Monster Makers

In 1951 filmmaker Dexter Brisbain writes and directs a monster movie called, "Monsters on the Loose." The film was made on a new type of film called Radium Acetate. A group of monsters somehow get out of the film during an electrical storm and terrorize the city. Brisbain is accused of staging the event and is told to never show the film again. Time goes by and the film is in a trunk in the basement only to be found by the son of the now elderly Brisbain's nurse. Recognizing the title as a long-lost film the son decides to show it to a friend on Halloween. As the film is being shown there is an electrical storm and suddenly the sheriff, Manikin (a living manikin), Verman (a wererat who transforms whenever he smells garbage), and a spirit who can take over anyone's body are loosed on the city. Most of the movie has the boy, Tim, and his girlfriend, Tina, chasing around trying to stop the monsters in their attempt to take over the town with the help of the film's sheriff.

The movie is a nice spoof of classic movie genera. Is it derivative? Yes. Is it predictable? Yes. Is it fun? Yes! So sit down and turn your mind off for a dose of good, clean, fun. We know that, eventually, the monsters will be brought back under control and be returned to the film stock from whence they came.

Definitely a piece of harmless fun - so stated by the fact that it is a Hallmark production! An updated version (although at times slightly scary for younger viewers) of every B-movie that MST3K (heaven!) loves to comment on. The storyline concerns an old film that has been banned from exhibition after its preview night due to 'monsters' literally jumping off the screen. Fast-forward 50-years-later and we find the director (George Kennedy) living alone and looking for a nurse to take care of him as he, apart from other ailments, has difficulty in sleeping - kinda surprising as he keeps dozing off! His newly hired nurse (Linda Blair) and her son (Tim McCallum) move in with him, and while helping to clear the basement of old props the son finds the copies of his supposedly unreleased (or 'unrealeased' if you read the website on-screen) of his movie 'Monsters On The Loose'. I don't want to give too much away but if you have younger children or adore Linda Blair you can't go wrong!

As this movie progresses it just gets worse and worse and all the more ridicules. What a waste of such a fine idea.

I must admit that as a fan of classic monster movies, the premise of this movie sounded interesting and fun to me. A couple of monsters from an 1951 B-movie know to escape from a movie and cause mayhem in a town during Halloween eve 2003. I know, it doesn't sound like "Citizen Kane" but as a fan I would expected this movie to provide plenty of fun and to simply entertaining and pay homage to all those bad B-monster movies from the '50's. Unfortunately the movie unintentionally turns into a bad B-movie itself by making some poor discussions with its story and characters and because it simply does not provide enough entertainment.

Biggest mistake the movie made was that it let a kid be the main character of the movie. Why oh why? Does this make this a kids movie as well? I don't think so, since this movie hardly entertains and possibly even gets too scary for the young ones at times. So exactly what kind of an audience was this movie targeted for? I really wouldn't know. It's not good and subtle enough to entertain the fans of '50's B-monster movies, it's too simple and childish for adults and it's too scary and boring for kids.

The movie of course already had a quite ridicules concept to begin with but it gets conceived all the more ridicules in the actual movie. The storytelling is extremely poor and the actors obviously had a hard time handling the bad dialog. You can almost see it in their eyes at times; 'What am I doing in this movie and what am I saying here?'. This approach could had worked, had it been done on intention and as a sort of homage to all those badly written B-monster movies from the '50's, with bad dialog and actors. But this movie clearly didn't intended this and preferred to choose a more serious approach, which about the worst thing they could had done.

The movie does have some surprising good actors in it but like I said before, they don't really know to handle the movie its bad script and dialog. Perhaps it's Adam Baldwin that gives the only good performance of the movie. George Kennedy's and Linda Blair's role is also too limited to leave a big impression really.

It's also one of those movies with a typical made for TV look, with also some real bad editing and musical score.

This movie is a real waste of a good idea.

3/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

OK, so parts of "Monster Makers" are a little flat (it IS a Hallmark movie, after all), but all the stuff about classic horror flicks is a lot of fun. The plot is what I would expect in a Tim Burton movie, as the son of the nurse (Linda Blair) of a horror director (George Kennedy) finds the director's unreleased movie...only to see the monsters materialize while he's watching it!

As someone who likes checking out the old monster movies - whether from Universal in the 1930s-1940s, or the 1950s-1960s sci-fi/horror - this movie is a real pleasure. It's icing on the cake that we have Regan McNeil herself co-starring. Like I said, parts of it are a little flat, but in the end it proves to be very enjoyable. You're sure to like it, and it might make you want to go rent a classic horror flick.