I'm not sure how related they are, but I'm almost certain that Lost and Delirious is a remake of this movie (or the story that it's based on). Very similar plotline, and even some of the scenes and sets seem to be very, very similar. Lost & Delirious is actually a much better movie, so see that one instead.

This one moves very slowly, but being a late 60s French movie, that is to be expected of the style. Told in a retrospect from the perspective of one of the girls revisiting the school. The editing of the flashbacks with the current scenes is a little bit confusing at first, particularly since the audio from each overlaps (ie, hearing flashbacks while seeing the present and vice versa). Also, the "girls" are a bit old to think that they are in a boarding school. Finally, not much character development to even get you attached to the movie.


Shallow, shallow script ...stilted acting ...the shadows of boom mikes lingering over the actors' heads in scenes ...worth watching because Kate Mulgrew plays the most selfish mother in TV movie history and it's all before Ben Affleck got his teeth capped.


The tragedy of the doomed ship Titanic has inspired many books and movies. The battle between nature and technology always caught man's imagination. The latest film concerning this tragedy in the Atlantic Ocean was written and directed by famous action movie filmmaker James Cameron. The story of "Titanic" involves two fictional characters (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) from different backgrounds (one is a hobo-artist, the other is an aristocrat) and how their love triumphs over societal barriers and the tragedy of a sinking ship that they happen to be on.

First of all, although using a historical name, this movie had little regard to history. The plot was built around two fictional lovers, French diamond, and treasure hunters. The deaths of over a thousand of people on the greatest luxury ship of its time became a mere background. Many historical facts were simply forgotten. Where was the radio operator that ignored the iceberg warnings? Why was there no mention of the ship that was only 5 miles away from the Titanic but did not come to the rescue because its captain failed to identify the distress signal? Omitting these facts is an insult to the tragedy. And what was the point of flavoring this historical disaster with fictional cheesy romance when the story is already as sad as it is.

The overall plot was rather shallow; rich equals greed and corruption, poverty equals compassion and heroism. It is very ironic to spend $200 million to make a movie about how money corrupts. There was absolutely no human side shown in anti-heroes. It seemed like Billy Zane was playing a part of the devil. Casting was also very poor. If DiCaprio was 2 inches shorter than Winslet, you could swear she was his baby-sitter. The length of the movie was unnecessarily stretched to over 3 hours. First hour and the half was wasted on establishing the relationships between the characters that were known to audience long before they went to theater and the dialogue that was used to do so made it even worse. Hearing corny pick up lines such as "I see you" and "This is my side of the ship" generated more pain than the screams of drowning people. Also, jokes were too abundant and rather lame.

"Titanic" did involve some moving scenes such as the part when the musicians were playing while the ship was sinking but they were no way near anything original. The best thing about this film were its special effects, and that is the only thing that truly deserved an award.

Although this film lacked artistical value in overall sense, the public could not resist a sentimental story starring Romeo (DiCaprio), and so the movie became a success. Now it is safe to say that the industry will be less hesitant to invest large amounts of money in a single motion picture, so it seems that "Titanic" did achieve something after all.


Once upon a time there was a director by the name of James. He brought us wonderfully, thrilling science-fiction such as Terminator and Aliens. These movies were the stuff blockbusters were made of and he looked to have a fantastic future ahead of him as the dawn of computer generated special effects landed upon the film industry. Terminator 2 showed gave us glimpses of what was possible in this new era.

.......and then it happened...................1997........countless awards..........obscene amounts of money............outlandish barrage of advertising............maximum profit margin........Titanic was here!

I have never (ever) been one to jump on the bandwagon and be overly critical for the sake of it, in fact I have often taken the opposite stance from the majority just to get an argument going. Titanic however was a film I only took one single positive out of - that of Kate Winslett being absolutely gorgeous throughout!

Quickly - the dialogue was like something out of Beverly Hills 90210, the acting was more wooden than my nephew's tree house, images meant to terrify were actually comical (man falling from ship and hitting propeller), historically false (don't even get me started because there's too much), it had dire theme music (up there with the bodyguard for cheese) and the pointless love story was so tedious, self absorbing and pathetic that it disrespected the plight of everyone else involved (I was glad when he died and disappointed when she did not).

It was plainly obvious from the word go that this picture was designed to appeal to MTV watching, bubblegum chewing, boy-with-car chasing, teenage girls (DeCaprio himself resembled something less heroic than the weedy member of a boy band) who would drag their sex-starved boyfriends out for a three and a half hour chick-flick hoping to get lucky later! The worst aspect was that it did not stop at that point. Millions of dumbed down, culture vultures went to see this expensive waste of celluloid because "it cost so much to produce it must be great" and "Steve and Barbara said it was good and they know their movies".

The crowning glory arrived when Titanic swept the boards at the Academy Awards. King James of Hollywood had a serious moment of silence for the victims of the fatal evening on which his three and a half hour farce was based. It looked to me as if he was praying for forgiveness after making a fortune off inaccurately portraying the circumstances that lead to the death of a lot of people.

However, if people are stupid and sentimental enough to buy into this kind of rubbish they deserve to get ripped off. Good luck to Hollywood if that is how they want to make money, I'd do it if I had those kind of chances in life!

It is right up there on my all time worst movies list with other silly, historically false/human interest tripe like "The Patriot" and "Pearl Harbor".


I've just had the evidence that confirmed my suspicions. A bunch of kids, 14 to 22 put on the DVD of "Titanic" on a fantastic state of the art mega screen home entertainment type deal. Only two of them had actually seen it before. But they all had seen the moment of Kate, Leo and Celine Dion so many times that most of them felt they had seen the whole movie. Shortly after the epic started, they started to get restless, some of them left asking the others -- "call us when the iceberg appears" Over an hour and a half into the movie, only the two girls who had seen the movie before, were still there. They started shouting: iceberg, iceberg. A stampede followed, they all came back to see the sinking of the Titanic. They sat open mouthed, emitting Ohs and far outs. So, just like I thought when the movie first burst into the scene. What is this? One and a half hours waiting for the bloody thing to sink but what about the rest of the of it. Dr. Zivagho, for instance, had a similar running time, but think how much takes place in that film within the same period of time. In "Titanic" Leo teaches Kate how to spit. Look at the faces and hands of the, supposedly, creme de la creme in the first class dining room of the ship. Look at the historical details, if you can find them. The storyline is so thin that they have to introduce guns and shootings in a ship that is about to sink. The real sinking here is of film standards. All the efforts are focus on special effects and opening week ends. The film went on to become the highest grossing movie of all time so, what do I know?


What I think I'll probably like best about the new Star Wars film, "Phantom Menace", is that it will likely blow "Titanic" out of the water, if you'll pardon the pun, when it comes to sheer devastating box office receipts, and thereby knock it out of the number one spot. Every time I hear someone declare "Titanic" is the greatest film they've ever seen, I think to myself, "You don't see a lot of movies, do you?" What a travesty. You could make 50 good films that are a lot better than "Titanic", and for the same price tag.

"Well, it won lots of academy awards, lots of people really loved it," as someone might say in its defence. Well, lots of people like the Spice Girls and billions and billions of people eat at McDonald's, but that doesn't mean it's high quality. Yes, millions of Elvis fans CAN be wrong.

I'll be the first to admit, that part of the problem for me was the mega-hype over the film. I waited a month or so to see it and ultimately, it didn't live up to the expectations set upon it, which simply called more attention to the appallingly stupid love story. It's true, "Phantom Menace" will likely suffer a similar fate. but.

James Cameron's "Titanic" is. a) a cheesy action flick thinly disguised as a serious period piece. b) a three-hour epic that has it's finest moments given away in the trailer. c) a sappy love story beyond belief or entertainment. d) something left better to documentarians, which I would've enjoyed much more. e) a film with arrogance that lives up to the level demonstrated with the real ship. f) a robbery of 3 hours that I will never get back, therefore the greatest motivation for a time machine I can think of. When I meet someone who hasn't seen it yet, I say, "I wish I could trade places with you." g) a slap in the face to any genuine victim of hypothermia. How long are we supposed to believe that people can be immersed in freezing cold water and still form intelligible sentences? h) thankfully a film that wasn't recognized for any acting achievements at the Oscars. i) a technological achievement in filmmaking, and little else.

The only reason I post this as a anonymous comment is I do NOT welcome the rebuttal of 10,000 thirteen year old Leonardo DiCaprio fans who'll no doubt come to his defense, and I am not really interested in hearing a defense of Titanic's story, acting or length.


First of all, as a long time student of the Titanic disaster and member of several Titanic clubs, I feel entitled to comment on the film. I don't really care how many awards and accolades the film won, but to me it is still an absolutely awful film. Cameron had the resources to make a 'proper' semi-documentary film of the disaster but unfortunately chose to turn it into a po-faced romantic mush. The fact that so many people around the world fell for it only shows, to my mind, the sad state of taste and common sense that movie critics and audiences have these days. Whoever said that all movies should have a hero and heroine falling in love? In fact most real events are anything but romantic and the Titanic disaster certainly was not one. I feel that it needed a better script and director with a semi-documentary approach and as little artistic license as possible. I almost threw up in the last sequence where the 'dead' lovers meet among the other lost passengers and crew who break out in applause. Is this an intelligent film? Ask yourself.


I see people writing about how great this movie was. It was horrible! The acting was sub-par at best. It made a lot of money because teenage girls went to see the movie 7 times in the theaters because of Leonardo. Where the hell did they get the money? Anyway, I wanted to learn more about the Titanic; why it sank, what was running through a lot of people's minds; maybe even a little conspiracy stuff. Does anyone realize that certain people didn't even board the ship because there was a fire on board before it even took off? No, you don't because all you see is a rich girl falling for a poor boy and he paints her naked (did that corny junk at least tip you off that the movie was stupid?).

I did cry in during one scene, though. The scene when they showed the water that was filling up in the ship. It looked like pool water! I'm thinking this movie made all this money and they couldn't even make the water from the ocean look real? unbelievable...

Ohhh the band played on while the ship sank.. Just ridiculous. This was the worst movie until Pearl Harbor outdid it in the "Nothing to Do With Reality" department.


