Gremlins (1984)

It was Christmas Eve. I was 9 years old. Me and Mom were decorating the tree, waiting for Dad to come home from work. A couple hours went by. Dad wasn't home. So Mom called the office. No answer. Christmas Day came and went, and still nothing. So the police began a search. Four or five days went by. Neither one of us could eat or sleep. Everything was falling apart. It was snowing outside. The house was freezing, so I went to try to light up the fire...and that's when I noticed the smell. The firemen came and broke through the chimney top, and me and Mom were expecting them to pull out a dead cat or a bird...and instead they pulled out my father. He was dressed in a Santa Claus suit. He'd been climbing down the chimney on Christmas Eve, his arms loaded with presents. He was gonna surprise us. He slipped and broke his neck, died instantly. And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus.
--Kate Beringer

Ahh, it's Christmastime again. The most wonderful time of the year. The season of joy and giving, of warm feelings and happy memories, of holly and mistletoe and eggnog and presents and figgy pudding.

Let's do a horror movie.

Written by the director of the first two Harry Potter films as well as the only two Home Alone movies that anyone really remembers, Gremlins is one of several movies from the early 1980s, along with Poltergeist, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and a few others, which drew fire from critics and patrons for some particular scenes of violence and horror that many felt pushed the boundaries of a PG-rated film at the time. The complaints eventually got so loud it led filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who produced and/or directed many of those movies, including this one, to petition the MPAA for a new rating for films that were not PG, not quite an R. They agreed, and two months later Red Dawn became the first film ever to be released with the brand new PG-13 rating.

Thank you, Santa Spielberg.

In the nondescript Midwestern town of Kingston Falls, USA, a town that is so straight out of the past it may as well be Bedford Falls or the set from Back to the Future, lives an aspiring cartoonist named Billy, played by Zach Galligan, the son of an inventor with high aspirations whose inventions never work quite right and should probably just stick to acting and country singing since, well, he's Hoyt Axton. Every day he gets up and goes to work at the savings and loan and has to put up with the daily threats and rantings of the richest cat lady in town, Mrs. Deagle (played by Polly Holliday a.k.a. Flo from Alice), the resident grumpy old bat who enjoys metaphorically whizzing on poor people, drenching carolers and stringing up people's pets on their front porches every time they poop on her lawn. Then he goes to a bar to drink away work stress and listen to his suck-up coworker lord over his new house and how he'll usurp the bank once the boss dies and how superior he thinks he is in every way.

I wouldn't sell this kid short, though. I mean, not only is he a talented artist, but look who he's getting drawing tips from:

"Yeah, I know how you feel, Billy. I've dealt with Grinches before."

The things that keep him going every day are his art (more power to him), a coworker at his bank by the name of Kate Beringer (Phoebe Cates out of Fast Times at Ridgemont High) whom he is trying to work up the nerve to ask out on a date, and quite recently a new addition to his household: a small, furry, pointy-eared new pet his father has given him as an early Christmas present. Purchased at a curio shop within the Chinatown district of the nearest major city to Kingston Falls via the grandson of its more hesitant curator, the creature is a "mogwai" (the Cantonese word for "demon") and is just the cutest-wootest widdle ball of fwuff you could ever lay eyes on.

He also comes with three very important rules for his proper care which I'm assuming every 80's movie nut knows by heart but I'm repeating here anyway: don't expose him to bright lights as sunlight in particular will kill him, don't get him wet, and absolutely under no circumstances feed him after midnight.

"For every piece of poop I find on my lawn...I BOIL A KITTEN."

Seems easy enough. The adorable little nummy-muffin is given the name Gizmo, and he and Billy become fast friends. He sits around on Billy's bed a lot watching old movies on TV and being pwecious.

Of course the thing is, with movies that revolve around rules that absolutely positively must not be broken under any circumstance, one or more of them will at some point in its running time, be broken, for if not, the plot would not naturally progress. And I'm afraid that this film is no exception. The trouble starts around the time when Corey Feldman stops by to deliver a Christmas tree and accidentally knocks a paintbrush jar full of water on the poor creature.

All together now...AWWWWWWWWWWWW.

As it happens, pouring water on these creatures causes them to reproduce, which raises a lot of questions as to what kind of mammals bore offspring via skin growths which drop off the body and sprout brand new creatures whenever they get wet. Then questions are further raised when Billy accidentally feeds these newborns past midnight, discovering too late that his alarm clock's wires have been eaten through. This has the result of the gremlin babies forming chrysaliseseses...chrysalees...chrysalii?...that hatch before too long and form larger, scaly-skinned creatures that have somehow lost all their fur. And these new creatures are less like the docile, harmless little fuzzball voiced by Skeeter from Muppet Babies and more like monstrous, foul-tempered, mischievous little trolls voiced by Optimus Prime, Megatron and that one guy from the Police Academy movies. One in particular has a mohawk and is named Stripe for ease of convenience.

That poor gingerbread man. Have they no scruples?

Before long, the entire town is waist-deep in an army of these voracious affronts to God and nature raising untold amounts of hell upon the population. Billy's mother finds three in the kitchen and minces one in the food processor, stabs a second and explodes a third in the microwave in true PG-13 fashion before a fourth attacks her from inside the Christmas tree. A snowplow is driven into the living room of snowplow driver Mr. Futterman (Dick Miller), a character who ironically announced his detest of imported goods as he believed they weren't made as properly. ("They put gremlins in everything!") A group of them pose as Christmas carolers to scare the crap out of Mrs. Deagle while one gives her a speedy ride on a stair lift chair. Even poor Kate has her hands full during her night job as a waitress at Dorry's Tavern, where many of these blighted little hellbeasts are in for a night of drinking, dancing, card playing and quick sight gags. She has only just made her escape with the help of a flash bulb off a Polaroid camera when Billy and cutie-wootie Gizmo arrive to pull her out of there.

And of course, during all this, Billy's father is out of town at an inventor's convention and it's no use going to the police because, frankly, a story about how his grandmother got run down by Santa's sleigh would have been more plausible to them. They don't realize he's telling the truth until a ghastly bit of proof that Mother Nature has a sick sense of humor fiddles with his brakes.

Damn American-made snowplows!

Right about here, we get the movie's most famous piece of dialogue, after those three rules, of course. Holed up in the bank with Billy and Gizmo, Kate picks this moment to talk about a traumatic event in her childhood that explains why she doesn't celebrate Christmas. I need not go into too much detail here, as I have recreated her monologue at the top of this page. I'm not exactly sure what it has to do with the rest of the film, apart from a need of the filmmakers to inject a bit of dark comedy into what is already a darkly comedic film.

