Over the years, I've been subjected to two particular movies repeatedly over the years: Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and Hobgoblins. They are staples of the University of Minnesota Morris Bad Movie Club, which I was Captain of for two years. Hobgoblins was the MST3K episode variant of course, but Hobgoblins is one of those movies that even MST3K can't save from being abominable. Killer Klowns is a legitimately good movie, but I can only watch a good movie every so often every handful of years. I hate good movies that I've overwatched. I start to see flaws in them, and unlike flaws in the sorts of movies this blog is about, those flaws are legitimate faults rather than great boons. In any case, I sometimes have wanted to see a Killer Klowns-type movie, and a Hobgoblins-type movie (that is to say, a Gremlins-type movie), that has trash-like qualities. I didn't think that two such beautiful potentials would be fused into one film. Thus the beauty of today's film is squared. I can only say now what I will inevitably say in the end: it must be seen to be understood, for it is an experienced (blah, blah). Let's get down to it, because the devil's in the details.
So this movie in which everything is wrong opens with some couples making out and fucking at a lover's lane. They are attacked by the Gremlins, Hobgoblins, Ghoulies, Beasties, and some of them are killed. We are introduced to the fact that this '90s (but shot-in-the-late-'80s) horror film has tits in it. This is proper. Also proper is the presence of kitschy houses where bored babes are menaced. The dialogue is suitably clumsy and radical alike, too, and the effects and sets are good but also noticeably shitty (delightfully so). Unlike most movies which present this much awesome awfulness up front, Beasties sustains this craziness throughout the entire film, which escapes the boredom that plagues even some of the best movies on this site. A member of the makeout gang, a nerd named Nelson, discovers that the Beasties are the spawn of a hideous telepathic alien who lives inside a bio-ship. In their quest to discover more, Nelson and friends are captured by a group of BDSM-style punks led by "Hammerhead," who has gotten mixed up in the cult of an evil alien or demon called Osiris. It becomes clear on the introduction to this that Beasties is in fact a three-headed film--it's made of Gremlins, Killer Klowns, and possibly Mad Max (though there is an equal chance of 1989's Games of Survival). It is a fucking insane film.
I don't want to spoil the fantastic ending of the movie. However, I also want to talk about how absolutely astonishing it is.
Basically it turns out that Nelson will end up working for a military corporation that uses his research to start a nuclear war. Nelson mutates into the creature on the bio-ship, and travels back in time to pass on knowledge of the future to his past self. Apparently, Osiris will be the Nelson-monster's enemy in the future. In order to change the timeline, however, future-Nelson kidnaps past-Nelson's girlfriend. But can the future really be changed?
Holy shit, I wish I knew. I so deeply wish there was a sequel to this movie, and my heart hurts over the fact that Steven Paul Contreras never made another film. Given the lack of credits for most people in this movie, it certainly comes across as a friend-group production that actually had some money behind it. That's shit I like seeing--friends hanging out, doing awesome artsy things together. Yes, I called Beasties art, but if you don't agree, you haven't been reading. And if you have been, you need to see the movie.
The best thing about this type of movie is how awkward it is. Awkwardness and amateurishness are a deadly but intoxicating combo. Voice cracks, flubbed lines, stammers, stutters--all are wonderful and show the humanity of the participants. This movie's Killer Klowns attributes arise most significantly amidst the most awkward moments, such as the bizarrely placed comedy. We literally get characters who utter, "It looks like someone had a snot festival!!" They are then Larry-Curly-Moe s-s-s-scared into running away as Benny Hill-esque music plays. This particular scene, albeit with different dialogue, happens about three times in this movie. What I'm saying is: a bunch of adults got together and decided to make a buck ripping off Gremlins. Only some of them wanted to make a comedy, and some wanted to amp up the sci-fi to Doctor Who levels of complexity. Finally, there was the faction leaning towards the literal cyberpunk genre. Somehow four or five scripts were edited down into one and set to an 80-minute film. And it was deemed okay to send to distributors.
Some people climb Everest. Some people make Beasties.
Suffice it to say that this movie is something of a testament to the power of Gremlins. There are so many Gremlins clones that it's not funny, and I've only referenced some of them throughout this review. There are a lot of similarities between Gremlins and Troll, and of course while Troll 2 would have been born without Troll (it had been in production under the name Goblins), I'm not sure it would have quite stood from the rest of the insanity of Claudio Fragasso's career if it didn't have that fake sequel nonsense attached to it. In a way, Troll 2 and Beasties are like second cousins, which I find appropriate. Troll 2 fans may not like Beasties, though, as they are from very different branches of the family tree.
But that sentence is also one of my jokes. Everyone would like Beasties. It is Gremlins unbounded, Gremlins on DMT. Watch it as a testament to creativity, a gem among gems of those movies that will do whatever with no regards to budget, profit, or relatability.
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