Customer Reviews

Hobgoblins

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Where to begin? Hobgoblins is the prototypical B movie. The killers were litteraly hand puppets who growled and apparently bit people but who's mouths never moved. Beautiful! And it was an 80's B, so the characters were so nerdy and annoying, we were rooting for them to fall victim to the terrifying hand puppets. Awful acting doesn't scratch the surface for these losers. But it takes special people to enjoy this kind of humor. And Sid the Elf and all our fans are those kind of people. Granted trying to follow the plot for this one would be about as easy as finding the Bermuda Triangle, but thats what B is all about. If it makes sense then it makes it to the big screen, which we have no interest in. If you want to see a real movie please don't go near this one! But if you are a real man then pick this one up and subject yourself to 88 minutes of hand puppets doing nothing more then violent shaking. This one gets a true recomendation from Sid himself. Please don't pay too much attention to the negative reviews for this one. Obviously B is way over their head.

DISCLAIMER: I hate "Hobgoblins" with the passion of a thousand exploding suns.

It's kind of like "Gremlins," except it's not funny, not cute, not exciting, and the creatures are ridiculous low-budget puppets that just sit around cackling. Pretty much the only way this movie is tolerable is if you get together with a bunch of friends, drink a lot, and make fun of it in a darkened room, "Mystery Science Theater 3000" style.

Kevin (Tom Bartlett) takes a guard job at a disused movie studio, in the hopes of impressing his whiny girlfriend Amy (Paige Sullivan). His supervisor Mr. McCreedy (Jeffrey Culver) warns him to never go into certain sections of the studio, but of course he does -- and he ends up releasing a bunch of grotesque alien "hobgoblins" on the world.

And of course, the hobgoblins all head RIGHT to the house where Kevin's friends are having a very tame party, and start trying to hypnotize them into killing themselves. No, we never find out WHY they do that, they just DO. And when Amy is hypnotized into becoming a stripping skank at Club Scum, her friends all rush out to rescue her.

Yeah, that pretty much sums up the plot. "Hobgoblins" is pretty much a disaster from the first scenes, in which we're treated to a guard's fantasies of performing rock'n'roll in front of an... empty auditorium. Yeah, pretty low budget in this movie.

After that, everything goes dramatically downhill, as we're treated to nonsensical fight scenes (the infamous rake battle), stupid dialogue ("Must be a new dance... pretty kinky"), giant plotholes (apparently having your whole body engulfed in flames just leaves you with a few arm abrasions) and just... general badness. I mean, what kind of antagonists are cackling alien "hobgoblins" who just sit there and cackle? Sure they can hypnotize you into dying, but we never know WHY they do it.

And the end is the world part -- that is when Rick Sloane decides, "Eff continuity, logic and plausibility! I want BIG BOOMS!" As a result, the last few scenes in this movie (which seem to take HOURS) are just one long string of random explosions. And no, we never find out where the bombs come from! They're just there! There's no sense in it all! Suddenly there's just bombs everywhere and they blow up and take the logic with them.

And the characters aren't any better, really -- they basically consist of a loser, a prude, a loser, a slut, and a thickheaded jerk. All of them are obnoxiously two-dimensional, and the closest we have to character development is Amy deciding to become the shallow sex-mad hairsprayed slut she secretly longs to be, just like her buddy Daphne. Yeah... whatever.

"Hobgoblins" is one of those movies that leaves you sitting in the bathtub, sobbing hysterically as you try to wash away the residue of stupidity. Unless you have friends and lots of alcohol nearby, avoid this one like the plague.

A great shlock masterpiece that is over ridiculded and too easily tossed aside. Well worth the $7 price tag, this ugly, grainy DVD transfer will have you howling all night long.

The sets are impressive (abandonned movie lot) and the monsters are farily amusing. The bouncer halfway through is none other than Maynard from Pulp Fiction. You won't be dissapointed, don't be fooled by the trashy cover art, this is indeed the 1988 classic. A great six-pack pizza party watch.

Get your copies now, because Hobgoblins part 2 is set to be released sometime in mid-2008...