I, like many people, saw this film in the theatre when it first came out in '97. It was a below average film at best, defiantly not the "masterpiece" that all these "Titanic" fanboys like to make it out as. First off, DiCaprio is a terrible actor no matter which way you look at it. People just like him because of his looks. His acting "skills" essentially consist of saying a lot of cheesy lines and trying to act sexy. Second, the film itself had a rather boring and simple plot: girl falls in love with guy, ship they're on sinks, lots of crappy love scenes thereafter. Anyone with an IQ above 50 will realize this isn't ingenious in any way whatsoever. Nor is it original. Plus the director felt the need to drag it out for 3+ hours. I could compress it into a 1 hour block without losing any of the plot. In conclusion, "Titanic" is the most overrated movie to date. Why it got so much attention and money is beyond me.


There is a lot of obvious hype associated with this film. Let's just face it, though, the main reasons why anyone would watch it would be for Leo and Cate, who are not necessarily the best actors in this film. I'm not saying they're not good actors, I'm saying they stunk in this film. The special effects were decent (and I will say the film makers did a good job making the ship eye-pleasing), but IT even has several major flaws. For instance, right before the ship goes under, you can see an unfinished blue-screen image behind your main characters.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the story of the REAL Titanic, but I find this movie an insult to that story. Editing was atrocious--there's no reason for any film to be over 2 1/2 hours (with the exception of MAYBE a biographical movie), and the writing and screenplay was horribly stilted.

I will say that the music was perhaps better than I could have predicted (and not just the "My Heart Will Go On" song either). There is one scene that stands out to me when the ship is sinking and pounding bass music is heard. That could very well be the highlight of the film. As for the mood throughout, it was extremely dull. I was more relieved than sad when Jack died, which I know cannot be what the director intended.

In a nut shell, I find it horrible that they turned the beautiful story of the Titanic into an over-hyped chick flick.


What a piece of junk this movie was. The premise was okay, but even in the beginning with crappy effects to blend in a giant with normal sized people (even the effects in Hercules was better) I knew this would be bad. But the really awful part of the movie is the dialogs. It's completely incoherent, silly and stupid. I felt like it had been written by some 9th grader in creative class and gotten a D-. I want to slap Casper van Diem and the other actors for following this movie through.

I've had my share of cheesy and bad movies (I love the tremors series), but this... I do not recommend it at all. It's silly and the totally flabbergastingly bad dialogs will make you cringe.


"The fallen ones" falls under the waste of life (WOL) category. I am sad that I am now two hours older was not entertained. My other family members also watched this movie and threw demeaning comments at the screen and rooted for the mummy. I felt sorry for the actors (Wagner). I have read other negative reviews and cannot add anything else to this movie other than it could be reduced to 25 minutes so it could take a 30 minute slot on TV without any loss of plot. It reminds me of a dish that has several good ingredients but when served is bland with no flavor at all. In my humble opinion, The 42 foot mummy should have been 8-10 feet and improved the plot by taking out the mystic and replacing him with several people who want to denigh the facts and want DNA samples for evil reasons. The heroes are discredited and tossed on there ear by their colleges. Later after everything was screwed up by the evil people. The heroes would save the day and prove everyone wrong.


Some moron who read or saw some reference to angels coming to Earth, decided to disregard what he'd heard about the offspring of humans and angels being larger than normal humans. Reinventing them as mythical giants that were 40 feet tall, is beyond ridiculous. There was some historical references to housing and furniture in parts of the world, that were much larger than would be needed for standard humans. These were supposedly built on a scale that would lend itself to a 10 to 14 foot human, somewhat supporting the "David and Goliath" tale from the bible. There is no mention in any historical references to buildings or artifacts that would support the idea of a 40 foot tall being. If I was rating this movie on my own scale, it would have been a negative value instead of a one...


I saw not so fabulous rating on IMDb, but I went to see it anyway, because I am a big fan of Bible related material. First thing that bothered me was a little too much Indiana Jones wannabe movie, but it also looked like Casper Van Dien didn't see those Jones movies through (but he should). I believe he tried his best, but script just stunk. Music tried to be kinda Jones style too. Great work, but for such movie it seemed like too much work, like the video part did't deserve all that great music. Robert Wagner gave his best acting skills, he did a good job, but somehow the script was bringing everything down. "Jokes" are old school, somewhere 20 years old; they brought only cynic smile to my face. There are some really bad camera angels, SFX looks like homemade and unrealistic. Kevin VanHook had probably a good idea on the story (in my opinion, but I love such stories), but things just didn't work out in the end. Maybe he should put it on a paper when it was still fresh in his head. When I (in first minutes) saw that movie was going to be one of those 'low budget movies', I hoped that I will at least 'hear' a good story, but sometimes movies just disappoint.


The Fallen Ones starts with archaeologist Matt Fletcher (Casper Van Dien) in the desert discovering the mummified remains of a 42 foot tall giant, now there's something you don't see everyday. Matt is working for property developer Morton (Robert Wagner) who wants to build a holiday resort on the land & he calls in fellow archaeologist Angela (Kristen Miller) for reasons I'm unsure of. Anyway they both try to figure out what they've got on they're hands when some of the team go missing, Morton calls in security guy Ammon (Navid Negahban) to handle the situation. Meanwhile ancient text translator the Rabbi Eli Schmidtt (Tom Bosley) translates some ancient text (as he would) & is shocked to learn of a evil prophecy in which these giants will rise up & take over the world for the Fallen One, or something like that. It's up to Matt to save the day & the whole planet...

Written & directed by Kevin VanHook, who also has a small role in the film as the ancient warrior leader at the start, I personally thought The Fallen Ones was a terrible film & it's as simple & straight forward as that. There are so many things that are just plain bad about The Fallen Ones both on a technical & conceptual level, the script doesn't make a whole lot of sense & it doesn't really get going until the final 20 odd minutes by which time I had almost lost the will to live. The character's are awful & as clichéd as you like, the dialogue is bad as in very, very bad & the entire film is predictable, I mean it's not going to come as a surprise that Casper Van Dien is going to save the day is it? It's not a huge surprise that the mummified giant is going to come back to life either so why wait until over an hour into the film when most of the audience will be in some sort of comatose state. This is bad, very bad. You have been warned.

Director VanHook doesn't impress, the fight scenes are absolutely awful & why dress your bad guys up in a horrible shade of purple? They look naff. To give it a bit of credit the special effects on the giant Mummy itself are actually good although there's not that many of them since he doesn't make an appearance for over an hour, there are also some normal sized Mummy's that look to have come straight from the set of The Mummy (1999), unfortunately these aren't used to any great effect & in fact are wasted as some comic relief. The mechanical Mummy was a pretty good idea but looked silly & there is no way on Earth that all those people inside could work in sync with each other to operate it, actually the more I think about the more ridiculous the idea is. Forget about any scares, tension or atmosphere & don't even think about any gore or violence because there isn't any.

Technically The Fallen Ones isn't anything special & apart from the impressive giant Mummy effects there's little her to get excited about. The ghost CGI & water effects are terrible, it was made-for-TV & it's shows. The acting was poor, Wagner looks embarrassed & this is probably the only thing the likes of Dien & Bosley can get these days.

The Fallen Ones is a bad film, there's no two ways about it as far as I'm concerned. Not recommended on any level or in any way, one to avoid.


I came into this movie really wanting to line it. I thought the premise had a lot of potential and was ripe for an interesting movie. Don't get me wrong here, I wasn't expecting Citizen Kane, I was taking this for the B movie that it is. That said, it still fell short of the expectation. The historical aspect of the story is glazed over and the ending left me a bit cold. The acting in the movie was very wooden. All in all I give it 4 for a great idea, but the movie could have scored much higher with a bit more attention to movie making fundamentals. Is it worth seeing? I didn't wish for my two hours back, but I don't know that I'd recommend it to others.


I had some time to kill before watching football so I saw this movie being offered on the scifi channel and it literally after watching it I thought I had encountered my version of mentally walking the Bataan death march as my conscious was beaten into submission by the awful movie which ripped off the Mummy series and Jurassic Park. It was so bad that I thought the opening credits were the highlight of the movie and then it went into such a abysmal descent that it made the recent drop in the stock market seem like a hiccup. The acting was so bad that I was hoping that one and all would be buried at the end. The lead by Casper Van Dien made me long for the high caliber acting of Steven Seagal in "On Deadly Ground" as his line reading was so wooden that Woody Woodpecker was thinking of making a cameo to sit on his shoulder. I also noticed that his emotional range is so limited that I was under the impression my kitten was more expressive when asking for popcorn to eat . The direction was so abysmal I looked back yearning to my nephew's grade 3 play recital which had more pace and better vision and the fact that this movie seems to be have spliced together from afterthoughts of the aforementioned movie franchise it can not even be thought of as a homage. The FX of the movie was so bad that I thought the director and producers were enviormentally friendly by recycling cheap special effects from grade Z horror flicks from yesteryear. What Robert Wagner, Tom Bosley and Geoffrey Lewis were doing in this movies is beyond me and they should look at litigation against their agents for misrepresentation for getting them involved with such a dreck of a movie. My warning to one and all is watch this movie at your peril as this movie may cause your IQ to diminish with prolonged viewing. On a side note I noticed at IMDb that sometimes salaries for movies are published I was wondering if their is a way that actors that should give the salaries back for their poor performances in such movies. Beware and be safe avoid at all costs.


...from this awful movie! There are so many things wrong with this film, acting, writing, direction, editing, etc. that it's amazing that something rises to the top and proves itself to be the absolute worst. The music! I noted that the film has two composers listed. This must be the reason why every single frame has music, of the absolute worst "D" movie style drivel. They have never heard of the expression "less is more". It got so painful to listen to, I muted the sound every time there was no dialogue, not that the dialogue was that good. You have to feel sorry for Robert Wagner and Tom Bosley, I'm sure they didn't see roles like this in the twilight of their careers. See it at your own risk.


