Beasties

In the 1980’s, a film came out named Gremlins which became inmensely popular, partly because of it’s good use of 50’s monster movie plot elements, dark situations and well-written comedy. Of course, most independent and exploitation filmmakers didn’t seem to care about any of this, and decided that the only thing that made Gremlins successful were it’s awesome-but-tiny creatures. And so, after this we got a ton of independent, and mostly terrible shitty movies. Ghoulies, Munchies, Hobgoblins, THINGS, and this 1993 shot-on-video turd.
The plot, at least for the first part of the film, involves a nerd and her girlfriend, and a bunch of random victims, fighting against the arrival of tiny creatures. These tiny creatures have no ability to move or make facial expressions, instead they just sit there with their sculpted faces making noises and being thrown at the actors. Then, while running around with a hot chick with a shotgun, they get kidnapped by a gang of metalheads that follow a cult leader named Osiris. Here, the first part of the plot is changed completely and the movie is about this cult for about a half hour. For a movie made in 1993, the actors look like 1984 metalheads on their way to a WASP concert. Osiris first witnesses two of the cult women fighting until one dies (this takes about 5 whole minutes) and then turns into what looks like Evil Ash’s retarded twin brother. The nerd is able to destroy the cult, with their metalhead henchmen running around and chasing people for no reason.
So you think the movie’s over? Nope, you’re wrong. The nerd reaches the creature’s spaceship and realizes that a future version of himself, which now looks like a giant brain with tentacles (reminds me of Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), is responsible for the creatures and has some bullshit time-travel angle that is too silly to be true. Soon comes the ultimate battle between the nerd, the metalheads and the beasties. I would spoil you the ending, only there is none. The movie just stops all of the sudden in a ‘dramatic’ moment, then it’s over.
If you think this sounds interesting, don’t bother. This is one of the worst productions I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t mind the fact that they’re shot on video since I love a lot of shot-on-video horror flicks, but the makers of this film had no idea how to create suspense or terror. The only special effect that looks cool is the giant brain, but other than that most of the creatures look like unmovable rubber sculptures covered in ultra-slime. Or lubricant. The only movie I could compare this to is THINGS, previously reviewed in this blog a couple of months ago, and the worst movie ever made. This is a slightly better movie than THINGS since this has some entertainment value, but in most aspects, it’s just as bad. Beware the horror that is Beasties.