Lately I find myself hopelessly over the hill, frantically scrambling for vestiges of my long-gone youth to validate my current adult existence. Being that I'm only twenty makes this kind of hard, and besides, I spent my adolescence watching the Gilbert Gottfried magnum opus USA Up All Night. I remembered that as a youngster I enjoyed the Up All Night staple "Monster High", which usually aired after "Dr. Alien" or "Surf Nazis Must Die".
Watching it again now, I found it pretty stupid. I think the reason that I liked it as a ten-year-old was that this movie seems to have been made by ten-year-olds (not unlike "Bats"). It's packed with corny jokes and pointless scenes, and has some pretty awful acting, even worse and over-blown than Shannon Elizabeth in "Scary Movie", and that's no easy feat.
However, I must applaud the sheer volume of stuff that they packed into this, a "quantity over quality" sort of thing. This movie has got a mummy, a zombie, a killer computer nerd robot, a walking gargoyle, a huge, sentient clump of marijuana, shoes that eat people, and two aliens so annoying they seem to have come from Planet Charles Nelson Reilly. These ghoul's ring-leader is Mr. Armageddon, the embodiment of all evil, who kind of looks like a doughy, aged Corey Feldman.
Oh, I figured out another reason that I liked this- there's a cute girl playing the female love interest. What's odd is, the girl and her breasts are played by two different actresses, so every time a scene calls for nudity (which is often, remember, this was made by ten-year-old boys) they cut to a disorienting shot of a headless torso. This made me wonder: The gal playing the lead was pretty awful actress, but they wanted her so desperately that they were willing to let her use a body double? There was no other actress that was just as bad AND would show her breasts? Weird.
Anyway, this is a pretty simple-minded, innocuous bit of entertainment. The people making it were probably having a lot of fun, and there are a few funny bits (like the finale's "basketball on the rim" gag, worthy of a "Naked Gun" movie). If you're a little kid or a heavy drinker you'll probably love it.
