Customer Reviews

Monster in the Closet [VHS]

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I'm Donald Grant... Richard Clark in the movie. We made this thing back in 1983. I compare the production of the film, to what I've heard about the first 'Rocky'. Most everyone sacrificed their time and livlihood for the months of pre-production, actual production, and post, to get Monster done. I really only understood the magnitude of everyone's sacrifice after the project was completed.
It took about 15 weeks to shoot, what could have taken about 6 weeks. Monster was not 'produced' by Troma. They picked it up for distribution, and took production credits only after the actual producers exhausted their resources, and were forced to do what they could to get the film done. Director Bob Dahlin really had a vision. He plucked me out of nowhere (commercial actor from the SF bay area) and put me as the lead in the film. Being his first major film,with him at the helm... he was (I believe) overly cautious - thus the long shooting time. He and the producers, busted keester to get this thing done.
I believe it is the first movie in the history of the Teamsters, that the unions allowed them to defer pay. Everyone involved in this film did it on faith and confidence in Bob and the script.
In hindsight, I believed the producers should have accepted help from the majors (who were courting them all along), so that it could have gotten the full theatrical release that it was due. Bob and the producers were understandibly reluctant to give up any control.
Monster is a great little movie, with a tremendous cast of veteran actors. I learned a tremendous amount from all of them, and developed lifelong firendships with a few of them. dongrant@arczip.com

The Monster in the Closet is a wonderful send up of classic man-in-a-rubber-suit b-movies of the 50's. In this one, a mysterious monster suddenly appears in a closet in a small town North of San Francisco and proceeds to start killing people. It is able to move from closet to closet unseen.

Richard Clark is a hopeless reporter who is sent out to cover the nutty story. What he finds is a true story of horror and terror that can shock the world. He is suddenly in the middle of the biggest story ever.

A wonderful cast helps keep the movie right on track. Claude Akins is the tobacco-spitting Sherif and Henry Gibson is an Einstein-like scientist plus many others.

The movie is rated PG although Stella Stevens has a nude scene and many of the disks extras (there are dozens) are obviously R rated. But if you have ever loved those campy B flicks, you will really want to see this one.

This is a hilarious low-tech movie that most people can enjoy. It is not overdone with loud unrealistic Special Effects that destroy the pleasure of current horror flicks. The movie is done in a straight-up CAMPY style, even the faint of heart will be won over. When I reflect on some of the scenes I still burst out with laughter!

My brother and I literally grew up on this film that my dad taped off TV! We had never seen the first ten minutes, but that never stopped us. Now about 7 years later my brother gave it to me on DVD for X-mas and made family history while watching it for the first time ever from the very beginning and all the way to the end commercial free. I think this film is a classic,
A)it's hilarious, B) it's clever, and C) it's a break from the everyday wannabes who try to make great films. That ABC thing is one of the many great jokes that runs through the entire film. And the joke that always begins with "When I was a young boy I once found a frog..." will have you laughing for hours!

I bought this DVD because one of the actors in it I knew from Chicago was deceased and I wanted to see his movie role. I was pleasently surprised and entertained by the "tongue in cheek" approach of this movie. It is very funny, poking fun at all the 'B' horror movies I saw as a kid in the fifties. It has a great supporting cast of known actors who I think had a lot fun doing this flick. The dialogue just streams with cliches and the scenes are right out of just about every atomic mutant movie ever made. For pure non-frightening entertainment this is a great movie.

I grew up watching all those fifties SCI-FI flicks that this movie handily lampooned. (THEM! is one of my all time favorite monster movies.)
Every aspect of those cheesy movies was faithfully rendered in this low budget homage. They had me roped and tied from the start with a blind John Carradine trying to get his Seeing Eye dog to respond. The cast in general was great: Claude Akins spitting everywhere, Howard Duff with a really big cross and a very strange eulogy, Henry Gibson and his weird fascination with frogs, but especially Donald Moffat as the obligatory commander of the army (his best line, "I don't give a monkey's fart!").
I loved this movie. There wasn't a false note, start to finish. I couldn't stop smiling. It reinforced all the reasons I loved (and still love) those crazy monster movies from the fifties.
As for someone not familar with movies like Tarantula, The Deadly Mantis, or Monster on the Campus, I don't know how you'd respond to a movie like this.
Love them or hate them, they are what they are and if you "get" them, you'll get this.
Oh come on, IT WAS FUNNY!

