Little Monsters

by Hans A. Carpenter
Release Date: August 25, 1989
Directed by: Richard Greenberg
Starring: Howie Mandel and Fred Savage
With no new movies in theaters, my fianceé, Jessica Metcalf, and I have decided to share movies we love with one another. Last week I shared Dawn of the Dead. This week, well I’ll let Jessica take it from here.
Mrs. Marquee says:
This is so bad…I love it!
Little Monsters was one of my favorite movies when I was little. I thought Richard Greenberg knew how little kids felt. We were constantly getting in trouble for what our siblings did. We ran with the bad crowd and were bullied. I am watching as an adult and it is obvious; this film is about child molesters.
The whole concept is a male monster at night comes out from under your bed and, in Brian Stevenson’s (Fred Savage) case, convinces you to go into a dungeon under your bed.
Oh, I am sorry, it is not a dungeon, it is a world of wooden pallets that has an arcade and an unlimited buffet of candy and pizza. The world also has lots of monsters. Apparently, the monsters are little boys and girls who got stuck in the monster world before they could escape. There is also staircase after staircase leading to doors that lead to several little boy’s and girl’s bedrooms.
Maurice (Howie Mandel) is a blue monster with horns who is basically trying to rip off beetlejuice. There is a scene in which the monster is asking about a little girl named Kiersten (Amber Barretto). Maurice goes into her room and makes sexual “gestures” next to her but hey that will go over a kid’s head, right?
This film is rated PG. There is cursing and sexual references galore but there is no violence or gore. This film was described as dark humor and has a ridiculous ending. When I talked to my mother about this film, she told me she let me watch it because it was on during the day time and she had time to do housework while we watched basic cable. She told me she never even watched the film herself.
There is also a scene in the film when the kids fall into a pool of stuffed animals. It dawns on Brian that he is hanging around the wrong crowd when the monsters try to scare a baby in the crib because the baby was too young to be scared.
The whole peeing in the bully’s apple juice and messing with his lunch wasn’t a clue. Yet in Brian’s defense, he doesn’t see the consequences of his actions with the kids getting into trouble. This message to young kids, who hopefully don’t see the sexual jokes, is to be careful with whom you surround yourself. At the end of the day, it was too late to save Maurice but he is going back to his world a hero.
Mr. Marquee has been trying to introduce me to good classic films of high intelligent quality, and I just love trashy horrible kids movies. The worse they are, the better they are is my philosophy. I do generally feel bad for, in his words, showing him the worst movie he has ever seen in his life while he showed me a movie in the Library of Congress. In my defense, I have not watched this film since the early 90s. Plus, I have to admit, I was oblivious to all the sexual references. This film did not stand up to the test of time but as far as dark humor goes, it was a classic. This film collection is suppose to be a comedy, well let’s see if you find it funny.
Mister Marquee
How Jessica? How could you have put me through this. I showed you a classic, and you give me a thrift store Beetlejuice rip-off that looks like it was filmed in a coke head’s basement with a camcorder.
I can only imagine Howie Mandel must have dove into a pile of blow like Scrooge McDuck to pull off the frenetic energy of Maurice, who is always grabbing someone or making an annoying noise through every excruciating moment of screen time. If all the monsters are former kids, then why is Maurice a grown man? Who shrugged their shoulders and okayed the monster world’s set design, which was just stacked up pallets.
At one point, Maurice helps his young friend sneak into his crush’s bedroom while she sleeps. It’s just, it’s so uncomfortable.
A handful of chuckles give Little Monsters more fun moments than say Zoolander 2, but still, why Jessica? How could you do this to me?
I give Little Monsters a 0/5, and may God have mercy on your soul.