Stepmonster

The twelve-year old Todd Dougherty (Billy Corben) is an imaginative boy that loves comic books and hates to practice violin. When he travels on vacation with his father George Dougherty (Alan Thicke), who is an architect, and his mother Abby (Molly Cheek), they meet his client Denise Gore (Robin Riker) that is building a house in the woods with George. Todd finds the footprint of the monster "Topopkin" in the woods, but nobody believes him. Out of the blue, his mother vanishes in the woods.

Six months later, George decides to get married with Denise, and Todd stays for a period with his beloved grandparents Shirley (Alice Hirson) and Norman (George Gaynes). When George discloses to Todd that he will marry Denise, Todd finds that she is a monster, but nobody believes him. His neighbor Wendy (Ami Dolenz) learns that Todd is telling the truth and together with her boyfriend Phlegm (Corey Feldman), they try to help him. Meanwhile, Denise eats a jogger and the paper boy in the neighborhood.

"Stepmonster' is a funny and highly entertaining comedy that has not aged. The plot is naive, but is certainly worthwhile watching. The last name of Denise is another joke. The conclusion with happy ending fits perfectly to the story. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Minha Madrasta é um Terror" ("My Stepmother is a Terror")

After his mother disappears while his family is on vacation, a young boy's life is turned upside down when his father decides to remarry a younger woman who he starts to suspect is a monster in disguise.

Stepmonster keeps things mostly kid friendly minus the fact that the lead kid is bit of a pervert who wants to see his teenage neighbor naked. The scares aren't too intense for most kids, though, and the film has a great atmosphere of fun throughout. There are better and funnier family-themed horror movies out there, but it's not a complete waste of time at all.

This was a pretty good, little horror-comedy film that a lot of people don't know about. If they did, it would get a lot more attention because it's simply entertaining. As far as I know, the DVD is out-of-print and hard to find. That's too bad, because I gave away my VHS, never got it back and probably will never see this film again. Perhaps I can find it at a rental store.

The 80-some minute story moves along very fast and has good characters. Robin Riker, as "Denise Gore," has a great face and - at least for me - alone is worth seeing the film. The same goes for Amy Dolenz, who is a lot of fun as "Wendy." Alan Thicke amazed me with his violin talents.

The only bad part is the special-effects, which are poor considering the year this was made (1993) but it is still a very good B-movie that should appeal to kids and adults. A reviewer here thinks adults wouldn't like this, but I'm up in age and I really enjoyed it. I wouldn't have little kids seeing this, though.

I hope this comes back on DVD because I'd like to see it again. I also wish I had a babysitter in my youth that looked like this!

The imagination, it is limitless as space. It's an escape from the real world. So when a monster threatens the neighborhood, it takes more than imagination to save the day. There's a teen named Todd(Billy Corben) who doesn't like the potential stepmother named Denise(Robin Riker). Simply because she's a tripopkin(a shape-shifting monster), that eats humans. The neighbors are dying off one by one, and his mother is gone too. No one in town believes him, except the beautiful sitter, Wendy(Ami Dolenz, Monkey Mickey's daughter) who he spies on at night, saved her from being tripopkin chow. At least he got a close up of her without her clothes on. He keeps searching for the tripopkin's weakness, the comic have it. But when the father(Alan Thicke) tears it up, he scrambles to find out. The weakness of a tripopkin is violin music. After he marries Denise, he finds out the hard way, and retaliates with some classic moves of his own. Amends go on, and he later finds out he wasn't widowed after all. Denise didn't kill everyone. This movie is very campy, and it's very good got a few known celebs like Corey Feldman, John Astin, and several others. I liked it very much!

3 out of 5 stars!

Stepmonster is a lightweight horror comedy that is hilarious and really entertaining. It's also pretty different than most in the same genre.

The kid who played the main character did a great job, and had very natural comedy acting. The makeup on the moster isn't the greatest, but that doesn't detract from the film as far as I'm concerned, since this is supposed to be a lighthearted monster movie.

It's really too bad this movie is so unknown because it's well done, and there are many laugh-out-loud moments. This is coming from someone whose been a horror fan my whole life and normally like more traditional horror films. If you can find this one, it's definitely worth watching.