I have holiday depression now.

During Kate's tale of woe, we find that the beastly little mutants have retreated from the bright lights of downtown Kingston Falls (though as Billy and Kate were running away from the bar, it seemed that they were running around attacking people just fine without fear of injury) and have retreated into the only movie theater in town. Some of them have even defied their own evolutionary process to rig up the projector to play a reel of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and being too savage to grasp the corporate culture of the Walt Disney Company, they all seem to be enjoying themselves.

At the very least, it provides the perfect distraction for Billy, Kate and Gizmo to rig the theater to explode with a flaming rag and a gas leak in the boiler room and incinerate the little buggers.

Unfortunately, the one named Stripe has escaped his deserved burnination by escaping ahead of time into the town's neighborhood Montgomery Ward (remember that place?) setting up a final showdown in, appropriately enough, a department store, the most modern-looking (circa 1984) building in town. Thus begins what turns out to be a race to the working water fixture in the gardening section that would start this whole movie all over again. Billy battles Sprite, Kate gets the lights working, and Gizmo eventually wins the day for good guy cuteness by opening up the blinds to the bright lights of a convenient winter's morning to send the unholy abomination back to Hell where it belongs.

Finally, at the end of the film, on Christmas Day, I assume, the Peltzers and Kate are watching TV news coverage of the aftermath when the Chinatown curio shop owner suddenly appears to take Gizmo back and to deliver the message of this film, saying that man with his modern technology has a tendency to abuse nature's gifts, and they are not ready for the responsibilities of something as delicate as a mogwai. But noticing Gizmo's attachment to Billy, he says that one day HE may be ready.

Maybe around the time Gremlins 2: The New Batch comes out.

These new Muppets look DREADFUL.

The thing that sticks out the most to me about Gremlins, more than the puppetry or the horror-comedy aspect, is its message.

Part of that has to do with its setting - nearly every building in town could easily come straight out of It's a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Story, Billy's car looks more vintage than anything, and I swear the only channel they get on cable out there is Turner Classic Movies. If not for the odd 1980s technological advancement, or the department store in the film's climax, or Billy's father's malfuntioning inventions all over his house, I could have sworn this movie took place in the fifties. It sets up a general theme of the introduction of new technology in an old environment.

And then there are the gremlins themselves, obviously named for a term used for a failure in something mechanical like a "bug" or a "kink" as Mr. Futterman is nice to point out for us. Most of the time they are terrorizing people it's something technological, like tinkering with wiring or screwing with traffic lights or hotwiring snowplows. I'm surprised they managed to start up a movie projector.

And of course it takes place on Christmas. The most commercialized holiday on the Gregorian calendar.

Take away the animatronic creatures and the microwave explosions and the chimney story and that's what Gremlins is - a message film about technology and nature. Or you could, you know, leave all that stuff in and get an entertaining movie regardless.

Hmmm...not everyone can successfully lose weight for their New Year's resolution. Maybe they're not so bad after all.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU, BARBARA...

If you're looking for a monster who makes the perfect killing machine, who feasts on the living indiscriminately without heart, conscience or soul--you can't go wrong with Nazis.

Oh, wait. That's video games.

In the movie world, you can't go wrong with ZOMBIES. The living dead. The reanimated bodies of the deceased, ravenous, bloodthirsty, unthinking, unnatural BEASTS risen from the grave to seek the flesh and/or brains of the living! Lock your doors, board up your windows, and for Pete's sake pretend you don't have flesh!

Zombies are right up there with summer camp serial killers, William Shatner impersonators, janitors who kill you in your dreams, and guys with pins sticking out of their faces - they make the perfect Halloween monsters. Besides, Frankenstein's monster has the capacity for human emotion, werewolves only come out one night a month, and Stephanie Meyer has pretty much single-handedly ruined vampires forever.

Now we all know from a scientific viewpoint (or by Cracked.com, anyway) that an army of zombies bringing human civilization to its knees would be a physical implausibility. Rotting flesh is a magnet for worms, weevils, maggots, and even wild animals, the lack of brain function would deny them the ability to identify mountains, cliffs or even stairs, and of course, being dead and all, they wouldn't have a functioning immune system, central nervous system or even bones that could mend themselves. Generally, the wisest thing to do during a zombie invasion would be to hide out in a tall building or a less densely populated area and wait for their food supply to run out.

Of course, that hasn't stopped some zombie movie makers from working around such complications. Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, for example, created ravenous ghouls from a highly contagious disease spread from an infected monkey. Peter Jackson's Braindead (or Dead Alive, if you prefer) also used a monkey, but was also spread by New Zealander Howard Sprague's mother.

Meanwhile, nobody has even bothered to tell horror movie icon George A. Romero, as he's been making movies ending with "of the (Living) Dead" for years.

And as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is considered by many to be slasher movie elite, so is George Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead considered by many to be the ultimate zombie movie. Even though the word "zombie" is never used throughout the entire film, there's plenty of them in there.

What? It's just Bela Lugosi's chiropractor.

It began in a cemetery somewhere in western Pennsylvania...

Two siblings, Barbara and her groaning, moaning, less-than-enthusiastic brother John have traveled three hours to this cemetery at their mother's request to place some flowers on their father's grave. Or, rather, she places the flowers on his grave while her brother keeps pissing and moaning about having to drive three hours to arrive at 8:00 in the evening which looks more like the middle of the day to mourn a dead guy, and then starts freaking her out by chasing her around the tombstones teasing her about how something is coming to get her.

Well...then...something comes to get her. A strange, voiceless man comes out of nowhere, bashes Johnny's head on a headstone and chases Barbara all the way to an isolated farmhouse further in the middle of nowhere, where she in a near-catatonic state and an African-American gentleman named Ben barricade themselves inside as some of her pursuer's friends show up and begin to stand around the house waiting the two of them out.

"Wait! Can I get a ride to the Carnival of Souls set?"

The rest of the film pretty much takes place in or around the house and focuses on disaster movie principles of a group of survivors trying to escape this calamity, while radio and television give us expository reports of a people being killed and eaten by otherwise normal-looking dead people who have developed a taste for human flesh. As to the cause of this zombie infestation, TV newscasters say experts are reportedly at a loss, though one hypothesis claims extraterrestrial radiation found on an exploratory satellite that was blown up on its way back from Venus. Frankly, in my opinion, a virus would have been more plausible.