If you enjoy b movies and monsters that look like poop, this one's for you. It has a solid cast, and a comedic subtlety that you just don't find in other movies. The monster is one of the slowest moving monsters in cinema history, but everyone insists that it's going to kill all of mankind. There are many scenes that will leave you with a smile and a deep appreciation for the effort it took to create this piece of crap. The xylophone scene is classic! If you're looking for gore look elsewhere, but if you like cheesy 80's monster movies, you won't be disappointed. If you mix a case of beer, a few friends, and Hard Rock Zombies, you have the recipe for one mighty glorious evening. 4.5 stars

This movie is often in the horror section in the video stores. Therefore, some people who expect a horror movie might get disappointed. I would call this a comedy and it is a really funny comedy that spoofs a number of horror movies, for instance, the shower scene in Psycho (1960). The actors are actually quite good and the characters are funny, like Diane, who always lists her arguments "A...B...C..." and Dr. Pennyworth who starts to talk about the frog he found when he was young all the time. And the angry General Turnbull. And some other stupid funny things like that everybody gets almost hypnotized every time Richard Clark takes off his glasses. Well, it's to funny to tell you have to see it yourself! I very much recommend this movie to everybody who likes funny comedies and especially to you who likes horror movies and comedies! Give it a chance!

This film is a classic. Spoofing monster films of the 50's, including "The Thing", "War of the Worlds", "Them", as well as the more recent "Psycho" and "Close Encounters", this is a film buff's delight from start to finish. Subtle, farcical, and silly, I love this film and wish this immensely talented director had gone on to do more like it.

This rare film, made with lots of personal sacrifice from the cast and crew, is well worth the effort to seek out. "Monster In The Closet" is a satire of formulaic monster movies, and is done with great wit and charm on a low budget. The story concerns a mysterious set of serial murders in which all victims are killed in their closets. Early victims include the horror movie institution, John Carradine, this time as a cranky blind man who gets eaten.

A spittoon-toting Sheriff (Claude Akins) tries to defeat the monster while ignoring scientific counsel from scientists Denise Dubarry and Henry Gibson. Gibson is particularly entertaining as a half-baked forgetful professor who thinks he can communicate with the creature via a xylophone (he can, as it turns out, not that it does him any good), and is forever prattling on about a frog he once found. The male lead is Donald Grant, who does a great job as the naive 'Pretty Boy' reporter sent to cover the story as harassment by veteran reporter "Scoop" played by Frank Ashmore. I have never been as pleased in a movie as when Grant stands up to Ashmore.

When the creature finally does show up it is a gross looking kind of excrement monster with a second sub-head in a spoof of "Alien", which actually can be communicated with. In the end not only does Gibson get to chat with the creature via the xylophone, but Grant gets to chat via kazoo, as well. The Army seems powerless to do anything, a romance subplot flourishes, and we get to what would seem to be the climactic scene of the film. There is a great twist in the last 15 minutes, which I did not see coming, and probably most other people won't either. Suffice it to say, it is silly, involves a lot of property mutilation that I would not want to explain to my Homeowner's policy issuer, love, self-sacrifice (sort of), and hope springing eternal. (And ultimately a lot of expensive remodeling.)

The film is a great, cheesy, fun movie to watch (best with friends) and I highly recommend it. Troma distributes it, but did not produce it, so it is not typical Troma fare. It is not particularly violent (except the scenes of violent closet disruption and some Army efforts at the grade school) or gory (well, OK, the monster mouth is pretty nasty), has little objectionable except one fairly gratuitous scene of Stella Stevens in an excellent "Psycho" parody, and is just plain fun.

Watch a great low budget movie and see why B Movies can be so much fun. Grab "Monster In The Closet" today!