An archaeologist (Casper Van Dien) stumbles accidentally upon an ancient, 40 foot mummy, well preserved underground in the Nevada desert. They are determined to keep this a secret and call in a Jewish translator to assist in figuring out the history of it. The mummy, as explained at the beginning, is the son of a fallen angel and is one of several giants that apparently existed in "those days". In order to save his son from a devastating flood which was predicted to kill everything, he mummifies his son, burying him with several servants for centuries - planning to awaken him years from then. In our present, the fallen angels still walk the earth and the mummy is resurrected and a ritual is expected to take place. Most of the movie is slow, having to do with a lot of biblical crap and a couple lousy, air-punching fights. The mummy is decent looking but isn't shown nearly enough. It should have had more to do with that but it dragged on a great deal so... eh. Don't bother.


Mr. VanHook took a good idea and kicked like a football. Unfortunately, it didn't make the goal. The historical subject of giants is a good one, but pour in the goon milk and you end up with a giant wheel of cheese. I say, take this reel wheel and roll it off a cliff. I couldn't even watch the entire film. That says a lot because I rarely walk away from any movie. I always like to give them a chance for last-minute redemption. It's impossible to redeem something this bad. Well, at least the acting was good....NOT!

The only thing "falling" in this film is the rating. 1/10 and sinking into the negative numbers!


Boris Karloff is Matthias Morteval, a dying, lonely old nut who lives in Morhenge Mansion with some servants and tells his doctor friend, "Don't try to doctor me, doctor! I'm disgustingly healthy!" He invites his nieces and nephews to his home and warns them they may have inherited a genetic disease that causes madness by "shrinking the brain" (?)

***SPOILERS***

Morteval/Karloff ends up dying, and murderous "toys" (designed by his dead brother) start killing off the relatives. A mini cannon fires real bullets into a guys face, a life-sized knight in armor attacks with an axe and a dancing Sheik stabs people with a knife. One guy getting strangled makes some hilarious faces. At the end, Julissa and her boyfriend find Karloff is still alive and hiding out in the dungeon where steel gates seal off the room. He plays the recurring organ theme music (sort of a death rattle used for the killings), the brother's spirit starts talking ("The whole house will go with me!") and the mansion goes up in flames.

This senseless mess is too dark, boring and the stupid dialogue never matches the lips.


"House Of Evil" aka "Dance Of Death" of 1968 is the first of four infamous and odd last movies starring the great Boris Karloff and directed by Jack Hill and Juan Ibánez. Unlike "Snake People" (1971), "The Incredible Invasion" (also 1971) and "The Fear Chamber" (1972) which were all released after Karloff's death in 1969, "House Of Evil" was released in 1968, when Karloff was still alive. "House Of Evil" is regarded by many as the worst of these four movies, which are without doubt all rather crappy, but definitely have their entertainment value as the unintentional comedies they are. I personally prefer "The Fear Chamber" and "House Of Evil" over the other two, simply for the reason that the lack of the slightest logic is even more extreme, and since there is no suspense whatsoever in any of the movies, the lack of logic increases the unintentional fun factor.

The odd story (I don't know if I can really call it a 'plot') is set somewhere in Europe in the 19th century. After some girls are murdered and found with their eyes ripped out, Mathias Morteval (Karloff), an enthusiastic organ player, invites his few remaining relatives to his bizarre mansion, which is full of eerie toys. His kinfolk includes Lucy Durant (Julissa), who is engaged to one of the police inspectors investigating the murders.

I won't give away more of the story, but I can assure you that it is quite bizarre throughout the movie. There are some very funny moments, especially some things Karloff's character says. Boris Karloff was without any doubt one of the most brilliant and important icons of the Horror genre who ever lived, and he manages to award this odd movie with a tiny bit of his greatness, and although (or because) his role is (due to a poor script and and directing) in no way scary, it looks like he deliberately plays it with a sense of humor. Just like in the movie's successors "Snake People" and "The Fear Chamber", the female lead is once again played by Julissa.

Most of he supporting performances are hilariously amateurish, the cinematography is terrible and the locations and sceneries are beneath contempt. The storyline lacks the least bit of logic and the dialogue often does not make the slightest sense. It is the poor story and dialogue, however, that makes this movie so entertaining to watch. "House Of Evil" may be an extremely crappy attempt of a movie, but it is certainly as (unintentionally) funny as it is bad. Fans of Ed Wood's movies should be very amused, I personally found it hilarious. Crappy but entertaining nevertheless, and definitely worth watching since there's Boris Karloff in it and due to the fun factor. 3/10


Felt mine was while watching this...but it seems that is the reason for insanity running in the family in this film. Not that makes a lot of sense anyway, as others have mentioned, this was one of Karloff's last films and it's only his screen presence that lends it any credibility at all. It's sad that all of the great legends of the horror films in the sound era were eventually reduced to starring in low grade rubbish like this. Marginally, Boris did get off slightly better than poor old Bela Lugosi but not by much.

Boris does his best and give him credit for trying to hold this mess together. The strident background music doesn't help and distracts from any lucid moment. Apart from Boris, the rest of the Mexican cast are dubbed into some strange, clipped, English monotone that is reminiscent of the type used in porn films of the late seventies.

At a guess I think it's Edgar Allen Poe's 'House of Usher' that this is taken from but you'd be hard pressed to find a great deal of Poe in the finished article.

Still, there are far better films out there with Boris Karloff at his best, search them out and give this a wide berth, unless you want the curse of the 'shrinking brain' too!


I couldn't give this film a bad rating or bad review for two reasons: Robin Williams and Toni Collete. The film has the potential of being a thriller and there are some slight disturbing elements that lean to the psychological which was something the film could have focused a little on. Robin Williams plays Gabriel Noon, a storytelling night time deejay who is going through personal issues: his lover moves out and Gabriel is having what seems to be a case of storyteller's block. One day he receives and reads a story written by a dying 14-year old boy named Pete Boland (Rory Culkin). Pete tells the story of his life and the abuse he suffered at the hands of his parents. He lives with his adopted mother and social worker, Donna Boland (Toni Collette). Gabriel is fascinated and begins a friendship with Pete, but things seem strange when Gabriel attempts to meet him and discovers the possibility that Pete Boland may not even exist. I won't go into detail because I don't want to spoil the film, but I will tell you this: it is quite predictable. Fascinating atmosphere for telling a story and good performances from Robin Williams and Toni Collette, who I thought was the film's key character. Collette is without question one of the most talented and loveliest actresses. Her ability to tap into the psyche and personality of the characters she portrays is very uncanny and I hope to see her win an Oscar (hell, I think she might pull off getting a Best Supporting Actress nod for this one if the script were a little better). The film starts off as a psychological thriller, but a predictable one at that. If your curious to know the film's ending and twists, then see the film otherwise I would rent another predictable thriller called "Hide and Seek".


This movie is trash-poor. It has horrible taste, and is pedestrian and unconvincing in script although supposedly based on real-events - which doesn't add much of anything but make it more of a disappointment. Direction is not well done at as scenes and dialogue are out-of-place. Not sure what Robin Williams saw in this character or story. To start, Williams is not convincing as a gay in a relationship breakup nor is the relationship itself interesting. What's worse, his character is compelled by an ugly pedophile story that is base and has no place as a plot device. You have an older Rory Culkin tastelessly spouting "d_ck_smker" - in good fun- which is annoying enough and then laughed up by the Williams character. Finally you have Sandra Oh as a guardian angel adviser to Williams and a thrown in explanation of the whole fiasco towards the end. Toni Collete's character is just plain annoying and a re-hash of her 6th Sense performance with poorer direction. Very Miss-able.


I didn't really expect much from "The Night Listener" and I actually never heard of it until I saw the cover in the videostore. However, the movie is very effective when it comes to building up suspension and tension. On occasion it drags a little, but it actually helps to keep you wondering what's going to happen and more importantly: when. As the movie progresses, the character played by Robin Williams gets dragged into some kind of "cat and mouse" spiel to the point where he becomes obsessed with finding out the truth and existence about a 14 year old abused kid that no-one seemed to have ever seen in person. The Night Listener is an interesting story, which is great in building up the suspense throughout the movie and you're pretty much kept in the dark of who is lying and what's real. However, in the end it kind of disappoints and doesn't live up to the potential it could have had. It doesn't really give you a detailed or plausible explanation about the other main character, which would have been helpful and interesting.


Robin Williams gave a fine performance in The Night Listener as did the other cast members. However, the movie seems rushed and leaves too many loose ends to be considered a "must see." I think the problem happens because there isn't a strong enough relationship established between the caller and the Gabriel Noon(I had to spell it this way, because IMDb wants to auto correct the right spelling to "No one") character. The movie runs a little over 01:30 and within the first 15 minutes, or so it seems, Noon begins his search for Pete Logande, the boy caller.

This happens after he talks to the mysterious caller about 3 or 4 times. The conversations aren't too in-depth mostly consisting of how are you... I'm in the hospital...why did you boyfriend move out... etc. In the book, the kid almost becomes Noon's shrink and vice versa and the reader understands why he goes in search of this boy, once he finds out the kid disappears and thinks he might be a hoax.

In the movie, Noon becomes obsessed with finding Logande, but the audience is left to wonder why? Since there really isn't a strong enough bond established between Noon and the caller, why bother? Who cares if the caller doesn't exist?

I know there's a difference between a book and a movie, but those calls and that relationship was critical to establish on screen, because it provides the foundation for the rest of the movie. Since it doesn't, the movie falls apart.

This is surprising because of Maupin's other work, Tales of the City. When it was made into a mini-series, it worked beautifully.


I felt that the movie was dry... very disappointing no plot..kept waited for something to happened and nothing did dry as a bone.. a wast of money.. One of Robins Williams worst films..if you don't believe me wait a few months it will be out on DVD because that seems to be a pattern for movies that don't do well in the theaters are out as rentals before the year is over... This is one you will not want to see or say why did I spend my money on that!. Plus for it being such a new movie there were only 8 people in the watching it.... This was on a Friday night the 9:50 showing. I also felt that it needed some more excitement or something to keep us awake. When they characters spoke in the movie the voices were also very low you could not hear what they were saying..


My husband is a huge Robin Williams fan. I like him too, but have generally found that he should "stick to what he does best" and focus on comedic roles. My thoughts were confirmed with this movie. I was completely bored throughout the entire film. The story was predictable. I realize it was inspired by a true story. But, my guess is that there could have been some suspense or intrigue even while maintaining truth in the story. None of the characters were well developed. There was a side story about the main character and his partner. This relationship could have been explored further. More important, though, would have been a deeper exploration of the mother of the "boy". Her psychological profile would have been interesting to delve into. She obviously has a long history that was not touched upon except in the most superficial way. If my husband wasn't such a huge Williams fan, we would have left 20 minutes into it. Too bad I can't get my $20 or 2 hours back.