"After the break, we'll discuss the recent zombie epidemic and how it's all because of Obamacare!"

Meanwhile their little circle grows to include a boyfriend/girlfriend pairing and a bickering married couple whose daughter was bitten, all of whom come out from down in the basement about forty-five minutes into the film and then start arguing with each other, because what's a survival story without members of their main cast constantly at each other's throats, acting all "every-man-for-himself"?

Our heroes finally start arguing long enough to formulate a plan to escape the house by hurling Molotov cocktails out of the second story window to distract the ghouls while the boyfriend and girlfriend attempt to frive the blak guy's truck to a nearby fuel pump to fill up the tank, only to accidentally set the truck on fire and blow the young couple up in a fiery explosion. Which gives us the most iconic and infamous scene of zombies disassembling their flaming corpses and eating the delicious candy inside.

Even with zombies banging down your door, you can't miss Laugh-In.

Relations between the remaining survivors break down after that, particularly after the electricity goes off and the zombies start breaking in. The loudmouthed father turns on Ben and in the scuffle gets himself shot and falls down the basement stairs; by the time the mother retreats down there, her daughter has started feasting on his flesh and pauses for a moment to stab her to death with a garden trowel.

In this zombie universe, their brains haven't rotted enough to know that garden trowels are sharp and that rocks break car windows, apparently. I'm also willing to guess that they know how to cut off the electricity.

Barbara doesn't fare any better - she gets carried off by the swarm, one of whom looks like her brother while Ben is forced to fight the rest of them off alone and spends the night down in the basement.

The next morning, local law enforcement and the neighborhood rifle-wielding mob have the zombie epidemic pretty much under control, as they wander the field nearby capping off the last few walkers. Ben wakes up, comes out of the basement and peeks out the window only to be shot between the eyes and burned with the rest of the bodies, providing possibly the most eyebrow-raising conclusion to a movie that came out about six months after the assassination of Martin Luther King.

I like this new direction The Family Circus is taking. "NOT ME!"

Apart from some scenes of entrail consumption and gratuitous garden utensil violence, the original Night of the Living Dead would be considered moderate by today's horror movie standard. It doesn't entirely subscribe to the "less is more" philosophy demonstrated by The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but not unlike that film, it does sacrifice some outright shock value for an atmosphere of suspense, desperation and survival. Some filmmakers rely on atmosphere when big-budget special effects are a luxury they can't afford, and Romero does a good job establishing atmosphere here. No jump scares, no on-camera dismemberment, no buckets of blood pouring out of some guy's arm-stump, just good old fashioned feelings of entrapment and claustrophobia.

Something also should be said for the film's progressiveness. As I emphasized earlier, this movie came out at a time of heavy racial tension in America, so it was pretty unheard of for someone to cast an African-American actor as the male lead, let alone as the most competent character in the entire cast. Compare that to most horror movies these days, where the black guy is a token character who gets killed off first.

Night of the Living Dead isn't recommended for anyone who enjoys horror movies with more blood spatter, but is definitely required viewing for classic horror buffs and zombie fans in particular.

Is that gluten-free?

The Wizard of Speed and Time (1988)

All the big things I should have done by now, but I was so busy doing little things. I wonder how many other people are out there? Writing stories and scripts that nobody else may ever read, making movies that nobody may ever see... discovering secrets, important things that could help everybody. Maybe I shouldn't make movies for a living... I could deliver Steve's pizzas...

If we could live on hopes and wishes, make movies at the speed of thought, all the movies that could have been, all the dreams that I could spin...

One of the things about being a movie lover is that you get a interest in the art of movie making. It's always interesting to learn how certain scenes were filmed, what kind of camera techniques were used, and how certain visual effects are pulled off.

I think Jurassic Park was the last presently-released film where I was genuinely interested in its special effects. It seems nowadays that questions like these are mainly answered with three simple letters: C-G-I. Lower-tech movies made before the era of green screens and naming 3D computer animators in the end credits are much more fascinating to me. Movies like The Black Hole, Tron, Flash Gordon, Terry Gilliam's "Trilogy of Imagination", even The Thief and the Cobbler with its complex animation sequences. I've seen more breath-taking shots in those movies than I ever have in a million films that use superimposed backgrounds to save themselves buying a shooting permit.

Mike Jittlov could tell you a thing or two about the buisness of show. A math-language graduate out of UCLA who took animation as an art requirement, Jittlov made many films involving stop motion animation, rotoscoping and pixilation throughout the 70s, which won him many accolades and got him a job as an animator at the Disney studio. One of his most famous creations was the Mickey Mouse satellite that was first seen when the Disney Channel launched in 1983. He later went on to do special effects on several fan films as well as the 1990 Patrick Swayze film Ghost.

To understand his only feature-length directorial effort The Wizard of Speed and Time, you must first get to know another film--a three-minute film Jittlov made in 1979 with the same title:

This film was shown on a Hollywood special effects episode of "The Wonderful World of Disney" that was made to coincide with their release of The Black Hole. Science fiction conventions across the country screened the film for years afterward, and its popularity convinced Jittlov to write, produce, direct and star in this feature, a faux behind-the-scenes account of the making of this short with bits and pieces slightly exaggerated for comedic and satirical effect.

BEST. BEDROOM. EVER.

It all began in Hollywood in the far off year of 1977 ("and maybe another dimension") where big-shot producer Harvey Bookman of Nameless Dreamcrusher Studios (played by Richard Kaye--the producer of this film, ironically enough) and director Lucky Straeker (The Giant Spider Invasion's Steve Brodie in his final film appearance) are putting together a show about special effects filmmakers. Lucky seems interested in this one as-yet unknown independent filmmaker named Mike Jittlov, and contacts him at his mother's house where he works in the company of robots, wind-up toys and other menagerie to ask him to bring in a demo reel, but Bookman throughout remains convinced that Mike can't make movies since he's just an effects guy whom nobody's ever heard of. The two of them eventually decide to hire him, but with a catch--Lucky has placed a bet of $25,000 that Mike CAN make a film that they can use in their show.

The film contains a great deal of satire regarding the Hollywood movie machine. A second job offer at a rival TV production doesn't pan out as they refuse to hire Mike when they find out he's freelance and insists that he join a union. What follows is a brief montage where Mike is sent from one union office to another, dealing with union representatives all played by the same guy (Disney voice actor Will Ryan) and getting swamped with regulations, paperwork and fees.

