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Little Monsters 1989
★★★★
16 Jan 2025
TrashVHS’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
There is just something so comforting about a live action family film where the kids swear. Fucking absurd to me that swearing is even a thing the MPAA (or any other adult human being) is concerned about. Aside from slurs (some of which are not even considered swears) which carry extra connotations they are all just meaningless sentence modifiers or synonyms for other non swears kids are generally allowed to say as if euphemisms are somehow different. Human beings terrified of their own words they created now that's some goofy bullshit. When I was a kid it was during that late 80s early 90s window when it was normal to swear in kids films. Let kids swear IRL who gives a shit they most likely are behind your back.
Most of the time on letterboxd I try to review films I have never seen before because my watchlist already has more films on it than I will probably get to in my lifetime, but my true default nature is to find a film I love and watch it on a regular basis, some films every day or at times in my life multiple times in one day. With that in mind I am attempting to work some essential rewatch films into this years reviews particularly because I want to do an updated ranking of every film I have reviewed and there are so many of my favorite films I have not reviewed on here (a handful have audio reviews I did before joining letterboxd if you know where to look). Along with my all time favorites are films I fondly remember from childhood I want to revisit which brings us to Little Monsters.
If I remember correctly this was one of a handful of films throughout my elementary school years that my Grandma recorded for me on VHS. Probably because as people who lived so far in the middle of nowhere (I was an adult and they were long dead before their neighborhood even showed up on google maps) they were by far the earliest people I knew who got satellite television. I only remember watching Little Monsters a few times though so we must have reused the VHS to tape something else. That's how good we had it then, look up 1980s and 1990s film release dates, sometimes we would get multiple new masterpieces in the same weekend week after week month after month so we could cast shit like this aside without a second thought because more was always on the way. Now I am lucky to love maybe 5 films a year and that's being generous.
In a world full of lost media I wish I still had every tape I ever recorded because I am sure there was something interesting on most of them. I really only became a fan of Howie Mandel in recent years having never looked into his work before and when I realized he played Maurice in this childhood favorite I knew Little Monsters was due for a rewatch.
For the most part this shit still fucking rules. Some aspects have not aged to well or feel different as an adult such as Howie Mandel and Fred Savage creeping into childrens rooms/beds while they are asleep or occasionally some of the shit Maurice says to Fred Savage's character as well as 'pantsed’ him. Remember when that bullshit was acceptable? The film also has some pacing issues in the third act but otherwise this is still what I enjoy out of cinema. Some very fun visual character design with Maurice in addition to being blue and having horns they also have spikey teeth which they use as a can opener, head boil expansion body horror whenever they encounter light, and an all time favorite pops their eyes out of their head. There is also a great scene where Maurice’s hand turns into a dog and chews up a child's homework. Many of Maurice's jokes don't land but it does not matter hes supposed to be a little annoying and I will take dimestore Beetlejuice/Freddy vibes anyday I find it endearing.
Speaking of endearing there are some real Halloweentown monster vibes here where there is occasionally a really cool looking public domain friendly monster but a lot of it is just people in weird face paint but who cares because its a whole monster community. There are two great villains in the final act one who is like a hairy nightmare version of Maurice who decapitates a child and the other is a kind of a prep school lookin monster (maybe in a human skin suit?) Who gets their face blown off. In the films big battle the human kids also have to dodge saw blades in the floor and miniature tanks that shoot live rounds, there is even a bazooka shot at them at one point. Luckily Maurice shows up with a flame thrower and torches the blue guy!
I love those moments but this film is at its strongest when its just Maurice and Fred Savage's character goofing off and pranking children who were most likely beaten by their 20th century parents. I know my dad wouldn't have believed me and woulda beat me for sure. Piss in the applejuice is an all timer though and one of the core memories I retained from this gradeschool feverdream film. In the monster world they have an arcade and they play a game called Monster Ball where they swipe items from kids houses and break them during a game of baseball then place them back in their homes.
There is a scene where a sack lunch gets chucked out a schoolbus window. Reminded me of a story my best friend in HS told me about his old school when the kids on his bus filled up a glass bottle with all sorts of disgusting things then chucked it out the window into a parked convertible when the bus drove by. Also Daniel Stern is here! We do not get a whole lot of him anymore I really do not know his filmography that well but I have always liked him. There is all sorts of great cheap but effective blue and red lighting in the monster world or during the night in the bedrooms. The Talking Heads closing credits needle drop is fun but imagine what a much needed dopamine boost that could have been in the middle of the film when they are running around monster world having fun or when they are preparing to fight the villains. Love that when the song is over it switches to audio of Maurice munching on doritos over the credits.
Little Monsters is exactly in my sweet spot for tone and visual style but the few issues I mentioned hold it back from being a masterpiece. Still I like it plenty. Will watch again (and again).
Four stars out of five.















