Überfall im Wandschrank

My review was written in May 1986 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

"Monster in the Closet" is a pleasant, occasionally funny combination of homage and spoof directed at the science fiction monster films popular in the 1950s. It will be appreciated by fans of old B-pictures but is out of step with the tastes of contemporary audiences.

Writer-director Bob Dahlin carefully apes the rigid format of the traditional monster opus (with corny dialog intact): an unknown creatures is killing Californians living in the small town of Chestnut Hills in their closets an San Francisco obituary writer Richard Clark (Donald Grant) is sent by his editor to cover the story. He soon teams up with science prof Diane Bennett (Denise DuBarry) and her brilliant child nicknamed Professor (Paul Walker) to follow the clues.

Monster eventually shows up, looking like a brown-skinned, huge-mouthed imitation of Carlo Rambaldi's oft-copied "Alien" creation, and the military, led by no-nonsense Gen. Turnbulll (Donald Moffat) steps in to handle the situation. It turns out the monster is impervious to conventional weaponry, leaving the star trio to invent methods of destroying it. In several funny twists, the monster's unexplained affinity for closets turns out to be a key script element.

Despite some dull patches in which parody becomes merely repetition of cliches, "Monster" is cute with lots of guest stars. Stella Stevens does a fine version of Janet Leigh's "Psycho" shower sequence, getting solid laughs opposite Paul Dooley as her husband. As a goofy old scientist, Henry Gibson has his moments, too. Moffat is perfect as the tough-talking general.

Lead players are fine, particularly Donald Grant, who, in film's well set-up and funniest payoff, turns out to be the object of the monster's affections (once his Clark Kent glasses are taken off) rather than the heroine.

Overproduced in relation to the targets of its parody, "Monster" is well-made (it was shot in 1983 and had post-production completed more recently). End crawl is unintentionally funny as what seems like a thousand people are individually credited or thanked for working on the picture. Film probably will be best remembered for the inspired silliness of its tagline solution to the monster problems, when the heroined goes on tv to plea: "Destroy al closets!".

In San Francisco, when several locals are found murdered in their closets, the rookie journalist Richard Clark (Donald Grant) is assigned to investigate the case. He stumbles upon the scientist Prof. Diane Bennett (Denise DuBarry) and her son "Professor" Bennett (Paul Walker) at the police station and befriends them. Soon they learn that a monster is responsible for the deaths and they team up with Diane´s chief Dr. Pennyworth (Henry Gibson) and Father Finnegan (Howard Duff) expecting to destroy the monster and save the world.

"Monster in the Closet" is a brainless classic trash-cult by Troma. The production follows the usual cheese Troma´s style and there are parodies to at least "The Exorcist", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "Alien", "The War of the Worlds" and "The Howling" among other films. In addition, it is funny to see the debut of Paul Walker and an early work of Fergie and the cameo of John Carradine. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Monstro do Armário" ("Monster in the Closet")

I think anyone who calls themselves a purveyor of b-cinema has seen their fair share of Troma films. If you haven't seen a Lloyd Kaufman produced film, or at least seen his face show up in a ton of bad movies that his company has bought then it's time to turn your bad movie watching up a notch. Monster in The Closet comes from a time where the company was busy making their own b-flicks instead of buying them, and like most of the movies Troma made, they can be pretty hit or miss. Although, mostly entertaining.

Monster in the Closet is no exception, taking the cliches of 50's monster movies and pooping a few jokes their way. An intrepid Clark Kent style reporter, a love interest, her son, and older scientist try to stop the onslaught of a monster who travels through closets to kill Americans. It's goofy and fun, but also not amazing. The monster suit is the best part of the film, and seeing it wander about like a mini rancor with xenomorph inner face punchy thingy is a lot of fun. Poking fun at the military from the old monster flicks also worked really well for me, as they were always so dumb and ineffective against giant lobsters, and praying mantises...Manti? Where the movie doesn't work is the long shots of wandering about, the constant bombardment of noise mixed with the damn tune they keep hitting on the xylophone, and some really annoying characters. I know this as all in the spirit of those older films, but they were b-movies for a reason. These things ware not good in those movies, nor are the good in this one.

Monster in the Closet is still fun, and there is a lot of good to be seen with the monster itself, and the jokes that land. Also, Paul Walker and Fergie are kids in this movie, so there is that if you need casting trivia. Although not my favorite, I would still recommend this film. its silly enough to have fun with...Also, 1986 PG-rated movies had some nudity...

Yes, "Monster In The Closet" is a guilty pleasure. Though it's not oriented for veteran horror fans, this film provides fun in a very silly way. It's a good dark comedy involving a very cheesy (Troma style) monster living in children's closets. The beginning is quite good and imaginative, and the ending is stuff for legend in cheesy horror cinema! Thousand cops against the monster is something that hasn't banished from my mind since the early 90's. Recommended for soft core horror fans. When I watched the Disney animated feature "Monsters Inc." I thought about this film, and I immediately saved it from my forgotten movie vault. Your average 80's film.

4/10 -Mediocre fun!

Watching Monster In A Closet I'd say the film hit about 60% of the time with gags it employed in this film. But I warn you had better have seen a lot of classic science fiction about monsters coming to earth or being discovered here already or you won't get half of what is shown.

I think about half the budget must have been spent on getting some name guest stars to do their thing and support the two less than charismatic leads Donald Grant and Denise Dubarry. But when you get folks like Claude Akins as the redneck sheriff, Henry Gibson as an eccentric scientist, Stella Stevens as a woman in a shower, Jesse White as a hardboiled newspaper editor, Howard Duff as a rather vacuous priest, and John Carradine who is one of the first victims this becomes an item to take a look at.

I really liked what Howard Duff did with the priest. He must have watched Alec Guinness did with his vicar character in Kind Hearts And Coronets.

You even get to see young Paul Walker make his screen debut as a genius kid everyone calls the Professor.

You'll recognize so many moments from some classic monster films, I dare not tell you.