Most of what has been said about the negative aspects of the film hold true.

BUT .... If I have to sit through a movie were the:

Director

Director of Photography

Editor

Can't EVEN miss the darn Microphone Boom popping in and out of the movie for almost every Chapter of the movie, how can I enjoy and concentrate on the story as well as believe in the darn thing when I'm reminded of the technicalities of making a movie!!!!!!!

WAIT FOR THE DVD OR DON'T BOTHER


I rarely write a negative review for this site, but this time felt complied to. Night Listener is without doubt one of the dullest films I have ever seen.

There was nothing happening in this film what so ever - I didn't care for any of the characters, didn't buy in to the whole mystery type plot, didn't care how it ended....nothing.

There is no comedy, no action, no thrills, no suspense, nothing. The highlights include (no spoilers - there's nothing to spoil): a man climbing through a window, a dog barking outside a hotel room, a car going over some rough ground and a truck beeping it's horn.

I really enjoyed "One Hour Photo" and hoped for a similar eerie role from Williams, but alas was sorely let down. What's more disappointing is that I'm sure there is a good film in there somewhere - the idea was interesting and I should have felt sympathy for the characters, but it just didn't work for me.

I might even have given it 1/10 but that score is reserved for the remake of The Producers


Trying to compare or represent this "swill" as anything "Hitchcockian" is an out-n-out attempt to mislead Hitchcock fans to waste $7 on this movie... Weak acting Weak story Weak script.

No real suspense, no thrills. You wait all through the weakness of this movie for the big payoff or even any payoff...You're left thinking, what the heck was that all about.

And please, enough with the movement to make "alternative lifestyles" HIP and politically correct!!...I can't recommend this to anyone...Did I mention how weak the acting is? Williams did a better job as Peter Pan and "Mork". But those were MUCH more innocent times...........


This movie is a mess. I'm surprised it even has a theatrical release. WIthout Robin Williams it would have gone straight to video. It is poorly written. It is poorly directed. It's worse offense is that it has taken an interesting topic and reduced it to a ridiculous and BORING thriller that has no thrills and no suspense and no inner or emotional logic.Especially after the first half hour the movie dovetails into a series of ridiculous set pieces that are so over the top that the audience I saw it with was laughing at it. Save your money. The trailer is totally misleading - it is not suspenseful and there are no thrills - in fact the movie's truly worst offense is that it is simply boring.


Let me start out by saying i will try not to put too many spoilers in this. Normally I enjoy Robin Williams movies, however this gem was not one of them. It was billed as a suspenseful thriller. The night listener was anything but. To be blunt there were 6 people in the theater opening day, 2 walked out, for good reason. The movie was in my opinion poorly written and directed. The acting was alright but again there wasn't anything to work with. The movie is about A storyteller who reads a good book by a dying kid. However *insert spooky here* no one can verify the kids existence. So Williams goes to Wisconsin to try and find the author, however all he gets is a headache and excuses from the boys caretaker. There thats it, thats all. You wait for about an hour and a half and movie ends. It had as many thrills and chills as a dentist office visit. The homosexual undertones, or overtones had really nothing to do with the story, and the movie had a little profanity but it seemed to be thrown in there for absolutely no reason and made little sense. In conclusion i really can't write a decent review on this film because there was nothing to it, it was as captivating as watching paint dry. I gave it a 2 because the acting for what it was worth was alright and it wasn't directed by Uwe Boll.


I would have rated this film a minus 10 but sadly it is not offered.

Why I didn't walk out in the first five minutes of this movie I cannot say. I should have gone with my instinct and left immediately!! Several people in our theater did and sadly I didn't follow them out.

The story lacked all criteria for a movie. NO plot. Awful acting! Even Robin Williams was so disappointing that I may never see another film he is in. Not a single relationship in the story went beyond parlor talk. I did like the tazer scene. Too bad it didn't shock some meat into the senselessness of the plot. Someone needs to tazer the writer and director of this film!


I usually come on this website prior to going to the movies, as I like to see what other people think of the movie. I read many reviews which said 'thriller not a horror movie'. This prompted me to give this film a try. I really must take issue with these 'thriller/horror' statements, as it was neither! I almost went and asked for my money back, and if you lot of reviewers enjoyed this rubbish....well you must be easily pleased! At the end of the movie, the people behind me said out loud "what a waste of time" and I turned to them and replied " I couldn't have summed it up better". I kept waiting for something to happen...but it didn't. There was the potential for a lot of good scares (or thrills if you like) but none happened. Williams acted the part quite well but I felt he was short changed by a poor script which dithered around and went nowhere. Save your money folks, this is a turkey which will be featuring at a DVD store 'bargain box' near you in the very foreseeable future!


This movie wasn't awful but it wasn't very good. I am a big fan Toni Collette I think she is a very beautiful and talented actress. The movie starts off about Robin Williams who is a writer and gets a book from a 14 year old kid. The book is great and he cant't believe a kid wrote it. Toni Collette plays the kids guardian who you don't know if this kid really exists or if she's making it all up. I am not gonna ruin the movie but I will say this the movie is not scary.

The acting is pretty good and Toni Collette's performance was awesome as well as Robin Williams.

The movie was a huge disappointment in my opinion I would wait for it to come to DVD.


Another chapter in the ongoing question, whatever happened to Mel Brooks's sense of humor? It starts out nicely enough, with Mel as Trump-like mogul Goddard Bolt ("You can call me God"), who accepts a bet that he can't live on the streets for 30 days. But the moment the movie hits the streets, it turns into a pathos-laden mess, with occasional "funny" bits interjected (Mel sees a black kid break-dancing for money and tries to do a vaudeville buck-and-wing, yuk, yuk). Leslie Ann Warren is nothing short of wasted. The worst part is this movie's musical number, in which Brooks and Warren do a silent dance to Cole Porter's "Easy to Love." Brooks's musical parodies are usually the highlights of his movies; here he plays the whole thing straight, like a dancing excerpt from an aging guest star on "The Carol Burnett Show" (on which Rudy DeLuca, this film's co-writer, began his career). Go rent Charlie Chaplin's THE KID, which covered the same ground 70 years before and did a lot


Woody Allen made "September", proving that even a genius could screw up. This is Mel Brook's "September". Monumentally stupid, boring, and unfunny, I must confess I did not watch it through to the end. The flick ranks among the dishonored few (e.g., "The Money Pit", "Out to Sea", "Spitfire Grill") which either put me to sleep or forced me to reach for the "rewind" button. And I say this, sadly, as a devoted Mel Brooks fan. He should stick to straight comedy and leave social commentary alone. How the same fellow that made "Young Frankenstein" and "Spaceballs" could crank out a dog like this is beyond me. To be avoided at all costs.


Whenever I make up a list of the absolute worst movies I've ever seen, this movie is always on it. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It took an act of will to sit through the whole thing, and I would sooner spill my own blood than have to sit through it again.

What's wrong with it? Let me tell you the story of my trip to go see it in the theater.

I went to a midnight show, on a Saturday night. I the only ones in the theater were myself, and a bunch of loud, boisterous, rather unruly teenagers, sitting somewhere behind me. They were obviously out having a good time on a Saturday night, and had come to this "comedy" for some laughs. Before the movie starts, during the previews, they were laughing and joking and making loud comments having a grand old time. It was borderline annoying; had they continued their unbridled enthusiasm into the actual movie, I might've said something, but I was feeling tolerant and empathetic of their spirited fun, so I let it go. And they did settle down once the movie started.

Why am I telling you all this? Because you can judge this alleged "comedy" by the effect it had not just on myself, but on this rowdy bunch.

During the entire run of the film, not one person in the theater laughed. Not once. Not myself, not the boisterous kids. Absolute silence, aside from the soundtrack. And when the film was over and the lights came on, we all, all of us, slowly filed out of the theater in slow, somber, absolute silence. It could've been a funeral.

This was the effect that this "comedy" produced. Not laughter, not enjoyment, but absolute DEPRESSION. It was a depressing, depressing movie, and not the tiniest bit funny. Preachy, self-indulgent, depressing, but not funny.

I consider Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" to be on the short list for Funniest Movie Ever. It still absolutely blows my mind that the same gentleman could be responsible for quite probably the Least Funny Movie Ever.

In short: if you're feeling too happy, give this movie a whirl; otherwise, don't say I didn't warn you.


I can't believe how anyone can make a comedy about an issue such as homelessness. Of course, Brooks has not made a comedy about _real_ homeless people. No mention of drugs, prostitution or violence on these streets. The people we meet in this movie are homeless in Fantasy land so the only difference between them and us is that they don't eat quite as often. Brooks' movies have become worse and worse over the years. This is just another nail in the coffin .


I have done quite a few reviews on IMDb and this film is unique in that I never saw the entire movie. It was so terribly stupid and unfunny that I just couldn't sit through it--though I tried.

The biggest problem with this and any Mel Brooks movie I call "the Mel quotient". In other words, the better his movie, the less of him you see in the film. Think about it--The Producers and Young Frankenstein were great films and he was barely in them at all. BUT, films like Life Stinks and Space Balls are chock full of Mel and are pretty dopey movies (yes, I DID NOT LIKE Space Balls--but this isn't the place to talk about that).

Second, apart from cancer, rectal itch and mental retardation, I can't think of a less funny topic than homelessness. This is just a comedy breaker. Think about it, folks. The FUNNIEST(?) scene in the movie has Mel making whoopee with Leslie Ann Warren in a dumpster!! And this is funny in what way?