"Nobody gets into the Union! Not nobody, not no how!"

And of course, Bookman is the evil Hollywood executive who's made a bet that he hopes will enable him to use the phrase "you'll never work in this town again", so naturally he attempts to sabotage Mike's production any way he can--not giving him the use of his soundstages or lighting or even paying him until the film is finished. Thus Mike has to rely on his friends to help him shoot, sell most of his possessions to raise his own film budget, scrounge empty film cans from studio dumpsters and shoot an entire full-size stop motion sequence in his garage in the middle of a rainstorm.

Bookman, at a screening of his film, in which he is singing and surrounded by film cans, walking camera tripods and a carnivorous clapper board, asks Mike and company the next day to do a second special effects sequence with location shots and plenty of girls by Friday, and then hires two thugs who talk like Cheech Marin and either Doug or Bob Mackenzie to dress as policemen (or Keystone Kops, to be precise) and hassle them, knowing that Mike's crew don't have the time to get shooting permits. Along the way they steal a police car belonging to Tubbs from Miami Vice, unaware that there's a police dog in the back seat.

Jeez, does this guy hate independent productions so much that he'd actually go to such lengths to sink a guy's homemade film before it's even in the can? I mean, I know they have torpedoed ideas in the past with focus groups, target demographics and time slots opposite the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards, but actual production sabotage? I've heard of Screwed by the Network, but WOW.

"Cheech and Canuck" did not test well early on.

Location shooting proves difficult in a humorous scene involving a police helicopter chase at Griffiths Park that turns into a citywide manhunt, while the actress problem kinda takes care of itself--Mike meets an actress named Cindy (Paige Moore) while meeting with Bookman on another of his more calamitous productions for the upcoming special, with fog machines blaring at random and crew members walking off the set in frustration. Lucky for Mike, Bookman finds out about her work on his film and fires her for breach of contract, and she's brought some friends along as well.

Oh yeah, and it's around this time in the movie that the two of them fall in love.

"Joke's on you, Hollywood! I got ALL your film cans! Good luck storing your film reels NOW!"

Finally the film is complete, and Mike must get it down to the studio, but without a car or an electrified bicycle or any other means of transportation, he is forced to ride his camera dolly all the way to Bookman's office, and thus another chase scene ensues with the fake police officers, the REAL police officers whose car they stole, a Woody Allen impersonator (or maybe that IS Woody Allen, I dunno) and the set of a prison escape movie.

And after all of this, Bookman takes the film and exits without even giving him the check. This makes Mike so angry that he crashes a party at Bookman's house demanding to be paid and then gets thrown in a swimming pool, actually holding his breath at the bottom for an entire two minutes until he gets his money.

So he does his own stunts as well.

In the end, Mike eventually gets his money, Bookman loses the bet and also his job, and the big night arrives. The gang put up flyers and advertise on the moon, but on the night of the premiere:

 

So what effect is this? Does the presidential seal explode or what?

A preemptive speech from the President slowly clears the room as the commander-in-chief drones on and on and on. A discouraged Mike starts burning boxes of film until Cindy takes him for a drive to clear his head. Luckily for Mike, the President finally stops talking just in time to show his film--a recreation of his original 1979 short to accommodate for casting changes and such. Fast motion, stop motion, visual effects and men in green jackets galore, plus a few inspiring subliminal messages inserted for those of you watching the film on a QuickTime file or any media player that lets you advance one frame at a time.

Not much to the rest of the film after that. Mike and Cindy kiss, they're greeted by a crowd in a movie theater who must have just watched the film and sing their congratulations to him, and then the credits roll.

The only way to travel.

The Wizard of Speed and Time is a rare insight into the mind of a director/producer/actor/special effects man. (To give you some idea of how rare it is, the movie was finished in 1983, spent several years in distribution hell and is nowhere to be found on DVD). Not unlike Thief and the Cobbler or Terry Gilliam's films, it's clearly a labor of love that shows dedication to the filmmaker's craft. It's satirical, it's whimsical, and its extensive use of Jittlov's famous visual effects inject a bit of comic energy into the whole affair.

Some films where the stars write AND direct can turn into an ego trip for the filmmaker--he always gets the best parts, everybody kisses up to his character, and the whole plot revolves around him. This film doesn't do that. This isn't a movie about Jittlov making movies, it's a movie about making movies--that anyone with a camera and an idea can go out there and tell the story s/he wants to tell. Especially true now that we all have video cameras built into our phones. Film buffs and filmmakers from professional to amateur status should seek this film out on YouTube and give it a look at.

Though he does get the girl in the end...

The Thief and the Cobbler (1993)

It is written among the limitless constellations of the celestial heavens, and in the depths of the emerald seas, and upon every grain of sand in the vast deserts, that the world which we see is an outward and visible dream of an inward and invisible reality. Once upon a time there was a golden city. In the center of the golden city, atop the tallest minaret, were three golden balls. The ancients had prophesied that if the three golden balls were ever taken away, harmony would yield to discord, and the city would fall to destruction and death. But the mystics had also foretold that the city might be saved by the simplest soul with the smallest and simplest of things.

Making a movie is not easy. All you have to do is look at some of the films I've reviewed for proof of that.

The original Casino Royale, for instance, went through six directors and had some of its stars meddling with the screenplay, resulting in a Frankenstein's monster of a spy spoof. Two of Terry Gilliam's "Trilogy of Imagination" films sunk in American box offices despite critical acclaim, either because of marketability concerns or slow production coupled with financial disputes. Life of Brian was almost never even made after the original backers saw the script and pulled their funding at the last minute.

But perhaps nobody knows more about the pain, the turmoil and the aggravation that comes with filmmaking than three-time Academy Award-winning Anglo-Canadian animator Richard Williams, who currently holds the Guinness world record for longest production time of a motion picture.

And this is the film with which he holds this record:

In 1964, Williams began production on an animated film based off a story of Eastern folklore about a "wise fool" named Mulla Nasruddin. The project went under various titles--The Amazing Nasruddin, Nasruddin!, The Majestic Fool--before they finally dropped the character altogether and went with a brand new story loosely based on its setting, thus retitling the project The Thief and the Cobbler.

And this was only the start of the film's woes--because of its complex animation and independent funding sources, the project was put on and off the shelf many times over the next two decades while Williams worked on other animation projects to raise money to finish it, including commercial work, movie credits, and even scarring generations of children for life with Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.

