Un monstruo en el 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!

MONSTER IN THE CLOSET is a wonderful monster / sci-fi movie parody. The humor is well-placed, the monster is well-realized, and the characters are just nutty enough to not be annoying. Some of the satirical genre references are hilarious, especially those concerning CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and THE THING.

Two personal favorite scenes are: John Carradine as the old blind guy, and Stella Stevens in the shower. Hysterical!

Highly recommended for all horror spoof addicts...

This was sort of a cute movie, nothing too great.

It starts off with a pre-credits sequence of people getting dragged into their closets, or walking into their closets, only to be attacked by something. We don't see the attack, since the camera takes a side view of the open closet door, and we hear screaming and cartoonish monster eating noises, as clothing is tossed out of the closet. John Carradine has a small role as one of these people, and blind man violently smashing his cane around his apartment looking for his guide dog (who the monster hung on the closet door).

We then meet a reporter who looks a lot like Superman's alter-ego Clark Kent, complete with big black-rimmed Clark Kent eyeglasses. He's named Richard Clark. He got his job at the paper through nepotism, and only does obituaries, but her wants something more. The lead reporter "Scoop" gives him a three-week old story about the people dying in their closets as a laugh.

Clark befriends a young boy at the police station while waiting to talk to the chief there. The boy is a bespectacled small version of himself, perhaps. He's doing some kind of experiment recording all different kinds of sounds, while his mother - a teacher at the local college, where some of the deaths occurred - talks to the chief, explaining how the bite marks found on the victims are somewhat consistent with snake bites. Clark angers the bespectacled mother by having let the boy have a chocolate bar. Everyone, including the mother, calls the boy "The Professor."

Clark also meets an Albert Einstein-looking Nobel Priza-winning professor at the college, and gives him a claw he found at one of the crime scenes. We also see that the mother becomes speechlessly, motionlessly smitten with Clark every time he takes his glasses off.

They soon see the monster, who starts coming out of closets. There are elements of "Alien" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" to the monster and their attempts to communicate with it.

This movie could be appropriate for children, although be forewarned that there is a brief topless scene. A bit surprising for a PG-rated movie, but not altogether without precedent. Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend (1985) had a lot more. The scene it occurs in is one early in the movie, and comically spoofs the shower scene in Hitchcock's Psycho.

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.