So there's an old security guard and a guy who dies and then there's KEVIN, the world's biggest wuss. Kevin wants to impress his incredibly insensitive, bratty, and virginal girlfriend AMY. As he returns from work to... a random house... he finds his "friends," the sexually confusing red-shorted KYLE and the truly revolting sluttish DAPHNE. They are soon joined by Daphne's boyfriend, the trigger-happy sex-crazed macho lunkhead NICK. And there's the title creatures, horrid little dogeared puppets who kill people by giving them their heart's desire. Kyle's heart's desire is to mate with a creepy, yucky woman in spandex. Nick's heart's desire is to throw grenades in a grade school cafeteria-- I mean nightclub. Kevin's heart's desire is to beat up a skinny thug with nunchucks. Amy's heart's desire is to be a disgusting slut. Daphne's already a disgusting slut, so she doesn't have a heart's desire. Along the way a truly hideous band sings a truly odd song. The hobgoblins randomly go back to where they came from then blow up. "Citizen Kane" cannot hold a candle to this true masterpiece of American cinema.


No matter how you look at this movie, it is just awful.

If you view it as a horror, then it is an unscary movie with the monsters being hand puppets.

If you look at it as a comedy, then you will notice most of the humor falls flat and is just lame.

If it is a romance you will wonder why a guy would stay with such a B**ch!

If you look at it as an action you can't really pull for the whiny hero.

As you can see this movie just fails to deliver anything remotely entertaining. As mentioned the monsters are obvious puppets and this film was another attempt at a Gremlins type movie. This however has the worst looking monsters of that genre. Critters looked pretty good, so did the Ghoulies, heck even the puppets from the Munchies looked better than these. The characters in this film are thouroughly unlikable. The hero is a whiney security guard, his girlfriend is always complaining, they have a tramp friend who has a jerk military boyfriend, and another friend who is a spaz. At one point in the movie the hero and the military guy fight with rakes...this movie is just utterly stupid. I like the scene when they are in the dreaded club scum (which is obviously not a club, but more likely a diner) and the hero tells the waitress that none of them are 21. Give me a break, I am 25 and I look younger than any of them.


This rip off of the 1984 hit "Gremlins" is quite possibly the biggest train wreck of a movie ever made. Even for a 'B' grade movie, all other cheap horror movies on the same platform completely dwarf this movie in terms of plot, acting, and goodness.

It begins with a random old security guard and the younger punky security guard whose name is of no importance. Why? Because a few minutes into the film he walks into the 'forbidden' safe, and is killed whilst living out his fantasy of being a rock star in a cheap pub.

This is just an appetizer for the scat-filled main course. The main character, KEVIN, struggles various times to prove himself as more than a total pussy. Perhaps he succeeds within the film, but to the audience he proves himself as nothing more than a bad actor. Kevin gets himself a job with the old security guard, and is guided through his security shift in the (wait for it) abandoned studio lot. Yes why bother making a set when you can just use the studio itself. Back to the film. Kevin somehow opens the forbidden safe and releases the Hobgoblins. The Hobgoblins force people to live out their wildest fantasies and then kill them for some reason. They must be returned before sunrise or else...or else what? Exactly.

Other characters include Kevin's 'macho' army friend NICK, Nick's 'woman' DAPHNE whose character has no more substance than a bitch-slut attitude and prostitute worthy outfits. There is Kevin's manipulative and 'reserved' girlfriend AMY, whose deepest desire is apparently to be a badly portrayed Cher look-alike with fishnet stockings with a pair of blue grandma underpants on top.. Don't ask me how that works. Quite possibly the most entertaining character of all is KYLE. How such groups of friends are made is up for question. Kyle is a perverted creep who can't go an hour without self-stimulating. His hobbies include calling up sex-chat lines from other people's houses and most likely sniffing underwear.

The story unfolds as the heroes search for the Hobgoblins: knee-high creatures (aka. hand puppets) which, for some reason, attempt to travel no further than the borders of the local neighborhood. Each of the characters eventually lives out their wildest fantasy which never has anything to do with having millions of dollars... or the film having a big budget.

WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD: The twist at the end of this movie will leave the watcher wondering "What?". The Hobgoblins are returned to the safe by...their own free will. Perhaps they lost patience waiting for sunrise to wreak havoc, or perhaps the story-writers got writer's cramp and decided not to worry about the ending. Upon returning to the safe, the old security guard reveals "What he learned in the military" and detonates explosives which destroys the safe, signaling the end of the evil Hobgoblins and the end of this roller coaster ride; better fitted to a ride on an escalator.

The sheer badness of this film is enough to send someone to tears. If you plan to watch it, I recommend a few alcoholic drinks beforehand to take any serious consideration of the film out of mind.


Hobgoblins....Hobgoblins....where do I begin?!?

This film gives Manos - The Hands of Fate and Future War a run for their money as the worst film ever made. This one is fun to laugh at, where as Manos was just painful to watch. Hobgoblins will end up in a time capsule somewhere as the perfect movie to describe the term: "80's cheeze". The acting (and I am using this term loosely) is atrocious, the Hobgoblins are some of the worst puppets you will ever see, and the garden tool fight has to be seen to be believed. The movie was the perfect vehicle for MST3K, and that version is the only way to watch this mess. This movie gives Mike and the bots lots of ammunition to pull some of the funniest one-liners they have ever done. If you try to watch this without the help of Mike and the bots.....God help you!!


This movie is not just bad, not just corny, it is repulsive. Something about Daphne, about the creepy call-girl, about the whole damn (and I use the word literally) film radiates a grotesquery that would offend a brothel mistress. This film makes my skin crawl, makes me regret having reproductive organs, and makes me feel unclean.

One of the things that bothers me most about this movie is that they used such a good concept. A creature that makes fantasies with disastrous results, rather than the cliché Worst Nightmare and the overdone Twisted Wish, is a truly fascinating film idea.

Thought: The reason why hobgoblins need to be killed before day is that they are attracted to bright lights. During the day, bright lights don't show up well, so they could go anywhere.

Count the Hobgoblins: Four hobgoblins drive out of the film studio, and yet at least nine of the pernicious plush-toys are killed throughout the course of the movie.

Discussion Question: If you had a frigid, demanding, unappreciative girlfriend, would you enter garden-tool-combat with a military chunkhead? Explain.


How Rick Sloane was allowed to make five movies is harder to believe than cold fusion. This film is absolutely criminal. Before watching this movie I thought Manos: Hands of Fate was the worse piece of crap I ever saw, but at least Manos moves so slowly you might fall asleep, thereby rescuing your eyes from the pain it will suffer. The greatest tragedy of this movie is that the old man that keeps the Hobgoblins "locked" up makes it to the final scene. The time I spent watching this movie was an absolute waste of my life.


There can be no questions of spoilers for this movie, the director beat us all too and spoiled this movie in oh so many ways.

A blatant rip-off of stuff like Critters and Gremlins, this movie fails on so many levels to recapture the humour and horror of those better made films. It ends up a sleazy waste of time, where bad actors deliver bad dialogue in front of an idiot director, who occasionally tosses stuffed toys at them. They wrestle with said toys in much the same manner as old Tarzan films used to use rubber crocodiles, shaking them whilst screaming and trying their best to make it look slightly threatening. It's painful to watch, and not helped by the mental 80's fashions worn by the cast.

Basically, some crazy little aliens who have been trapped by an aging security guard in a film lot finally get free after umpteen years confinement, and begin to telepathically screw around with peoples minds. The guards new recruit, the idiot who let them out despite repeated warnings, gets his gang of 80's friends together and they go off and have minor adventures together while trying to recapture the Grem... Hobgoblins.

All life is here, with the gang consisting of a knucklehead jock, his 80's slut girlfriend, the 'hero's frigid and prissy girlfriend, and the young hero, lacking in confidence and wishing his girlfriend would put out anyway.

First off comes the infamous rake fighting scene, where the ex-military jock shows how he was trained in the army to be a bully, poking the nerdy hero with the wrong end of a rake for what seems like hours. Then there's some running around, terminating in a real pie-fight style ending in a scuzzy nightclub with comedy hand-grenades blowing up everything except the people standing right next to them. Then the film sorta ends, and alls well that ends well.

It's not. This is like watching a train wreck, you cant take your eyes off it, it's so bad. Perfect fare for Mystery Science Theater, but god-awful should you try to watch it alone and uncut. The Fashion Police still have a number of outstanding warrants for the cast, and I dare anyone not to laugh in outright derision at the rake fight. This scores 2 out of 10 at most, on a good day.


For starters, "Hobgoblins" tries to ape the more successful "Gremlins". That's bad enough but they don't even try to make anything that closely resembles a movie here. Instead, it's more like a bargain basement, everything-must-go clearance of embarrassing scenes, inappropriate sound FX, acting as bland as unflavored tapioca and a script that takes everything humans hold sacred in their motion pictures and throws 'em down the old tube-aroo.

The plot? Grrrr.... Meddling kids track down gremlin-like creatures from movie lot before they kill people by projecting their fantasies. Sound cool, does it? Well, see that wall on the other side of your room? Run right at it, top speed, face first. See, THAT is cooler than this movie.

You dare to doubt? Quick, name something else one of the leads has been in other than this. What other scripts have the writers done since "Hobgoblins"? Name another Rick Sloane directoral effort. How many "Hobgoblins" action figures do you have? See? THANK you.

I cannot believe I took so long to write about such a horrible film. I'd rather write about more important things; like the separation of church and state, economic restructuring in Europe, that kind of thing. But no, "Hobgoblins" it is and it is bad - bad like your grandparents' wallpaper, bad as pink flamingos on your lawn, bad like underwear that says "Home of the Whopper"...and I think we'll stop there.

Well, Mike and the robots fight valiantly but try as they might, they can do only so much with "Hobgoblins" before they realize that, yes, the director DOES need kicked in the shin.

Real, real hard.

One star for "Hobgoblins", seven stars for the MST3K version.


Wow, I just finally managed, after several attempts, to finish watching this god awful movie, only to learn that Rick Sloane and his production team have completed a straight-to-video sequel this year.