A light at the end of the tunnel seemed in sight when his work on Roger Rabbit attracted the attention of Warner Bros., who agreed to finance the film's completion, but they pulled out when work fell behind schedule. Finally in 1992, a completion bond company took over, booted Williams from the project, and finished the movie under the supervision of the quicker, cheaper producer Fred Calvert, and since it was around this time that Disney was releasing Aladdin, it was re-animated and re-edited to include musical numbers, additional voiceovers and dialogue for its two title characters (in Williams' version, the thief doesn't talk at all, while the cobbler only has one line). Two different versions were released, one in Australia and South Africa in 1993 (as The Princess and the Cobbler) and one produced by Miramax Family Films for American audiences in 1995 (first as Arabian Knight and then under its original title) in only a handful of theaters each. Neither were box office hits.

For those of you keeping score, the film started production in 1964 and was finally released by a major studio in 1995 - THIRTY-ONE YEARS. It was such a headache that Williams distanced himself from his own film, and only recently has he finally spoken out about it, having finally screened his 1992 workprint in late 2013-early 2014.

The film is technically still being made today, in a sense. In 2006, filmmaker Garrett Gilchrist released an unofficial fan-edited version, a "Recobbled Cut" if you will, a frame-by-frame restoration of the film that stitches together animatics, pencil tests and pre-existing footage from Williams'  workprint, Calvert's edition and whatever else exists to get as close as possible to the story Williams wanted to tell. It has been revised three times since then as additional footage has emerged, the latest edition as recently as last year, and considering that Williams as well as Disney and all other major animation studios have no plans to finish and release the film, I've decided to go with the more recent version, since it's about as complete a movie as we're going to get.

Don't be shy. I've reviewed cinematic fiascos before.

After a really long sequence where I imagine the opening credits were supposed to go, we are transported to a not-the-least-bit-modest Arabic setting, and a golden city. At the center of this city is a very tall, slightly leaning minaret upon which are skewered three golden balls of great implied importance. Prophesy dictates that if ever anyone were to abscond with these golden balls, the golden city would plunge into chaos and ruin.

It is here where we meet our principal cast. So let us now:

The titular cobbler, a quiet, resourceful young lad named Tack with a long, lanky, rag doll-like appearance.

The titular thief, a nameless bloke with a severe case of kleptomania, an attraction to shiny things and a lack of personal hygiene.

King Nod, an aptly-named person in that he is both ruler of the Golden City and a narcoleptic;

Zig Zag the Grand Viseer (voiced by Vincent Price in what turned out to be his final film appearance--his voice work was recorded quite early in production but the movie took so long to come out he ended up dying one month after it finally saw a theater screening) a quite slender-looking Blue Meanie who acts as the king's chief adviser, owns a perpetually-starved vulture named Phido, and speaks entirely in rhyming couplets.

What'd the bad guy from Aladdin have? A PARROT? This guy's got a friggin VULTURE. That is BAD ASS.

The King's daughter, Princess Yum Yum, a maiden fair who must have suffered some injury when from heaven she fell.

Anywho, this Zig Zag feller--loyal subject, office kiss-up, bit of a poet, but wouldn't you know it, he's actually kind of evil. We can tell this when he has Tack arrested and tries to have him executed for accidentally spilling tacks on the floor where he was prancing about in egotistical splendor and stepped on one. We later find out he plots to take Yum Yum as a bride and usurp the kingdom.

When Tack is brought before the king, Yum Yum takes pity on him and just so conveniently has a shoe in need of repair. And being the love interest that she is, a sort of blush-every-time-they-look-at-each-other-face-to-face romance starts happening between her and Tack. Kinda cute, really, even if this is all of a sudden.

"I am Zig Zag the great, and haters gonna hate!"

Meanwhile, our thief notices the golden balls at the seemingly unreachable top of the highest minaret in the city and tries various Wile E. Coyote ploys to steal them. At one point he runs into Tack and makes off with the shoe he was repairing, leading to a chase sequence that is quite reminiscent of the Loonyland castle chase sequence in Raggedy Ann and Andy. Only trippier. And nowhere near as traumatizing.

As the Thief finishes repairing Yum Yum's shoe, Zig Zag throws him into a prison cell where he is nearly fed to his vulture pet. Meanwhile the King, during one of his numerous naps, has a nightmare where the golden balls are stolen and the city is ravaged by an army of one-eyed men...which as it turns out isn't that far from the truth, really.

So, Mr. One-Eye, what are your views on gender equality in the military?

As you've probably already assumed, because we wouldn't have a movie otherwise (or what there is of a movie, anyway) the thief eventually relieves the king of his balls (yes, that's what happens) which fall in the hands of Zig Zag, conveniently when word of a one-eyed warlord's army in the vicinity reaches the kingdom. The king, rather than changing his freshly-soiled shorts, arranging some kind of search party to find his missing balls (tee hee), and perhaps fortifying the city's defenses a bit, sends Yum Yum out into the desert to consult a mad old witch for advice on what to do next. Tack, who has managed to escape his prison cell with a file and a tack, is elected to accompany her, the lucky dog.

Somewhere else, Zig Zag, having failed to use this calamity to have the king grant him Yum Yum's hand in marriage, decides to show his balls to the leader of the One Eyes (phhffftt).

Meanwhile, the thief sets off after our heroes to...do his own thing.

It's interesting how King Nod is protective of his daughter and yet trusts her to carry out this dangerous mission, let alone with a complete stranger whom she's fallen for after only meeting him just yesterday.

"Drive safely and be sure to have her home by eleven. Have fun, you two!"

After some spliced-together scenes in which the thief tries and fails to steal a ruby off the top of a sacred golden idol (where the U.S. Air Force Song is curiously playing during a moment where the thief considers flying overhead the idol's armed guards) and Yum Yum hires an out-of-work band of brigands who would probably have ransacked their caravan and carried the princess off by now were they not for the sake of the potential audience too dimwitted to realize this as their bodyguards, our heroes finally reach the mad old witch living in a rock mountain that from a distance looks like millions of disembodied hands in a big pile through an entrance revealed by the ruby. When asked about how they can save their city, rather than making quite rational claims about strategic defense formations and diplomatic solutions, points to Tack almost immediately and provides cryptic hints as to what he could possibly do, shouting "Attack! Attack! Attack!"

