Munchies

Another film watched for the "How Did This Get Made" podcast, "Munchies" is a film rather cynically designed to cash in on the success of "Gremlins" and the similar low budget versions that aped it. Having fallen asleep during my first attempt to watch the film (let's not judge it based that though) I picked up from where I could remember and finished the film.

Whilst trying to prove that Machu Picchu was built by Aliens, Simon Watterman (Harvey Korman) returns to America with his son, Paul (Charles Stratton) and a strange creature they've discovered. The creature is kidnapped by Simon's twin brother Cecil (Harvey Korman) who wants Simon's land for himself, but Cecil's stepson, Melvis (Alix Elias) gets frustrated and attempts to kill the creature, inadvertently transforming one into four. More aggressive as a group, they start to terrorise the town, whilst Paul tries to chase them down.

It wasn't the films fault I fell asleep the first time I tried to watch it, but it really didn't help itself. The budget is, as I say, modest and the puppets that result from it are pretty rubbish. Their made of a hard rubber and are incapable of much in the way of movement. The performances are generally quite poor, Korman is probably the standout, as you might imagine, but even he's struggling against a shallow and confusing plot.

I can get past those sorts of issues though, if the film is interesting around it's budgetary limitations. "Munchies" isn't though, it's predominantly quite boring and the lack of fun scenes really makes it drag to watch.

It's maybe not the worse film I've watched for the podcast, but it's a really bad time and I don't recommend it.

Not a knock on Korman as he was very funny on the Carol Burnett show. He was also good at playing secondary characters in Mel Brooks' movies ("High Anxiety" comes to mind). He is, however, not a person who can carry a movie in dueling roles no less. This one is basically a "Gremlins" knockoff, following a tradition of such movies as "Critters" and "Ghoulies". It is not a very good knockoff either, on par with "Ghoulies", but with a much lighter tone to it as it is no where near as dark as that movie got. In fact, this one is too light and frothy, and unfortunately many of the jokes end up falling flat. Though I did give it a 3 for a score, this is only because there is a movie that is even a worse "Gremlin" knockoff. If you watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 you know the one I am talking about...the infamous "Hobgoblins". This one has a guy finding a little critter in some underground place (I only saw this movie once a long time ago so I don't remember everything to clearly) and it starts out friendly enough. However, this creature quickly becomes unfriendly and of course more are spawned and that is the movie. More misses than hits in the joke department, and it is also really lame to see Korman playing the evil brother role. Best to skip this one, but then you may want to check it out just for kicks.

Terrible little film that has small creatures from outer-space terrorizing people in the desert. Harvey Korman plays dual roles in this amazingly bad movie that is nothing but a bunch of stupid scenes pieced together and called a movie. Lowest common denominator film-making from start to finish. Turkey (0 stars out of 5).

This Roger Corman produced comedy could be labeled as a Gremlins rip-off. Well, it is. The Munchies are short little dudes who multiply rapidly and are into creating mischief and wreaking a little havoc. Sound familiar? The funniest thing about the movie is all the Gremlins references. There's a newspaper with Gizmo on the cover, Robert Picardo (of Gremlins 2) stars in the film, and the absolute highlight is the Munchies driving around in a Gremlin. Truly some classic stuff. Other stars of the film include Summer Camp Nightmare's own Charles Stratton and Nadine Van Der Velde from Critters. If you want to see the extremely poor man's version of Gremlins, rent the Munchies, if you can find it.

Cute and playful, but lame and cheap. 'Munchies' is another Gremlins clone to come out from the 80s. I'm not much of a fan of the imitations.

First it was the excellent 'Gremlins'.

Then came the very average 'Critters'.

Lets not forget the lousy 'Ghoulies'.

But the complete pits would have to go to 'Hobgoblins'.

Is there more??

Now 'Munchies' for me would have to fall somewhere between 'Ghoulies' and 'Hobgoblins'. Actually I probably found it more entertaining than 'Ghoulies', but I preferred thst one's darker tone.

From the get-go it plays up its goofy nature (which it's better for it), but due to that nature the hammy acting (Alix Elias and Charlie Phillips), can get rather overbearing that you rather just see the munchies running amok. That's where the fun occurs. Mostly light-hearted fluff though, as the story mainly centres on the munchies (who are either hungry, horny and destructive) in a whole bunch of supposed comical encounters (some moments do work) in the small desert town as a couple of people are on the chase. It's silly, but strangely engaging thanks to the zippy pacing. The creatures themselves look rather bland and poorly detailed, as they're basic dolls being chucked about. Where their personalities arrived from is that they can actually speak... and with attitude.

Charlie Stratton and a feisty Nadine Van der Velde (who was in 'Critters') were fair leads. Harvey Korman was acceptable in two roles. Robert Picardo also pops up.

Amusingly low-cut entertainment for the undemanding.