I was first introduced to this film on MST3K, and quickly concluded that it was one of the worst films ever made. Basically, what we have here are a few incredibly stupid looking puppets attacking people. There are a few cul-de-sac in the plot such as mind control of the people by the puppets, a haunted abandoned movie studio and the infamous 'Club Scum' scene where the band plays the 'Fish Picker' song. Truly, very, very bad.

After saying this please know that I actually enjoy this movie. It is absolutely horribly constructed, dismally acted, and ineptly edited. The music is awful, but at least it drowns out the dialogue (when you are lucky). If you want to enjoy watching a very bad movie in the 'Plan 9' genre, you will be quite pleased with yourself for finding this little known gem.

I was a teenager when I first seen Hobgoblins.
There's always something about Rick Sloane movies that are fun...
and this has to be the most fun!

The 20th anniversary edition DVD devours the previous dvd release.
It's packed with a very informative documentary that brings back the original cast...well, minus a couple people.

The DVD also includes director's commentary, a still gallery, and 35mm theatrical trailer.

A cheesy movie to say the least....but a fun, fun movie!
Great for parties!

There's a reason most people don't know who Rick Sloane is, and it has everything to do with this movie. Really, what happened here? How could such a travesty of a movie ever be put to celluloid without any crew members standing up and saying, "No! Just...No"?

Hobgoblins never tries to be anything other than awful. It doesn't try to be sublimely trashy; despite some critic's comparisons to John Waters, this never reaches the slovenly heights of Pink Flamingoes or any of Waters' work, for that matter. The movie really just flat-out sucks, and it sucks a lot. You'd have to really hate yourself to put yourself through this movie. It isn't fun, it isn't funny, it isn't even enjoyable when you're high or drunk. It really is just plain lame.

The story concerns Gremlins rip-offs that have absolutely no motion whatsoever. That's right, the Hobgoblins are just dolls. They aren't controlled with complex machinery or even puppeteer strings; they are just dolls that get shaken from below, or perhaps not even that much effort was put into their design. It's really hard to say.

There is a security officer who knows about the Hobgoblins and tries to keep them contained, but a fellow employee lets the demon creatures out. These creatures tap into your mind and make you live out your fantasy, more or less. The first fantasy we see is of a man at a rock concert, supposedly, as the star guitarist, only there isn't a band, and there isn't even an audience. It's just a guy rocking out on a guitar with a lot of smoke billowing around him. Cool, huh? This results in the guy's death and the monsters' escape.

We go from this thrilling introduction to the group of friends who will end up being tormented by the Hobgoblins. Only they aren't friends, really; one guy is a big sissy and is teased by his friends and frowned upon by his own girlfriend. One of the girls has a boyfriend who just got back from the Army, literally. The question of machismo is raised, and the resultant battle is perhaps the most ridiculous, and the only really funny, scene is this very lowly film. I never knew garden implements could be used with such panache and for such a long period of time in heated battle.

The movie goes downhill in a series of scenes that seem to ramble on and on and on. Caring about the characters is an impossibility; they serve only as fodder, not for the Hobgoblins, but for the writer and director, Rick Sloane, to torture with his horrible script. By the time the final battle ensues I cared absolutely nothing about the story and wished only for enough Vodka to wash the scum of this viewing out of my brain forever.

The only thing more shocking than the complete and utter putridity of this film is the fact that there was actually a Hobgoblins 2, although I'm pretty sure no one actually saw the sequel - certainly not anyone who had suffered through the original. The fact that it took director (and I use that term loosely) Rick Sloane twenty years to scrape up the money for the sequel tells you something, especially given the fact that he apparently made Hobgoblins in 1987 with the loose change he found stuffed in his couch. Hobgoblins should be hilariously bad - you've got grown people wrestling with hand puppets, for Pete's sake - but it's not. It's just bad - really, really bad. The Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment is really the only way to go here - no one should watch the original movie all by itself.