Of all movies reviewed by MST3K--and they truly dig from the bottom of the barrel, screening the reputationally bad 'Manos,' 'Werewolf,' 'The Incredibly Strange,' and the lesser know disasters like 'Laserblast,' 'Zombie Nightmare,' and 'Time Chasers,'--this certainly has to be the absolute biggest pile of garbage they'd ever shown (which makes it perfect for riffing). Very simple, the movie is about a bunch of Munchies-like gremlins on the loose, exploiting people's desires for fame, fortune, prowess, and of course, sex in ways that end up with people getting killed. But this is the kind of movie where the acting is so ridiculous (a test of machismo, for example, is illustrated by two guys who battle in the front yard with garden tools), the writing is so forced (such as the oft-described scene of a gremlin hanging on the arm of one girl who would notice it, if only she turned her head a quarter to the left... and this isn't the first time in the movie this happens), and the story is so... rarely given attention (hence the MST3K riff about a "law in the future where films have to be made by FILMmakers), that you actually root for the furry puppets to kill off everyone on screen. Worst movie... ever.


****MINOR SPOILERS*** As a bad movie connoisseur I must have viewed hundreds of bad movies and yet "Hobgoblins" stands apart from all others in it's own unique way. Classic baddies such as "The Creeping Terror," "The Mighty Gorga" and "Manos" are uniformly bad from start to finish. "Hobgoblins" on the other hand, starts off bad and gets progressively worse as it goes. During my first viewing of the infamous rake fight scene I thought to myself that this was a truly bad film. I was blissfully unaware that I had just seen the best that this movie had to offer. The movie takes its most massive nosedive into celluloid hell during the painfully inept "Club Scum" sequence which is a continuous string of one unfunny joke after another. With just this one film, director Rick Sloane proves that he deserves mention alongside the likes of Coleman Francis and Bill Rebane as one of the worst directors of all time. How bad can a bad movie be? Watch "Hobgoblins" and wonder no longer.


Whether you watch the regular version of this monstrosity or the MST3K version, you can only be impressed by the utter GALL that went into this production. The filmmakers insult the viewer's intelligence from one end to the other and obviously couldn't care less that they are doing so.

Everything about it is rock-bottom cheap. Even the 1950s car in the flashback sequence to that era looks like it was hauled out of a junkyard.

The "hobgoblins" are, as you probably know, "realized" with badly-crafted hand puppets and stuffed toys; when a person is supposed to be attacked by them, it's clear the toy is being held by the victim to his or her own body. When the critters scurry away from the two security guards, this is shown (or rather, not shown) by the camera aiming UP at the guards as they look down and turn their heads as if watching the hobgoblins scurrying past. It's reminiscent of the scene in the film "Tangents" where two people are standing in the ruins of a future world, surveying the wreckage, and we aren't shown any of it. Budget constraints alloyed with utter incompetence generally mean you won't have anything worth showing, so why try? The "sets" were utterly laughable. "Club Scum" was an obvious diner; the house appears to have been a vacant house --probably for rent or sale-- which the production company got hold of for an hour or two to do the shoot. The "spacecraft" is something I would have been ashamed to build when I was a model-making 10 year-old.

The motivations of the characters make no sense-- Kevin gets denigrated by his worthless ingrate of a girlfriend because he hasn't made her "proud of him." I'm sure this was intended to make their reconciliation oh so touching at the end, but any guy with real self-respect would have told her to go to hell and left her. Nick is supposedly back from 2 months of Army training (yeah, nice regulation haircut, Nick,) and seems bent on proving that our country is being defended by sadistic, moronic animals who are sex maniacs. Kyle is a phone-sex freak in red shorts who dreams of a night with a spandex-clad dominatrix type, but he's so effeminate that he's more likely gay than not. One of the girls is a prude and the other is a sleaze.

And the hobgoblins? At the end they all head back to the vault where they've lived for 30 years. Why? Who knows? Who cares? Watch this film and be amazed at how primitive film-making in our modern age can be when you have an idiotic script, incompetent direction, actors who are so bad they'd be rejected from a high school theater production, and sets worthy of Edward D. Wood, Jr.


If movies like Ghoulies rip off Gremlins, then Hobgoblins sinks to the new low of ripping off garbage like Ghoulies. These barely-animated furbies have some kind of scheme to fulfill fantasies (which involve basically groteque characters' sex dreams - oh joy), but what that has to do with anything is anybody's guess, except to let the director indulge his kinky penchant for erotica. They show this down in the 8th circle of Hell, one suspects. There's no real plot - just "goblins - kill!" and feeble attempts at humor and a mild attempt to arouse the viewing audience.


Hobgoblins is a very cheap and badly done Gremlins rip-off. That's the best thing one can say about this stinkpile. Pretty much everyone in the cast was chosen for their looks and not their acting ability. It was very painful to watch.

Avoid this one at all costs.


I really don't have anything new to add but I just felt like I had to comment on this sack. So here goes:

Atrocious. I'm running through my MST3K DVD collection again and I just watched Hobgoblins for about the 10th time. It's really, really painful but it was next on the list... You can see that there is a tiny kernel of an actual movie buried under all the crap that is "Hobgoblins" but it just couldn't get out. Everything about this movie is 4th rate. The story, the acting, the effects, the women, the "action scenes", the... ahhhh forget it. I can watch a piece of crap like "The Bloodwaters of Dr. Z" (aka "Zaat") over and over and over with hardly any ill effects (I like it in fact- btw, it will be on TCM later this month- October, 2009) but "Hobgoblins" is a whole 'nother ballgame.

The worst part of it all may be that it's now about 12 hours after the movie ended, I had a good night's sleep, some coffee and some dry toast, my medications, and yet the ersatz "New Wave" dance music that Amy, Red Shorts, and Laraine Newman were frolicking to in the living room is STILL RUNNING THROUGH MY HEAD. This torment will last for days.

Good luck, won't you?


This movie is so bad, it's comical. In fact, Mystery Science Theatre 3000, the television show in which three characters watch and parody bad movies, used this very film to mock. I suggest watching it (maybe on YouTube) instead of actually seeing this movie.

Please, do not see Hobgoblins if you're not prepared to stop within the first scene. Actually, do not see this movie, period. Please. At least not seriously. Its jokes are not funny (to say the least), and you'll have much more fun parodying or watching a parody of it then viewing the movie.

You may feel yourself becoming sick upon watching, so spare yourself. Read a book. Do the laundry. Anything is more fun than watching Hobgoblins.


1. Aliens resemble plush toys and hand puppets, while having arms that don't function.

2. Aliens mastered intergalactic space travel, but they don't know how to push an unlocked vault door open, yet can push open a door being held shut by five people.

3. Old Security Guards know how to get a hold of C4, and are just waiting for the right time to use it, say, when they are suddenly fired for no explainable reason.

4. Apparently, US Army boot camp, in the 80's, involved several sessions of "garden tool combat", including the pirouette spin of death.

5. To impress your prudish girl friend, you have to "save the world...err...neighborhood" from aliens.

6. All women are sluts, either openly or secretly.

7. Scummy night clubs look like bad diners.

8. "Scummy" waitresses double as dancers for The Fontanelles (how did they get talked into this?) who can only do bad 60's dance moves.

9. Army privates secretly dream of being Rambo.

10. Grenades apparently have a setting for "flash-bang".

11. Being burned alive apparently only leaves one with minor burns on their arms.

12. US Army Staff Sargeants apparently happen to always be in the area and do nothing about aliens in the area.

13. Aliens apparently always "go home", which means back to the vault they were un-locked in.

14. Aliens are attracted to bright lights, which apparently means in the Los Angeles area one would assume, the protagonist's house is the most brightly lit thing in the area.

15. Showing 16 parking scenes in a movie makes the audience clamor for more.

16. Vans from the 80's apparently have horrible suspension systems.

17. Comedy is supposed to happen in this film.

18. Horror is supposed to happen in this film.

19. Spoofs and homages are supposed to happen in this film.

20. This film cures insomnia.

21. Apparently, garden tools make electronic keyboard noises whenever they are used, not just in fights (tell me I'm not the only one who noticed this).

The simply truth is this film just came out wrong. Period. There isn't much meat on the bone, nor does it do anything really well. Even average. It's just bad. However, I've seen far worse, and the rake fight scene is pure comedy gold, intentional or otherwise.

2/10 - Jaws 4 was worse then this. At least the film never took itself seriously.


A group of extremely unlikable A-holes are tormented by lame puppets that some elderly douche bag night-watchman has kept locked away in a film vault for twenty years for no reason whatsoever.

Many people know this film merely from MST3K's spot-on ribbing of the flick. But I've seen the actual movie and can safely say that yes it's bad, really, REALLY bad. From the one of the most awful 'fight' scenes I've ever witnessed to the stuffed toy 'aliens' that suffer from a lack of motion (I had a My Pet Monster that was scarier) right up to the atrocious acting (I had a My Pet Monster that was more charismatic) However, that being said Rick Sloan's "Vice Academy" films are somehow, and trust me I have no earthly idea how, much worse. That's not to suggest that this film is anything but crap, because it isn't. Just throwing it out there.

Eye Candy: no nudity in the movie proper, but there's 2 pairs of tits in the DVD Introduction to the film

My Grade: D-

Retromedia DVD Extras: Introduction by Jim Wynorski; Stills gallery; and Trailer for this film


I once thought that "The Stoned Age" was the worst film ever made... I was wrong. "Hobgoblins" surpassed it in every way I could imagine and a few I couldn't. In "The Stoned Age" I hated the characters. In "Hobgoblins" I hated the actors... and everyone else involved in creating this atrocity. I won't include a teaser to this film, I'm not that cruel. I couldn't subject innocent people such as yourselves to such torment. In fact, any discussion of plot pertaining to this film is senseless and demeaning. Words I would use to describe this film are as follows: insipid, asinine, and ingenuous.

In conclusion, PLEASE don't watch this film. I beg of you, from one movie lover to another... no, from one human being to another, PLEASE. For the sake of your own sanity and intellect DO NOT WATCH IT. Destroy any copies you come across.


