Little Monsters (1989): Mux + Review

"You my crutch, man."

"This ain't purple neither, Tito. I don't know what this is. I'm not smoking this."

"If you don't crush your own weed up, and put it in the blunt yourself...your own brother will hand you some dust."

Movie review after the jump.

Little Monsters is one of those movies that I happened to watch all the time when I was a small boy. It was always on one of the main television channels on a saturday or sunday afternoon. I was always excited to see it. Something about the possibility of a world of monsters existing underneath one's bed is terribly exciting when you're six. Or seven. Or eight. Or twelve. Or twenty-three.

Even today, at the age of twenty-three, I can still recognize what it is that I liked about this movie so much as a kid. It has all the right elements. The underworld portrayed in the movie is fairly simple -- something like a large, elaborate, anarchist's funhouse with warm lighting and lots of wooden planks. The main characters are a young and witty Fred Savage and Howie Mandel as his monster friend, Maurice. Maurice is a fun 1980s-punk-styled monster played by a Howie Mandel that is totally unrecognizable when compared to his 1990s visage, but compared today's Deal/No Deal standard, it is clear that we're dealing with the same person. I guess what I'm trying to say is that today's Howie Mandel looks a lot like the monster he played in the movie. In this movie he feels like a totally fun, mildly retarded older brother. The main villain is a creepy monster who likes to look like a prep school boy, and somehow comes off like Prince.

Somehow, this incredibly unremarkable movie captured the spirit of my childhood.

I left my heart somewhere between 1985 and 1994.