For Kevin (Tom Bartlett), our dope of a hero, getting a job as an assistant security guard at an abandoned movie lot actually qualifies as a step up in the world, but it still isn't enough to impress his whiny prude of a girlfriend - nor is a rousing match of rake fighting against his military pal Nick (who, unless I miss my guess, couldn't even spell Army if his life depended on it). If only something would happen in his miserably boring life, something that would give him a chance to prove his manhood. Unfortunately, nothing of the kind takes place. Instead, Kevin finds himself trying to capture a bunch of hand puppets (I mean hobgoblins) he accidentally released from a vault on the studio lot. Old man McCreedy (Jeffrey Culver) has spent the past thirty years guarding these furry creatures that came from outer space to make people live out their dumbest fantasies and then kill them for no apparent reason, only to have Kevin ruin everything on his very first night. Personally, I don't think Kevin should get all of the blame, given the fact that McCreedy apparently never thought to actually lock the vault holding the hobgoblins at some point over all those years. Before the night is over, Kevin and his friends will have all gone toe to hairy toe with miniature hand puppets, the worst of 1980s fashion will be put on display, a moderately attractive woman will perform the worst striptease in history, and many other things far too stupid to mention will have taken place.

Hobgoblins won't make you gouge your own eyes out in agony, but it's truly an embarrassingly bad movie. I could tell you more, but I really don't want to relive all the worst moments of Hobgoblins over again in my head. You'll have to look long and hard to find another movie as stupid as this one.

The year is 1988 and aspiring writer/director Rick Sloane feels he has created the film that will finally be the one to get him noticed. The film is Hobgoblins and yes it did win him notoriety. Unfortunately for Rick the notoriety he longed for would only come from cast Mystery Science Theater 3000 and their loyal b loving fans as they tore it to shreds for an hour and a half. I have seen both versions of this film, the regular & MST3K version, and found the regular version nearly unwatchable. The MST3K version however is a sheer masterpiece so that's the review I'm going with here (hence the 4 star rating).

The film, if you can call it that, starts out with a young security guard who just picked up the graveyard shift at a studio. His security mentor happens to be the 95 year old security master McCreedy, with Lee Marvin eyebrows, who will teach him the ropes to build a successful $5 an hour career. His major lesson is do not open a certain vault, which the young apprentice does, unleashing the devilish hobgoblin hand puppets. Once loose the hobgoblins hypnotize their prey allowing them to live out their fantasies and somehow kill you during the delusion. The only hope is to capture them before dawn or somehow they will destroy mankind. Not sure how since they can't move on their own, but ok we'll go with it.

To sum it up the film in itself is simply a disaster. I always say how much I love low budget b films but this on it's own is just too bad for words. However the Mystery Science Theater version is supremely hilarious and is one of my favorite things to watch. The commentary is spot on and they recreate the unwatchable film into something you will love. So I recommend Hobgoblins only if you can get your hands on the MST3K version.

This is yet another movie that can only be stomached through the filter of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (a great episode by the way). In this movie a pathetic teenager named Kevin with an abusive yet conservative girl friend Amy gets the coveted job as assistant security gaurd at an out of business movie studio lot (the need for security is thus unknown) who accidently releases the hobgoblins from a vault that the Andy Rooney like head security gaurd has locked them in. The gaurd sends Kevin out to stop the hobgoblins advising him that they are only attracted to bright lights (a fact which never comes in particularly helpful). So Kevin with his friends Dyllan and his girlfriend Daphne (a happy little slut) and an unnamed third person attempt to stop the hobgoblins, creatures which make peoples fantasies happen in order to destroy them. In the end Kevin lures them back to the vault where the head security guard blows the vault up with the hobgoblins in it, which only begs the question of why he didn't just DO THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE! Along with the silly plot the acting is horrible. Can anyone blame Mike, Crow, and Servo for trying to sneak out of the theater and leave card-board cuttouts of themselves behind?

Wow, what can I say. I am a major horror buff. So of course no matter how bad a horror movie is I'll love it. A cheesy, bad acted, and terribly scripted movie. I mean it's just what I was looking for. Here is the basic plot.

Four Hobgoblins crashed landed to earth 30 yrs prior. They have the ability to give anyone their wildest dreams. But of course in the end they kill you. They are trapped in a vault for 30 yrs. Then a new security guard unwittengly free's them of there prison. And is then giving the charge to destroy them by morning.

~~~SPECIAL FEATURES~~~

Trailer
Still Gallery
Drive in antics w/miss kim.

I suggest grabbing this dvd. Getting tanked and watching it with a bunch of friends just as tanked as you.

Zombie