So Tack is destined to save the city, it turns out. Well, at least the film spares us showing him expressing his feelings of self-doubt and ruing his lot in life, wanting so much more than what he's getting, tired of people looking upon him as a lowly, insignificant shoemaker. You know, like that guy in that other movie. The one with the parrot.

As easy as it might be to make a Ghandi joke here, I just don't have it in me.

Fortunately it didn't seem like they had to travel very far, which means absolutely no side trips to strange worlds with taffy monsters, inflatable kings and stuffed camels on strong hallucinogens. Just a young man accompanying a princess on a search for her daddy's balls. (Couldn't resist, sorry.)

It also means that our heroes return to the golden city just in time to learn those one-eyed warriors have decided to pay them a visit, with Zig Zag leading the charge. And they're brought them a lovely present: a big black nasty war machine filled with soldiers, catapults and very sharp things.

Fortunately, Tack is suddenly struck with a moment of inspiration and stands before Zig Zag David-and-Goliath style armed with a piece of string and a single tack. (Get it? "A tack a tack a tack?" Hah, the witch was using a play on words, because he has a tack, and his NAME is Tack, heh heh...) Fashioning a makeshift catapult, he fires the tack at Zig Zag...and misses...but sets up a cartoon-style chain reaction that eventually destroys the One Eye army's war machine.

Figures. And they all want to watch the Super Bowl on MY TV.

The climax of the film consists mainly of the thief retrieving the three balls while the One Eyes' war machine falls apart around him, narrowly escaping numerous death traps during the meanwhilst, as Zig Zag nearly runs off with Yum Yum, fights Tack and then gets eaten by some alligators and his long-suffering bird while the brigands fight off One Eye soldiers and their leader is apparently killed. (That part consisted of storyboard drawings and wasn't exactly clear.)

Everything in the previous statement takes up about fifteen minutes of a ninety-eight minute cut.

Tack takes the king's balls (snicker snicker) back from the thief, and with that the Golden City is saved and the king in his gratitude allows the cobbler and Yum Yum to wed. Then the thief in a closing fourth-wall gag, delays the film's release even further by running off with it.

Yeah, this moment was pretty inevitable, too. Cute, though.

What this movie makes me is sad.

It isn't because of the story. Any flaws in its plot--the minimal romantic development between Tack and Yum Yum, the super-long climax, the lack of characterization of the brigand army and the One Eye warriors--can perhaps be blamed on the amount of footage that was available to piece this Recobbled Cut together. At the very least, Princess Yum Yum wasn't just written as the damsel in distress, which was nice, and even though the thief didn't have a lot to do here story-wise apart from plot catalyst, he does do comic relief duty quite well.

It isn't because of the visuals. The finished portions of the film look extravagant. Williams is known for being a perfectionist and for hiring veteran Looney Tunes and Disney artists and expecting perfection of them, and although their work here was not as appreciated by widespread audiences, the complexities of each finished scene are to be admired, and I haven't seen art design this mesmerizing since Yellow Submarine. This movie is certainly a must-see for art and animation buffs.

No, the thing that makes me sad about this film is the sheer amount of wasted potential. This movie has all the makings of an animation classic, a masterpiece, something you'd find on Turner Classic Movies on the very rare occasion that they show an animated film. The Thief and the Cobbler could have been a milestone in the history of the medium instead of the footnote it is today. Richard Williams started out all those years ago on the verge of something truly great, and if things hadn't turned out the way they had, something great is what he would have gotten.

It must feel, metaphorically speaking, like someone had ripped his golden balls off. (Sorry, that one was too easy.)

Thieves should know better than to handle another man's--okay, I'll stop now.

Escape From New York (1981)

Shoot a cop with a gun
The Big Apple is plenty of fun
Stab a priest with a fork
And you'll spend your vacation in New York!

Rob a bank, take a truck
You can get here by stealing a buck
This is bliss, it's a lark
Honey, everyone's going to New York!

No more Yankees
Strike the word from your ears
Play the roulette
There's no more opera at the Met

This is hell, this is fate
But now this is your home and it's great
So rejoice, pop a cork
Honey, everyone's going to New York!

Hey, it's another movie about how much the future will suck! (What is this, our sixth now?)

And it's our first movie from director John Carpenter! The guy who gave us Halloween, Christine, Big Trouble in Little China and The Fog! The director who often composes the music to the movies he makes!

And it's the movie the Watergate scandal inspired him to make, even though it came out seven years after it happened!

Hey, it's that guy who appeared in four other John Carpenter movies! Including the sequel to this one!

In the far-off year of 1997, the Spice Girls reach the apex of their popularity, an over-hyped James Cameron film becomes the most popular movie in the world, the crime rate in America has increased exponentially, and the once lively city of New York has been converted into the world's largest criminal containment facility. A wall is constructed around the entirety of Manhattan, all bridges leading into the facility are mined, and guards are stationed around the perimeter. Roaches check in, but they don't check out.

I'm not exactly sure why the U.S. government decided to turn the country's largest city, a thriving metropolis with a culture all its own that millions of tourists visit every year, into a massive penal colony. There is a sequel to this film, Escape from L.A., that goes into more detail as to what kind of sick dystopian ruling party would think this was a good idea, but that's a film that wouldn't come out for another fifteen years, so this is the hand that we're dealt.

Worst. White House Easter Egg hunt. Ever.

One day, President Donald Pleasance, the man who signed off on this idea I would assume, is on his way to a summit meeting with the Chinese and the Russians for world peace or something like that when Air Force One is hijacked by terrorists and crashes inside the New York City prison. The President manages to eject from the plane in an escape pod just before it hits, but lands within the walls anyway and hasn't been heard from since. Since Glenn Close isn't here, Police Commissioner Lee Van Cleef decides to hire a felon by the name of Snake Plissken, a disillusioned war hero convicted of robbing a Federal Reserve Bank and played by Kurt Russell, to break into New York, find the Commander-in-Chief and bring him out again before his summit meeting in exchange for a full pardon.

And just to give him that extra spark of motivation, explosive charges are injected into his body that will burst his arteries and kill him within twenty-two hours, and the Commish has promised to neutralize them on return of the President.

(So they close off a whole bunch of tourist attractions--the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, every last theater on Broadway, choking off a major source of economic growth for an entire state--just to build a prison?)

They're Maggie and the Brain, yes, Maggie and the Brain...
One played a radio DJ in a California seaside town, the other a detective investigating haunted-car related murders...

