point where Maurice and his friends go to scare a little baby, and Brian thinks that this is too cruel and just runs out of the house through the front door. I'm surprised nobody saw him and called the police for intruding inside their private property. I knew that him going into a mental institution was never going to happen. However, I remember a scene in "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie" where they actually had a mental institution for ugly people. It was dark, yes, but also really funny. And this movie, while it does have swearing and all that, it really doesn't make the film that much better.
One thing that really kinda bothered me is something that they brought up once and never brings it up again. So, when Brian's little brother, Eric, goes up to the attic and asks Brian if he can borrow a flashlight, he discovers that Brian is not actually in his bed. And the next day at school, he tells one of his friends about this and thought it was also strange. Yet for some reason, Eric *never* tells any of this to his parents. Which, you would think that would raise some kind of alarms, because then it would start to get the parents to come together after they were arguing and find out what's going on with Brian and where he's been disappearing to. Like I said, it's brought up one time in the entire movie and never gets brought up again afterwards. I would think that, maybe, this would be a moment where, like I said, his parents would come together after they were arguing with each other. I bring this up because they admit to their sons later on that they're separating and need some time off. However, that whole thing gets dropped later on because the parents don't really play any role here other than arguing with one another.
Almost all of our characters in this movie are shallow, vapid, or really annoying. The latter award goes to Maurice because he's all "wacky" and "goofy", and he almost never shuts the fuck up. I swear to you, guys, he talks so much in his movie that I ended up kinda hating him by the time the movie was finished. And I still don't feel any different towards him even as I'm typing this review up. He's seriously one of the most annoying characters I've come across in a movie in a *long* time. Almost every other character is, like I said, very shallow and vapid. Brian is more of delinquent kid than anything else. The girl he has a crush on named Kiersten is sort of a nerd who's into studying how plants grow. Every other kid I could write off as, well, forgetful, in terms of personality. The only character who I actually liked was Snik, our villain of the movie. Well, one of them, anyway. There was somebody who was incredibly forgetful, other than having some really cool makeup effects. Other than that, our characters are not really memorable, unless you can actually tolerate how annoying Maurice is.
So yeah, guys, the writing in this movie is really not that good at all. Like I said, it feels very plotless and doesn't really have much going for it's story. OK, granted, I wasn't really expecting some kind of deep plot or anything, but I was kinda sort of expecting a little bit more out of it. Unfortunately, like I said, there's not much going on here. The acting is also a very mixed bag. Some actors do okay, like our two main cast members, Fred Savage and Howie Mandell. Even though I still think Howie's character was annoying as fuck, at least Howie was able to kinda make it sorta work. However, then we have our supporting cast, such as our young child actors, specifically, the ones who plays Kiersten and Eric. These two were fucking horrible. Kiersten's actress doesn't know how to emote properly, and Eric's actor was even worse because it almost sounded like he was trying to overact at times, and it sounded like shit. He was the worst actor in the entire movie, and I hope he took acting lessons since then, otherwise, he should not be anywhere near a camera again until he's improved. I don't know if he has since the time that this movie was released, or if he just never got called again to do anything else. Either way, I'm not missing a whole lot if this performance from him is anything to go off by. So yeah, acting in this movie is teetering on being a mixed bag at best.
Special effects are, actually, one of the few positives I can definitely give this movie. More specifically, it's for the costuming and makeup effects. These are some of the more creative effects I have seen in quite a while. At least, for something that came out during the late 80's anyway. Every piece of costuming here is unique, it's creative, and it really does give you an idea of what this world underneath children's beds looks like. I really liked it, aside from the actual world itself looking really dark and dreary. I almost wanted to say that it kinda reminded me of the dream world from "Nightmare On Elm Street", but at least there, that can be it's own creative thing, depending on what you do with it. This dream world, though, could've looked better. At least, to me, it could've. The makeup effects are also really good, too. I'll even include Howie Mandell's creepy-looking blue makeup, because at least it looks rather unique. Not great, mind you, but at least it's something different for Mr. Mandell.
Camerawork here is really good. Lighting here is pretty good, even with the darkly lit areas in the world where Maurice lives. It didn't really get in the way of the movie very much, so at least there's that. Sound-mix here is fine. The music here, for both score and soundtrack, are great. The score was done by David Newman, and he's always done some pretty good scores for a lot of movies from the late 80's leading into the 90's. The selection of songs for the soundtrack is also really good, too. You have songs from people like Billie Hughes, Frankie Paul, and the Paladins, just to name a few. So yes, I can definitely give the music here a rather big positive.
Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Little Monsters"? If you grew up with it as a piece from your childhood, or if you know somebody that's associated with children in some way, and you really want to show this to them, then sure. I can probably recommend it in that aspect. However, as I mentioned before, I didn't grow up with this movie. And being that this was my first time watching it, I was curious to see if it had held up or not. And for me...it didn't. Like I said earlier, the story here feels very plotless, the characters are not very interesting at all, save for one, personally speaking. And even though the special effects and soundtrack were really good, that's not really enough to make me want to keep watching it on multiple viewings. It's aged rather poorly, and I don't find it really charming either, as the movie itself is also really boring at times. So I can say, again, with confidence that I won't be rewatching this movie anytime soon. Now, with that being said, I'm gonna go and watch a better movie, and it's something that I briefly referenced earlier. I'm gonna go and watch "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie" again. While that movie isn't necessarily good either, at least it holds up better than this movie actually did. So yeah, I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done with this review.
Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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