Description: Corny, utterly stupid and worthless. It's so cheap and lame, it'll make you wonder why these abnormally dumb people even wasted 2 months or so to spend a budget (I'm guessing this...) probably no more than 700 dollars to make this movie. It was just hysterical to watch with or without Mystery Science Theater. I am giving you the best advice in the world:

Spare yourself, spare your time, life, and money, by NOT--I repeat, NOT even ponder about whether you should see this movie. This movie is so corny, it'll make your face turn purple of outraged boredom. If you have a one-digit IQ, then be my guest and watch this absolutely despicable movie. You might actually admire it. (Like I said before, IF you have a one-digit IQ)

With about 12 actors of your own, a few puppets you bought at a garage sale, and of course cameras and music, I gaurentee you'll make a slightly more entertaining home video than this piece of absolute crap.


this is the result. A piece of trash movie that doesn't deserve to even be classified as a movie, it's just a bunch of stuff on a film reel, that makes no sense whatsoever. Well back to the actors, which from the get go seem to be just a bunch of friends who thought they would get a little amount of money together and try to make a movie that would be a great horror film. Well it's a great horror anyway, nevermind being a film. There's plenty of horrific acting in "Hobgoblins," but the worse is the main guy named Richard, who is just way too much of a weakling to even sorta root for. Well, when you cast a bunch of friends and try to make the film scary, on a less than shoestring budget, no less, this is what will happen. Oh well at least the MST3K version was hilarious. But this is still a horrid movie, that deserves all the bashing it gets. 9 for the MST version.


... Bad at being intentionally bad...

This little gem shot straight onto the MST3k big screen. While it's obvious the movie isn't trying to be taken seriously (Hopefully that their goal, anyway...), the movie is still plain bad. Hell, it makes Leprechaun In Space look big budgeted...

In short: Paint my muscle car prune colored!


Good Lord, what were they THINKING??!!!!!! Here is your spoiler warning, even though I don't think it'll really matter. You won't be seeing this piece of trash anyway.

A group of handpuppets go chasing after a group of really stupid people, who go on a really stupid hunt for them to try and kill them, and the puppets complicate things by letting them live out their really stupid fantasies. In other words, the whole thing is really stupid.

You KNOW it has to be bad when even Mike and the Bots can't save something!! And they didn't! I know, some of their lines were funny, like what to add to the sign "HIT" and the hand comments, but, geez, this was pretty dang sad.

All I can say is DO NOT WATCH THIS PIECE O CRUD. IT IS NOT WORTH YOUR EYES.


Good grief! While I still maintain that Manos: The Hands of Fate is the worst piece of mental torture available, Hobgoblins came awfully close. This...this...thing insults the audience at every opportunity.

At least films like Space Mutiny and Future War can be enjoyed on mst3k, this one was a struggle to get through. I was literally writhing on the couch in anguish. This thing managed to embarrass me - alone!

Even if you are a die-hard MST3K fan and have made it your mission to see every single experiment, think twice about seeing this one.

It's that bad.


Hee hee hee. This movie is so bad that it doesn't even try to hide the fact that it sucks big time. I remember the day I first saw this on MST. Sun was shining, looked like a good day. then, I saw this product of Rick Sloane which consisted of horrible plush dolls wreaking havoc in the crappy 80s fest land. Kevin, wussy extraordinaire, tries to impress his girlfriend, manages an assistant security guard job, fights with rakes, and plenty more stuff in this very badly made series of images. No plot or story is needed. Obviously no acting is necessary as the film proves. An army guy and his sex crazed girl will make you wanna leap off a cliff, and the dorky friend who gets his kicks off phone sex will make you say, " He has got some nice red shorts". Plus, I really hated the old security guard and wished he had an accident in his supermarket cart. Just when you think it's over, wait until the Club Scum scene. Ask for Road Rash.

I advise that after viewing this film, a good month to regain senses and sanity. And if you see Rick Sloane, give him a good kick to the groin to show how much we appreciate this crapsterpiece called Hobgoblins.


My favorite quote from Crow was, when the car was going off the cliff, "The movie is so bad, even the car wants to get out of it!"

This had to be the funniest movie I have ever seen. It was seriously out there to scare you, which makes it even funnier! If it weren't for Mystery Science Theater I wouldn't be here today! :-P


I didn't think it was possible for a horror comedy film to fail so abysmally on both fronts....really awful. The fact that it doesn't take itself seriously (usually a good thing) works against it, primarily because the actors are so wooden you really would swear they are reading cue cards. On the upshot though.....the MST3K version, as always, has a few laughs....


Hobgoblins... what a concept. Rick Sloan was a master with this film. He had the brilliance to produce a film with actors that couldn't act. On top of that, he chose to write a script based on some sort of bad acid trip gone serriously wrong. Put it together, you end up with a film that sucks more than a warehouse filled with suction cups and vaccum cleaners. This movie was very painful. The pain it caused is about equal to the pain caused by having your genitals carved out with a spoon, and then having the entire wound covered with salt and Hydrochloric acid.


This movie should not be viewed unless you are trying to kill yourself. I think this movie could actually cause severe brain damage. The main characters are the whiny non-hero Kevin, Amy, his bratty, ungodly conservative girlfriend, Kyle, a dork in red shorts who enjoys phone sex, Daphne, a scrawny, horny girl who is supposed to be "cool" and has no sense of how to dress, and her oversexed boyfriend Nick, an army recruit who can make an innuendo out of anything. No, I'm not a pervert, that's REALLY how the movie goes. The movie itself is an over-sexed rip-off of 1986's Gremlins, only you'll never find a trace of Gizmo anywhere. No, these Hobgoblins, unleashed by Wimpy Man (I'm sorry, Kevin), make someone's wildest dreams come true, and then kill the victims. Yes, you guessed it-Eventually, they wind up in a strip club, where the nerdy Amy's greatest dream is revealed-She wants to be a stripper! Look, I watched this flick via MST3K, and even with Mike Nelson, Tom Servo, and Crow T. Robot making a laughing-stock out of this cinematic trainwreck and it still made me bleed from both eyes. Not really, but I wish I had. I'm not giving you anymore plot, because reliving it gives me this great urge to drive a pitchfork through my brain. Besides, it's not like there's a plot worth mentioning. They should put a Surgeon's General Warning on this film.


Yep.. this is definatly up there with some of the worst of the MSTifyed movies, but I have definately seen worse. Think Gremlins rated R. Well anyway, I met Rick Sloane at some sci-fi convention, that amazingly, he was lecturing at! It was one of those really low budget conventions, where everything goes, an everyone brought in something (if you want to see crap, you should have of seen what some friends and I brought in).

He seemed like a very nice guy, he was very cool about my questions and comments on Hobgoblins, and he even told me not to take it seriously, and said he loved the MST3K version!

All in all, Rick Sloane knew what he was doing. And I think was meant to bad like Mars Attacks. So I guess I'm standing up for this movie and giving it a 5, and betraying all my fellow MSTies. Sorry guys.


Even for the cocaine laced 1980's this is a pathetic. I don't understand why someone would want to waste celluloid, time, effort, money, and audience brain cells to make such drivel. If your going to make a comedy, make it funny. If you want to film trash like this keep it to yourself. If you're going to release it as a joke like this: DON'T!!! I mean, it was a joke right? Someone please tell me this was a joke. please.


The back of the DVD box says Ellen Page co-stars in this movie. She does not even appear until two thirds of the movie is over and then its in minor role. I don't consider it a supporting role either, but rather a "bit" part. Also the plot has many unexplained elements. Some examples are: why does the main character reject her oldest son? Why does her youngest son drive head on into the train? He says its for a "sucker" bet which doesn't explain anything. Obviously the screenwriter doesn't know the definition of a sucker bet. This film is not worthy of the rental price in my opinion. Save your money and view it for free on TV if you think it needs to be seen.


Margret Laurence probably didn't intend on having any of her novels adopted for film, let alone the Stone Angel. Hagar, as a character, was one who constantly challenged the social norm (Gainsay who dare, anyone?), and ended up nearly sacrificing her humanity in the process. The symbols in the book (the Stone Angel, Silver Thread, etc, etc.) are constant reminders of this struggle of the old and new, and the carnage (so to speak) along the way.

While the film is reasonably faithful to the plot of the book (but it isn't really a plot kind-of storytelling, is it?), I think it missed the point on capturing the spirit of the film. Hagar's defiance (for the sake of defiance) was not there. Bram could have been a lot more crude than portrayed, and Hagar's father could have been played more "traditionally", so to speak. If the filmmaker would insisted on stronger portrayals, the film would drive the point straight to home.

Along the same vein, why should we see cell phones, organic produce, and other modernizations? Are we trying make some points for the sake of making some points (e.g., the Muslim girlfriend and the Native people). Hagar and co. are everything but politically correct in the book, so why should we see that in the film version. Modernization may be an excuse for a low-budget operation, but using that as an excuse to send subliminal politically-correct messages that are totally irrelevant to the novel (and the film) seems like throwing punches below the intellect.

There is also the audience. It seems that we have been conditioned to see bitter old people as cute and lovable. Why should be laugh every time Hagar is at her tantrums? I doubt Magaret Laurence wanted her readers to laugh at, or with, Hagar. These people are frustrated and are full of angst, and all we do is to laugh at them. I don't think it did Hagar and other folks in her situation any justice.


Two sisters, their perverted brother, and their cousin have car trouble. They then happen about the home of Dr. Hackenstein whom conveniently needs the body parts of three nubile young women to use in an experiment to bring his deceased lover back to life. He tells them that he'll help them get home in the morning, so they spend the night. Then the good doctor gets down to work in this low-budget horror-comedy.

I found this to be mildly amusing, nothing at all to actually go out of your way for (I stumbled across it on Netflix instant view & streamed it to the xbox 360), but better then I expected it to be for a Troma acquired film. Most of the humor doesn't work, but their are still some parts that caused me to smile. Plus the late, great Anne Ramsey has a small part and she was always a treat to watch.

