Little Monsters

So I know you may find this hard to believe, but I used to be a kid. And during that tumultuous time of my life, I was privileged to see a (to me) fantastic bit of filmography known simply as Little Monsters. It had everything you could hope for: a big name star, hilarious hijinks, scary monsters, and a plot that really spoke to me: escaping into a world of freedom from the tyranny of parents. Little Monsters was awesome. And then, I made the mistake of watching it again as an adult. Seriously, what the hell was wrong with us kids.

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Brian (played by Fred Savage, child star extraordinaire) and his family have recently moved to a new town. As with any move to a new town, Brian is less than thrilled. Shortly after moving in, Brian gets up in the middle of the night to catch a late night talk show featuring a sexy lady in a bikini. Shortly after crafting his peanut butter and onion sandwich (seriously, wtf), a startled cry from his younger brother Eric (played by Fred Savage's actual younger brother Ben, who's primary TV show managed to run for a season longer than Fred's) wakes up Brian's parents (Played by Daniel Stern, the voice from The Wonder Years and co-star in a myriad of films, and some nice lady who's not been in anything else worth noting). His wild claims of a monster under his bed are met with the same lack of belief as most real parents.

The next morning, Brian is busted thanks to his fonky sandwich being found by his parents. Upon opening one of the cupboards, his dad is splashed by a cupful of melted ice cream that had been left overnight. Irritated, he changes his clothes and ends up running over Brian's bike while backing out of the driveway. After being grounded into the next millennium, Brian takes out his frustrations on Eric, blaming him for the pranks that got Brian in trouble. But his brother insists that the cause was, in fact, the monster under his bed. In retaliation, Brian chucks his brother's sack lunch out the window, beaning Ronnie, the school bully, who catches up with Brian later to thank him properly.

Eric challenges Brian to sleep in Eric's room and prove whether there is or isn't a monster. Brian accepts. The first night, after playing a prank on Eric and his friend, Brian returns to find Eric's room trashed. Believing Eric's claims, Brian offers to spend another night in his room. This time, though, he's made some radical modifications to the bed. Laying out a trail of Doritos, Brian soon dozes off. He's awakened by the crunching sound of some tasty tasty Doritos. Springing his bed mods, the legs of the bed swing out, dropping the bed flat against the floor and trapping the monster in Eric's room. The monster begins freaking out and, as the sun comes up, explains to Brian as he's melting into a pile of clothes that if he's not back under the bed soon, he'll die. Brian takes pity on the monster and slides his now empty suit of clothes back under the bed.

The next night, the monster returns for a proper introduction. Maurice (played by Howie Mandel of Bobby's World fame...Bobby's World...) is a monster who lives in a fantastical world under the everyone's beds. As a reward for managing to trap him, Maurice offers to take Brian down to see what true freedom looks like. Brian finds a world of monsters who are completely free from nearly all responsibility. There are no parents to get on your nerves, all kinds of junk food to eat, video games you can play to your heart's delight, and complete and utter freedom to be a kid...well an asshole kid, but a kid nonetheless.

Over the next few nights, Maurice and Brian spend their nights together making mischief, travelling around to other kids' rooms to make a mess around the house, break expensive things, and do mean things to household pets. They pay a visit to Ronnie and replace his lunch with a less than tasty alternative: a cat food sandwich in place of tuna fish, and (with Maurice's assistance) a bottle of monster pee in place of apple juice. Later, they visit Kiersten, a girl who Brian likes and who apparently also likes Brian. Though Brian refuses to do anything bad to Kiersten, Maurice transforms his hand into a dog and proceeds to destroy her science project, earning her a zero (I guess the teacher was a stickler for documentation). This causes a bit of a falling out between Brian and Maurice, just when Brian and Maurice were beginning to feel they had found a unique friend in each other. Accepting Maurice's apology, Brian returns to the monster world where Maurice takes him to the room of a baby. After a lot of pressure from Maurice to scare the child, Brian escapes, but finds that he is beginning to suffer the same ill effects as Maurice when exposed to light.

In the meantime, in a somewhat unrelated side plot, Brian's parents separate because their marriage struggles have reached a tipping point. Ultimately, this has the effect of pushing Brian to bond more with Maurice.

