Hobgoblins (1988)

1988

Directed by Rick Sloane
Starring Tom Bartlett, Paige Sullivan, Steven Boggs, Kelley Palmer, Billy Frank and Daran Norris

Here's a movie that has a reputation as one of the worst ever featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000...and, surprise surprise, I don't think it's that bad.  Now, don't get me wrong, Hobgoblins isn't a GOOD movie by any traditional definition.  But watching it for the first time without Mike and the 'Bots actually made me realize how damn delightful this thing is.  That has to be the first time I've ever said the word "delightful" in a review, so it's probably a good thing that the blog is closing up shop at the end of June.  Devastating news, I'm sure, for my legion of (three) fans.

Released in 1988, this flick was directed, produced, written, shot and edited by Rick Sloane.  That kind of workload really does qualify this dude as a modern-day Ed Wood.  The budget is absolutely minuscule even by horror movie standards at $15,000.  Folks, there's people like myself who have a bunch of screenplays sitting around and will never do anything with them because we think it's just "too hard" to get it moving.  Using this movie as an example, I could make one TODAY.  At the time it came out, it was universally panned as being the lowest of the low rent version of all the "little monster" movies of the '80s, especially Gremlins.  It's also really trashy.  But I assure you, it's trashy in the fun, zany way, with a group of characters and actors that are so bad they're strangely interesting.  This flick really is a kind of beautiful disaster.

It takes little time for the movie to become a laugh riot, as we're introduced to Mr. McCreedy (Jeffrey Culver), old geezer security guard for a run-down movie lot.  His partner is Dennis, wannabe rocker with a face that only a movie could love.  Within minutes, he wanders into the one vault on the entire lot that McCreedy has IMPLORED him not to enter, promptly envisioned himself as an '80s cock rocker and then killed by a few unseen creatures before McCreedy shuts the vault.  Shits and giggles all around.

Meet the new partner for McCreedy - Kevin (Tom Bartlett), manly man who efficiently whines out most of his lines.  Kevin is a funny character in and of himself, but he's nothing compared to the cast of zanies that make up his friends.  For starters, his shrill girlfriend Amy (Paige Sullivan).  She's frigid, she's unsupportive, and she's all kinds of repressed.  There's also Daphne (Kelley Palmer), the requisite slut of the group who gets countless hilarious jokes directed at her promiscuity by the other characters.  There's Kyle (Steven Boggs), dorky guy who wears the same red shirts throughout the film's running time.  This group of jokers is then rounded out by by Nick (Billy Frank), Daphne's lunkhead army boyfriend who soon engages with Kevin in an impromptu match of garden-tool battle to the death before banging Daphne in a nearby van.  Did I mention this movie is a blast?

The horrific plot of the movie gets unleashed one night after Kevin manages to stop a burglar on the lot.  The search for the thief leads him to the vault where he accidentally releases the Hobgoblins on the world.  Hobgoblins, you say?  Yup.  Hogoblins.  Furry, somewhat cute puppets/aliens with the psychic power to manipulate their victims into thinking their greatest fantasy is coming true, which they use to trick the person into making themselves vulnerable enough to kill.  It actually sounds kinda scary, but the execution?  Yeah, not so much.  They really were going more for laughs than anything with this film, and we get all the evidence we need of this as they make their way immediately to Kevin's friends.  For an indication of what we're dealing with, the monsters trick pervy Kyle into thinking that the sex-line vixen he talks to every night is right outside the door waiting for him, with the end game being said vixen pushing his car over a cliff.  Amazingly, that's just one of the many delights we have in store from this point out.

The final third of the movie takes place at a dive called Club Scum, where we get yet another classic character in the form of the fey Club MC played by Daran Norris.  I like this Daran Norris; he's an accomplished voice actor who has played everything from Cosmo on The Fairly OddParents to VoodooRic on The PowerPuff Girls.  But enough about that.  Turns out that Amy has been manipulated into being the star attraction at the place ahead of the amazing band that performs their classic song "Kiss Kicker" (or possibly "Pig Sticker").  Long story short, we get lots of hilariously bad stuff at this place including Nick leading a commando raid (and holy Christ is that an amazing sequence) followed by, predictably, Kevin proving that he's a real man by leading the Hobgoblins back to the lot to get blowed up real good.  Oh yeah, spoiler alert.  And Kyle still can't get laid.

By pretty much every conventional definition, this movie isn't good.  Acting, script, cinematography, all leave more than a little something to be desired on the Martin Scorsese officially-credited scale of film-making.  Believe me, this wasn't lost on Rick Sloane either, because he PERSONALLY submitted his own flick to Best Brains Inc. to be considered for the MST3K treatment.  It was later said that he regretted the decision after the closing bit in the theater where the characters did a mock interview of Mr. Sloane that bordered on cruel.  Man, you have to put yourselves in the shoes of the people behind that show for a second.  They probably had to watch this movie multiple times in preparation for riffing it.

Nevertheless, I can report that if you don't have to concentrate your viewings of this movie, it's actually fun.  Look...all of the characters are memorable.  They might not be memorable for reasons that a screenwriter WANTS them to be, but walk away from this movie and tell me that you don't remember sex-crazed Daphne and her trademark "I'm about to do it" dance, or Nick and his serial camo wife-beater wearing.  Or the Club Scum MC and his introduction of the Kiss Kicker band.  Or Mr. McCreedy and his Eddie Munster Widows' Peak during the flashback origin sequences.  Or...hell, pretty much everything.  If you can turn your brain off, you'll have a fun time watching this movie.

Thus, I give Hobgoblins ** out of ****.  And with that, we're done with our March celebration of the movies of MST3K, and we're on to finishing off (finally) a series of movies that I've talked about a bunch of times on this here blog before...the marionettes are about to be unleashed...