Plissken enters the facility armed with a device that tracks the President's heart monitor and a countdown clock to when the explosives in his body are set off. The signals lead him to the basement of a decrepit theater, where he assumes the worst when he finds the heart monitor on the wrist of a drunken wastrel. When he contacts the police and they refuse to let him back out, a new lead suddenly emerges when Ernest Borgnine of The Black Hole appears as a cab driver who recognizes Snake at the theater, picks him and kindly informs him a gunpoint that the President is being held hostage by a man known only as "The Duke" ("The Duke of New York, A-Number One" to you) played by 70's music man Isaac Hayes.

It becomes apparent that the prisoners of New York City have somehow organized themselves into some kind of pseudo-civilization. We learn they have their own gas and oil supply, they have their own generators with which to produce electricity, and it seems they have some kind of anarchy-built political system going in which the Duke assumes a leadership position and governs the masses through antagonistic means. It also appears that this collective no such thing as social class, as the people who hang around the Duke are just as disheveled as the people who line up on both sides of the road and throw things at cars traveling on Broadway.

(What about the U.N.? Where are THEY meeting now?)

They say this Duke's one bad mother--
Shut your mouth!
I'm talkin' about the Duke!
We can dig it!

Cabbie takes Snake to see a couple of his associates - Christine's Harry Dean Stanton and The Fog's Adrienne Barbeau playing Brain, a former colleague of Snake's who now runs his own oil rig in the basement of the New York Public Library, and his main squeeze Maggie, respectively. They reveal that the Duke is holding the President as collateral to orchestrate a jailbreak across the heavily mined 69th Street Bridge, and also take him to where he is being held (with a little coercion from Snake, I assure) only for him to caught by the Duke and his cohorts.

(No more Christmas trees at Rockefeller Center Plaza?)

This must be what it's like for the President whenever Congress is in session.

Hours pass so as to increase the tension of whether or not Snake will make it out of the prison with the President and save his life and conveniently wind the clock down so that the inevitable rescue will come down to the last minute. The Duke has Snake fight who looks like a Siberian bear wrestler for his amusement while Brain and Maggie suddenly decide that they're good guys and rescue the President, while Snake kills the dude he's wrestling and all of them meet up in Cabbie's taxi for a car chase between them and the Duke. Snake's new friends are all killed one at a time while navigating the minefiend at the 69th Street Bridge while leading the President to the perimeter wall, where once his safety is finally assured, he rains hot vengeful machine gun fire on the Duke, mocking all the way.

(So NBC just cancelled Saturday Night Live? Just like that?)

And THIS must be Congress in session.

As the President prepares for a televised speech to the summit he will now have to miss, the explosives in Snake's bloodstream are neutralized with seconds to spare, and after the President thanks him for saving his life (while snubbing the people who were killed in the process), publicly humiliates him by swapping a very important tape that was in the briefcase he was handcuffed to that had nuclear secrets on it or something for a recording of "Bandstand Boogie" that Cabbie was listening to throughout the film.

(Saks Fifth Avenue? F.A.O Schwarz? Where have THEY gone?)

"Brain, get that paper out of my face, I'm trying to drive here!
Mr. President, you stop kicking Maggie in the shin right now!
Don't you make me pull this car over! I SWEAR...!"

Escape from New York subscribes to a Family Guy-style system of characterization, in that it makes most of its characters so utterly unlikable that it's difficult to cheer for them. In Snake Plissken's case, it's perfectly all right - he's an anti-hero whose only motivation for being put in this protagonist position is the full pardon, AND the people who gave him the job made him a walking time bomb. He probably didn't even vote for the guy. Ironically, his badass factor does make him an action movie guy you can get behind, even though his total kill count is, like, TWO.

(What about the Macy's parade? Is there still even a Macy's?)

Everyone else I'm not really compelled to give two craps about. Brain kinda waffles between whether he wants to be on Snake's side or not until the last moment, Maggie doesn't really do much of anything until she tries to avenge Brain's death without success, President Pleasance turns out to be kind of a dick (which I could also give a pass in a Watergate-inspired movie), and as for Cabbie...okay, I kinda liked Cabbie. He was the fun one, even though he's got a bit of a mouth on him.

If I could recommend this movie for any reason, it's to see Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, a man who is overqualified to enter the maximum-security hellhole of a city-sized penitentiary and come back out again with all his teeth, all his fingers and one and two-thirds functioning legs.

(Where's the ball gonna drop on New Year's Eve? ...oh, right, in their juvenile offender wing)

So what do we call you? "Snake" or "Plissken?" Or perhaps "sir", that works just as well.

Troll (1986)

Apartment for rent. Acquire within...

Well, I've done it. I've actually done it. I reviewed a Harry Potter movie.

With wizards and magic and everything.





Though it doesn't exactly take place at Hogwarts.

(Though the castle in the title card looks like some branch campus. Or maybe the Hogwarts university hospital.)

Yes, it's the 1986 cult classic Troll. Directed by John Carl Buechler, horror movie makeup man who also made Friday the 13th Part VII.

One of many creature puppet films to emerge from the popularity of Gremlins, in a list that includes Ghoulies, Critters and *cringe* Hobgoblins.

The alleged predecessor to Troll 2, regarded as one of the worst movies ever made and I'm told has about as much to do with this film as Halloween 3 has to do with the rest of the Michael Myers franchise. (You know, that one where that kid witnesses a girl being eaten unaware that a fly has landed on his forehead - OH MY GAWWWWWWWWWWD!)

"Pulls our finger, my precious..."

We begin with the Potter family, who have just moved to a small apartment building somewhere on the streets of San Francisco. Little Wendy Potter, played by Jenny Beck from V: The Final Battle, plays ball by herself when she wanders into the basement and is attacked by some kind of...well, troll who uses a ring on his finger to assume her corporeal form and then proceeds to run around the building annoying everyone inside, screaming and growling and biting and going into conniptions.

The only person who seems to notice something is amiss is the son of the family, a monster movie fanatic named Harry Potter, Jr., played by Noah Hathaway, best known for playing Atreyu in The Neverending Story.

Yes, that is his name. HARRY POTTER, JR. His father, played by Michael Moriarty who spent four seasons on Law & Order, is HARRY POTTER, SR.

Despite what this film's producers might think, I'm fairly certain these names are just a coincidence. There's also a "Harold Potter" in an early Monty Python sketch about blancmanges playing at Wimbledon, and THEY haven't mentioned anything about it, so I would imagine it's more common a name than people think.

Though as Atreyu, Noah Hathaway WAS probably the Daniel Radcliffe of his day.