Eye Candy: Bambi Darro & Sylvia Lee Baker got topless

My Grade: D+


Dr. Hackenstein begins at the turn of last century, '1909 The dawn of modern medical science' to be exact. Dr. Eliot Hackenstein (David Muir) is in the early stages of his rejuvenation of living tissue experiments, Dr. Hackenstein manages to bring a skinned rat back to life which confirms he has succeeded in bringing the dead back to life... It's now 'Three years later' & Dean Slesinger (Micheal Ensign) is round the Doc's house for dinner. As Dean Slesinger & Dr. Hackenstein eat they talk about Hackenstien's experiments which Dean Slesinger has always been opposed to, Dr. Hackenstein shows Dean Slesinger his laboratory in his attic where he keeps the severed head of his wife Sheila (Sylvia Lee Baker) who died in an unfortunate 'accident' & can telepathically talk to him (Christy Botkin provides Sheila's voice apparently). Dr. Hackenstein also show's Dean Slesinger a skinned chicken running around in a cage & explains that with the process he has developed he will bring Sheila back to life. The Dean has some sort of seizure & apparently dies. Meanwhile sisters Wendy (Bambi Darro as Dyanne DiRossario) & Leslie Trilling (Catherine Davis Cox) plus their Brother Alex (John Alexis) & their cousin Melanie Victor (Stacey Travis) are driving along near Hackenstein's house when they crash, they seek shelter & assistance & arrive upon Hackenstein's doorstep. Dr. Hackenstein invites the four stranded travellers to stay for the night. Later on Dr. Hackenstein is visited by two grave-robbers, Xavier (Logan Ramsey) & Ruby Rhodes (Ann Ramsey) who deliver a male body when Hackenstein actually needs female parts for Sheila. Dr. Hackenstein being the genius that he is decides not to waste the opportunity of having three young beautiful specimens available & starts to 'borrow' the bits 'n' pieces he needs to complete Sheila...

Written & directed by Richard Clark I was pleasantly surprised by Dr. Hackenstein, I'll state right now that it ain't brilliant by any stretch of the imagination but for what it was I actually quite liked it. It moves at a reasonable pace even if it does tend to drag a little bit during it's middle as things settle down. The script tries to mix slapstick humour like a scene when Dr. Hackenstein is trying to restrain Melanie & she tries to gain the attention of his deaf housekeeper Yolanda Simpson (Catherine Cahn) by kicking out & Hackenstein keeping Melanie behind Yolanda's back who is seemingly oblivious to what's happening, with a touch of gore but I'd say Dr. Hackenstein is more of a comedy than horror in conception & feel throughout. There are some tacky puns & sexual innuendo as well which are always good for a laugh, Dr. Hackenstein to Wendy "would you like to see my instruments" as an example. I also thought the scene when Mrs Trilling (Phyllis Diller) reports her missing daughter's to the bemused detective Olin (William Schreiner) was a pretty amusing sequence going round in circle's talking about why he isn't looking for them even though he has only just been told, why the cell doesn't have a prisoner in it & that if he didn't find the cousin not to worry about it. None of it's flat laugh-out-loud but I must admit I found myself smiling on occasion & found the film as whole to be quietly amusing. There isn't a lot of on screen gore, a few severed limbs, Sheila's decapitated head, some medical stitching & those skinned animals which are definitely fake by the way. I liked the characters in Dr. Hackenstein too, which was surprise in itself. The acting isn't brilliant but to give everyone credit they put some effort into it, lots of exaggerated facial movements & some serious overacting means it's never dull, oh & the three birds in Dr. Hackenstein are fit if you know what I mean. Technically the film is OK as well, once again it ain't going to win any Oscars but I have to give the filmmakers at least some credit for trying to pull off a turn of the century period setting. It doesn't always work, the clothes are at odds with each other at times, the girls look like their from Victorian England while the guys look like their from a western. The house looks as if all the filmmakers did was remove any modern object from the room & stick a few candles in there! It comes across as a little bit on the cheap side but it really isn't a bad looking film at all considering. Could have done without the comedy music though. Overall I ended up enjoying Dr. Hackenstein much more than I thought I would, although that in itself isn't a recommendation. It's certainly is not the best comedy horror film ever made & it certainly is not the worst either. A watchable enough piece of harmless fun.


Hated it. If you believe that everyone in the South is dumb, morally bankrupt, stupid, violent, a religious nut, or a child molester, then this film may be for you. Everyone is poor and seemingly ignorant. In one scene, two older men are talking in a general store and one mentions that he had molested a set of sisters before they could tie their shoes. The man seemed proud of his actions, and the other man clearly took it as a normal part of life. Very nice. A teenage girl walks the back roads looking for her sister and no one offers to help her -- despite an obvious limp and lack of food or water (no backpack, etc.). Strathairn's character is not only thoroughly disgusting and slimy, but he is shown to be a religious believer who (typical for Hollywood) reflects the vile nature of Christians. A scene in the movie is highly reminiscent of the end of Cape Fear (the one with DeNiro) -- Bible verses being spouted by the bad guy. I am from the Great Northwest, but found this film offensive because of the wonderful people I know who are from NC, WV, AL, MS, KY, TN, etc.


I saw this by accident one lazy summer afternoon. It was playing on the family programming channel of HBO. At first I was drawn in, by what I thought was a Disney animation. But then, after a few minutes, I found myself searching for the remote, so I could find the 'INFO BUTTON', to find out what in the world was on my TV. I have nothing against Harvey F., I enjoy him in many of his films, but one thing he is not, is a voice-over artist. Sure he has one of the more unique voices in Hollywood, but it works only as a part of a bigger visual package. Attaching his voice to a cute duck made watching somewhat difficult. As for the rest of the cast, uninspired. I suppose working on this film didn't appeal to the really good voice over talent out there.

So, weak voice talent, strong animation...who was this film targeting? Gay adolescent ducks? I don't get it. Is there really such a dearth of role-models for young up and coming homosexuals, that we must resort to animated ducks? Cute story, and like the title, this movie I found hard to love, just like an ugly duckling.


I've been watching a lot of cartoon or animated movies because I have a baby girl who likes to watch TV. I began to watch this movie to see if I would like my little one to watch it... and no. At the beginning I thought it was such a cute movie like the Bambi movie, but all the way it was like insinuating the ducky was a homosexual. The info said that they were making fun of him because he wasn't good at sports, but that was not the case. It just seems like a movie made for kids to learn to be okay being gay. It was also very sad, as far as the ducky's dad and all. I don't know, I guess if you're gay you'd like it, but I don't think I'm going to watch it again with my little one.


Unfortunately for me, the first Busby Berkeley movie I ever watched was "42nd Street." I then expected all of his stuff to be that good. I found out that wasn't necessarily the case, even here, with my all-time favorite classic-era actor James Cagney.

Oh, the musical numbers at the end are as spectacular as always, but the story is like many of the others and quite tiresome. They seem to always involve screaming, unhappy show producers. In this film, it's Cagney who winds up shouting things out so often that he gives me a headache after awhile and his character wears thin....fast!

Even the songs in here are anywhere near "42nd Street" class, songs you could hum for years and years - decades, I should say. The songs in this movie are not memorable. No, this is one of the few early Cagney films - and Berkeley films - I totally dislike and was very disappointed with while watching.


Usually, I know after the first minute of a movie if I will hate it or adore it... but now, I was wrong.

The start was great; the "this is based on a true story" and blah blah blah thing was funny. After, the cartoons and the description of the guys' life with pictures made me think I had made the right choice.

Then, seeing the hilarious fake look of Toronto was cool. Also, the situation and appearance of the house seemed to confirm my first idea.

That was maybe the first 10 minutes of the movie... which afterwards looked like an eternity.

Maybe that's just me not understanding English Canadian humour (that's possible, English Canadians also do not always understand Quebecois humour), but hey... there was enough stuff in that for a short movie, *nothing* more. Maybe that could be a meaning for the title? Anyway, almost everything was filling, and very few things were even close to funny in my opinion.

As a matter of fact, the "making of" was better than the movie. At least you understand the motivation behind that which made everything bad. The potential of the idea was great; that's why I rented the movie, being interested in the "annoying people disappearance" thing. But yet, I did not know the whole universe would vanish, and with it even a point to the movie.

If you are English Canadian, it seems you could appreciate the local humour, considering the surprising number of people who gave this movie an 8. Otherwise, just think twice before losing your precious time...


I honestly had somewhat high expectations when I first began to watch this movie, but it turned out to be probably one of the most boring films I have ever seen!

First of all, the pace is incredibly slow, so it seems much longer than it is (and it's not short).I'm sure when Jane Austen wrote the book, she made it several pages long, filled it with description, and didn't intend for people to read in in one day, or it might drag and lose it's appeal, which "Emma" most certainly did. Now "Sense and Sensibility" had this flaw of a slow pace, but at least it had lively lines to make up for it, as well as some good performances!

That brings me to flaw #2, which is of course, the acting. While I don't happen to care for basically anybody involved in this film, I am sure they are capable of good work, but I didn't see much of it in this movie. It was like people were trying too hard to be witty, too hard to be "upper-class", too hard to be British (well, some of them), so they all just came off as a bunch of actors and not as people.

#3. The cast, as I said, seemed only like actors, and not actually like the people they were playing. Maybe that's a good thing, because the people they played really weren't all that nice. Why did everybody like Emma, for example? Sure, she was nice to the rich, handsome people in front of them, but she was an awful gossip behind their backs. If her friends were "ugly", then she didn't even bother to go behind their backs. So, why is this girl so great? Why do people have to tell stories, "just to make her laugh?" Of course the snob couldn't even do that right. I have enough problems with Gwyneth Paltrow as Gwyneth Paltrow, and her "Emma" did not exactly change my opinion.

Well, it's easy to see that I did not care for this one. I'm sure it's a lovely book and all, but some books are really not meant to be made for the big screen, and "Emma" is one of them.


I was surprised when I saw this film. I'd heard it was the best ever filmed of the novel. How disappointed I was.

How any true Jane Austen fan can rate this adaptation is a mystery to my eyes. The scriptwriters have decided to stick in bits of ridiculous humour which are embarrassing at the best of times, but also ruin the feel of the period. As for the cast: Gwyneth Paltrow makes a rather shallow heroine (but then any 'hot' American star would be questionable in the role), Toni Collette is miscast, and poor Ewan McGregor is made to look laughable!

I really could not say a good thing about this film. I seem to be among the very few who don't rate it, but if you want my advice, see instead the TV production starring Kate Beckinsale - believe me, that is far preferable to this superficial trash.


How good is Gwyneth Paltrow! This is the right movie for her... too bad she's completely out role. I haven't read the book by Jane Austen, but I can't believe it is so superficial and the characters aren't much more than caricatures. It wasn't probably that easy to reduce in 2 hours of show about 600 pages of the book, but I had expected more than just seeing old pieces of furniture and tea cups. I was taking a sigh of relief every time I saw an actor who didn't overstep the mark of overacting (a couple of times).