Spoiler here [skip it!]:
With Brian having escaped the monster world, Maurice is confronted by Snik, the overgrown lackey of Boy, the head monster in charge. Because Maurice has failed to turn Brian into a permanent monster, Snik beats Maurice and decides to take care of the matter himself. Brian spends the next day sawing the legs off all the beds in the house, preventing any monsters from coming up from under them. But Snik finds another route via the hide-a-bed in the couch. Snik kidnaps Eric and, after enlisting the help of Eric's friend Todd and Kiersten, Brian returns to the monster world with friends and an arsenal of light-based weaponry and armor in tow. The trio confronts Boy, who offers to let Eric go in exchange for Brian staying and becoming a monster and Boy's protegé. After unleashing light-based hell, their weapons are destroyed, they are captured, and the three kids are dropped into a locked room full of toys along with Maurice. After using a couple pencils and a battery to generate enough light to turn Maurice into a pile of clothes and slide him under the door, they make their escape.

After enlisting the aid of Ronnie and a super flashlight weapon, the kids return to deal with Boy. Using their new weapon, they destroy Boy and Snik, but Snik manages to pull himself back together and prevent the kids from leaving. Just when it seems all hope is lost, Maurice appears with a flamethrower and puts an end to Snik. Just as the kids reach Eric's bed, the sun comes up and they appear to be trapped in the monster world, which would ultimately mean that they themselves become monsters. They quickly come to the realization that just because the sun is up at Brian and Eric's house doesn't mean that the sun is up everywhere. Making a mad dash across time zones, they finally arrive under the bed of a hobo on a beach in Malibu. Saying their hearfelt goodbyes, Maurice and Brian share a final touching moment where Maurice gives Brian his leather jacket to remember him by (because he'll obviously never see him again, what with...well...no reason, I guess, since it's not like the monster world stopped existing when they left). After Brian calls his mom via pay phone to tell her and his father where they're at, the kids take in the beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean while the most unlikely credits song ever plays, The Talking Heads' "Road to Nowhere."

Spoiler off:
Sometimes it's ultimately better to just remember how good you thought a movie was instead of watching it again and coming to the sad realization that the kid version of yourself was an idiot. How did you not notice the glaring holes. I mean come on, who really eats peanut butter and onion sandwiches? That's just crazy talk. But seriously, a battery and 2 pencils that can be used to arc electricity between to create as much light as a flashlight? Or the logical issue introduced by a monster who can't suffer bright light carrying a flamethrower.

Also, how did I miss that this movie has a ridiculous amount of cursing for a kids movie. And not just that, but the context of the cursing. Sure, I'd probably heard the words before, but good grief, the handful of "shit"s was unexpected. That was odd to watch and not remember, but the most surprising vulgarity came in a scene where Maurice pulls down Brian's pants in front of a girl monster, whose only comment is "Nice ass." Don't get me wrong, it was still amusing as most uses of the cursed words are, just a bit unexpected.

Overall, the movie actually stood up pretty well. The effects were a little hokey, but it was the late eighties. It would probably be weird if they weren't a bit hokey. The inclusion of "Road To Nowhere" is notable for the simple fact that it seems to be the only well-known song in the short list of songs that make up the soundtrack (and because it's one of the best damned Talking Heads songs ever!) For the most part, the monsters weren't nightmare inducing, MGMT's "Kids" quality monsters, they were mostly kids in weird clothes and makeup, so it's still watchable for smaller kids. And I suppose in the grand scheme of things, some of the slightly more adult humor was geared towards older kids and parents who might have been dragged to the movie by their younger siblings or children. While I don't think the 3 year old will be watching it, it might be watchable in a couple of years. Of course, I can't see him giving two shits about a movie that's almost as old as his parents. But who knows, everything old is new again eventually, right? Hell, they might even remake the damn thing in the next few years...stupid Hollywood...

Ron Perlman starred as the Beast in the TV series "Beauty and the Beast," so he knows a thing or two about monsters. And he approves, plus a little extra.

I swear if there's a remake, somebody's gettin' kicked in the nards. Just like the kind Wolfman's got.

From My Playlist
	Artist:	Mumford & Sons
	Song:	Little Lion Man
	Album:	Sigh No More