Speaking of names, Noah isn't the only interesting casting call in this movie. Check out who else lives in this building:

June Lockhart from Lassie and Lost in Space plays Eunice St. Clair, an nice sarcastic old lady who knows more about these creatures than appearances would dictate. As if the living, talking mushroom casually disguised as a table lamp wasn't a tipoff.

Gary Sandy from WKRP in Cincinnati plays Barry Tabor (spelled as shown in the credits and yet with a Y on his doorknocker), an ex-Marine who's always going on about communists and doesn't read books because liberals publish them.

Phil Fondacaro, who played a dead Ewok in Return of the Jedi, plays an English professor who is dying of bone marrow cancer. He also pulls double duty as the troll wreaking havoc around the building.

Seinfeld's Julia Louis-Dreyfus makes her feature film debut as Jeanette, an...actress or something? I wasn't made clear on that.

And finally, future congressman Sonny Bono (yes, the one who was married to Cher) plays a desperate, lonely, perpetually horny gigolo who--

Euugh! Ohhh, he looks like Carl from Aqua Whatever They Call That Show Now! Ugggh, I hate those tyoes of characters!

Oh yeah, and his name is "Peter Dickinson." Cue Beavis-and-Butthead laughter.

It isn't long before every apartment in the building apart from Eunice's and the Potters' are overrun with little magical gardens, its residents transformed into giant turds that sprout mystical vines and grass everywhere (Julia Louis-Dreyfus also turns into a nymph, while the dying English professor wishes he could be reborn into a magical land of unicorns and things and the troll is all too happy to oblige) and are soon crawling with other mystical creatures.

Oh, and they sing too. Here, have a listen:

Are those lyrics Latin? I can't be sure.

Anyway, his younger sibling's erratic behavior coupled with some ideas some bad monster movies put in his head have convinced Harry Jr. that the psychotic little she-demon in her little sister's body is not his little sister. Luckily his new friend Eunice, who is the only one in the building to notice that people are disappearing like rabbits, knows why.

Okay, this is actually a little convoluted...

For those of you who don't like spoilers, here is a picture of a younger Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a nymph to distract you from reading the following paragraph.

Oh. You're above being tempted by sexy nymphs. Okay then...

Long ago, before countries existed, there was a human kingdom and a fairy kingdom, and both of them got along with each other quite well. Torok and some of his fairy friends wanted to overthrow the human kingdom and rule the world, but they ultimately failed and Torok was turned into a troll for his trouble. Eunice has been living in the building for centuries, keeping an eye on Torok. It was he who has been growing little ecosystems throughout the building, and once he's furnished each apartment in magical kudzu, the fairy world will burst forth into the human world and...war will probably be waged, scientists will freak out, Pat Robertson will say the state of California had it coming, and the florist industry will enter a future more prosperous than anyone could imagine. Wendy is still alive somewhere in this mess, soon to be christened by Torok as the "princess of the fairies".

Uhh...did anybody else know about the inter-dimensional gateway in the basement of this seemingly normal apartment building? Maybe Eunice would have WARNED them or something? There were at least four other people living in it. I think one of the first things I'd like to be sure of when moving into a new apartment is that it was rat-, vermin- or fairy-dimension-free, because if I got sucked into some mystical fairyland while I was washing my clothes, I think I'd want my deposit back. I certainly wouldn't let my kids wander down there to get abducted by vengeful goblins or anything.

Okay, who gave the kids sugar?

Eunice sends Harry Jr. deep into Middle Earth with a sword with which to stab the heart of Torok's universe and rescue his sister while she changes into June's daughter Anne Lockhart from Battlestar Galactica, goes off to face Torok, and ends up as a tree stump.

Harry Jr. fares slightly better. He DOES manage to find his sister in a Snow-White-esque glass box and releases her, but he doesn't exactly stab the heart of Torok's universe, which is actually the biggest friggin monster we've seen throughout this film. No, Torok inadvertently does it himself when the monster tries to attack his queen Wendy after tossing Harry Jr. to one side.

Uhh...whoops. Guess you shouldn't have made the heart of the universe something that could be easily killed.

Anyway, to wrap up, brother and sister escape as the magical world collapses, the house stops sprouting weeds everywhere, Eunice is okay, the family moves out of the apartment, the other tenants...I don't know, probably dead, and a policeman goes to investigate the basement exemplifies what I was saying about leaving an inter-dimensional gateway unchecked in an apartment building.

"All right, son. No more Syfy original movies for you."

Troll is a weird movie. Every bit of it. From its characters to its singing goblins to a younger sister who could serve as an inspiration for leash laws for children...even its young hero and his neurotic obsession with movie monsters, even though he's the character whom nobody is expected to believe. We see him in bed watching monster movies, and then he describes his sister's behavior almost word-for-word like the dialogue in the film he was watching. Are their parents completely oblivious to the fact that the other tenants are never seen again after their daughter pays them a visit? Or that she's a good mouth froth away from going completely rabid? Or, for that matter, that their son, even though he's right in this case, is perhaps suffering from quite an overactive imagination for a boy his age? I mean, there is a line spoken by the father--"Honey, did you do a lot of drugs before we met?"--but otherwise they literally suspect nothing.

Also, watch for Michael Moriarty's not very good impression of Tom Cruise from Risky Business. Parents are so unhip.

It's also weird in that it doesn't feel like a horror film, even though it is sometimes billed as one and there is a gruesome scene early in the film in Sonny Bono's on-camera transformation into a giant plant-spewing turd. (Thank you, by the way. I don't like Quagmire characters.) Everybody else's happens off-screen, and there isn't really any blood or anything. The film doesn't take the disappearance of its supporting cast very seriously, and truth be told, it's kinda hard to take ANYTHING seriously when all your monsters take a break from their quest to rule the universe by singing some silly gibberish song.

Even though this film has decent makeup and visual effects, a once- or soon-to-be-famous cast, and something of a cult following, it is not as fondly remembered as the infamous film that was marketed as its sequel. Apparently, nothing can beat out a film with a widely circulated YouTube clip in the popularity department. Still, if you like fantasy movies about singing trolls and don't mind seeing Sonny Bono in an undershirt, then by all means go forth and conquer.

All I know is I've got that song stuck in my head now. What ARE those lyrics?

Lemme try...
"We have heard of this! It's the myriad campaign, ah!
Herbert Herbert wing, Herbert Herbert Herbert wing, dream of us!"
...this movie is weird.