July 25, 2009
Mention the word Hobgoblin to me and I could think of two things, one good, one bad. The good being the awesome villain Hobgoblin from Spider-Man, who goes beyond being a mere ripoff of the Green Goblin by trying his own methods and even improving in some areas ol' Osborn couldn'... read moret (namely creating a Goblin formula with the perks and no insanity side-effects).
Then there is the bad, which is this film (with all apologies to the word film).
Luckily, you don't have to sit through this alone. Mike and the bots on Mystery Science Theater 3000 make the best of a very bad situation with some of the best jokes in the series (I'd like to point out this was actually the first episode of the series I ever saw. Also, expect to see a few of their jokes pop up in this review)
How do things begin? Well, the titular critters escape a vault that soon comes to be looked after by one of the main characters, Kevin. Before we go any further, I should tell you that, according to the older security guard, the hobgoblins are from outer space.
...
The Hell?! Now, I'm not a demonologist (even after 7 seasons of Buffy and 5 of Angel) but aren't hobgoblins supernatural in origin? Are they supernatural extraterrestrials? Is that even possible? If I'm asking that and the movie's barely gotten anywhere, that's a bad sign.
Anyway, back to it then.
So, our "protagonists" (I use that very loosely because they make me sick)
are a bunch of youngsters. Three guesses as to what's on all their minds. And the first two don't count. Go on, guess.
For those of you who guessed sex, you're bang on the money.
Besides bland Kevin, we have bitch Amy; sex-obsessed Daphne; meathead Nick and some guy named Kyle.
After Nick has arrived at Kevin's house to see his skank (that would be Daphne), he challenges Kevin to a fight (why exactly does he need to assert his dominance as alpha male of the herd? The fact that he's big and stupid means the audience could already guess that). Only this fight... is with rakes.
Rakes...
This... this is seriously stupid. This appears to be another instance where the filmmakers went off to lunch and kept the camera running.
To top it off, once Nick wipes the floor with Kevin, he and Daphne go off to have sex in a van and make no attempt to hide it. So as Amy starts whining about how badly Kevin got beaten by Nick (leading Crow to prompt "OK grab a rake, let's go!"), the van is a rockin'. I'd say they need one of those stickers warning people when not to knock but I imagine it rocks a lot more than people would want it to.
Anyway, back to the plot (or whatever it may be).
As it turns out, the hobgoblins have the power to make a person's fantasies come true (and with youngsters like these, it's child's play. If I were a hobgoblin, I'd be moaning at the lack of challenge).
So while the youngsters are partying (to really bad music, complete with Daphne looking more like an ubergeek than usual with her crappy dancing. Mike comments on the bad music by adding his own lyrics: "It's the 80's! Do a lot of coke and vote for Ronald Reagan!"), most are being lured out of the house with sexual promises.
This leads to one of the other more bizarre moments of this film (and that says a lot) where Amy lives out her fantasy... as a stripper. Yep, you read that right. She goes to a local club called Club Scum (I imagine it's a misleading name, I'm sure the upper class English tourists go in for tea and crumpets and laugh at the irony... and if you didn't catch on that I was being sarcastic, you haven't been paying attention *Hits those who haven't with a newspaper on their head*) as a band plays their song whose lyrics are unintelligible. When Mike and the bots watch this scene, they come up with their own names for the song, ranging from Pig Sticker, Pig Liquor, Kid Snickers, Fish Licker (the actual title is Kiss Kicker '99. No I don't know why the '99 is there). They also add their own humorous lyrics like Servo saying "And let me tell you about our drink specials tonight!"
Still with me? Haven't lost you in the randomness and possible head asploding nature of the film? Right, just a little bit longer. Normally I'd post something about spoilers here but since no one dies, who gives a rat's arse?
Nick has a fantasy towards the end involving a commando raid (he's in the army y'know) and appears to meet his end. Except he doesn't. He comes back later, alive and well, except for his bandages and crutches. If I didn't know better, I'd swear he was a Looney Tunes character. You half expect him to hold up signs saying "Yikes!" or similar (and if he had, I might have been kinder to this film. But then, it's not like I'm watching a Deadpool movie... ooooh, that's a great idea! Deadpool should have signs like that! Hopefully Ryan Reynolds comes across the same idea.)
So how does it end? Well, the hobgoblins get moseyed on back to the vault, which the old security guard has filled with dynamite. Why it took him so long to hit across that solution, again, no one knows.
So in the end, Kevin and Amy run off to have sex, Daphne and Nick resume shagging like bunnies and Kyle goes with ol' Rightie (I don't have to explain that do I?) to engage in phone sex. Everyone gets what they want... except us, who wanted a decent movie.
That's the abridged version of this random collection of set pieces. Proof that anyone can make a film, and reasons why not just anyone should do so. Crow says it best during the rake scene (I'll recreate it as best as I can remember) "In the future, could we have a law that films have to be made by filmmakers?" Well said, Crow. Words to live by.
Amazingly, a sequel was made. Even more so, it was made in 2008. I guess that law hasn't been passed yet. But then I suppose if it was, those guys behind Date Movie and the like would have been executed as would Uwe Boll. Let's get a petition going, people! Make this a law!
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