Rating: 
Summary: Quick! Grab The Xylophone And The Kazoo!
Review: This rare film, made with lots of personal sacrifice from the cast and crew, is well worth the effort to seek out. "Monster In The Closet" is a satire of formulaic monster movies, and is done with great wit and charm on a low budget. The story concerns a mysterious set of serial murders in which all victims are killed in their closets. Early victims include the horror movie institution, John Carradine, this time as a cranky blind man who gets eaten. A spittoon-toting Sheriff (Claude Akins) tries to defeat the monster while ignoring scientific counsel from scientists Denise Dubarry and Henry Gibson. Gibson is particularly entertaining as a half-baked forgetful professor who thinks he can communicate with the creature via a xylophone (he can, as it turns out, not that it does him any good), and is forever prattling on about a frog he once found. The male lead is Donald Grant, who does a great job as the naive 'Pretty Boy' reporter sent to cover the story as harassment by veteran reporter "Scoop" played by Frank Ashmore. I have never been as pleased in a movie as when Grant stands up to Ashmore. When the creature finally does show up it is a gross looking kind of excrement monster with a second sub-head in a spoof of "Alien", which actually can be communicated with. In the end not only does Gibson get to chat with the creature via the xylophone, but Grant gets to chat via kazoo, as well. The Army seems powerless to do anything, a romance subplot flourishes, and we get to what would seem to be the climactic scene of the film. There is a great twist in the last 15 minutes, which I did not see coming, and probably most other people won't either. Suffice it to say, it is silly, involves a lot of property mutilation that I would not want to explain to my Homeowner's policy issuer, love, self-sacrifice (sort of), and hope springing eternal. (And ultimately a lot of expensive remodeling.) The film is a great, cheesy, fun movie to watch (best with friends) and I highly recommend it. Troma distributes it, but did not produce it, so it is not typical Troma fare. It is not particularly violent (except the scenes of violent closet disruption and some Army efforts at the grade school) or gory (well, OK, the monster mouth is pretty nasty), has little objectionable except one fairly gratuitous scene of Stella Stevens in an excellent "Psycho" parody, and is just plain fun. Watch a great low budget movie and see why B Movies can be so much fun. Grab "Monster In The Closet" today!
Rating:
Summary: Quick! Grab The Xylophone And The Kazoo!
Review: This rare film, made with lots of personal sacrifice from the cast and crew, is well worth the effort to seek out. "Monster In The Closet" is a satire of formulaic monster movies, and is done with great wit and charm on a low budget. The story concerns a mysterious set of serial murders in which all victims are killed in their closets. Early victims include the horror movie institution, John Carradine, this time as a cranky blind man who gets eaten. A spittoon-toting Sheriff (Claude Akins) tries to defeat the monster while ignoring scientific counsel from scientists Denise Dubarry and Henry Gibson. Gibson is particularly entertaining as a half-baked forgetful professor who thinks he can communicate with the creature via a xylophone (he can, as it turns out, not that it does him any good), and is forever prattling on about a frog he once found. The male lead is Donald Grant, who does a great job as the naive 'Pretty Boy' reporter sent to cover the story as harassment by veteran reporter "Scoop" played by Frank Ashmore. I have never been as pleased in a movie as when Grant stands up to Ashmore. When the creature finally does show up it is a gross looking kind of excrement monster with a second sub-head in a spoof of "Alien", which actually can be communicated with. In the end not only does Gibson get to chat with the creature via the xylophone, but Grant gets to chat via kazoo, as well. The Army seems powerless to do anything, a romance subplot flourishes, and we get to what would seem to be the climactic scene of the film. There is a great twist in the last 15 minutes, which I did not see coming, and probably most other people won't either. Suffice it to say, it is silly, involves a lot of property mutilation that I would not want to explain to my Homeowner's policy issuer, love, self-sacrifice (sort of), and hope springing eternal. (And ultimately a lot of expensive remodeling.) The film is a great, cheesy, fun movie to watch (best with friends) and I highly recommend it. Troma distributes it, but did not produce it, so it is not typical Troma fare. It is not particularly violent (except the scenes of violent closet disruption and some Army efforts at the grade school) or gory (well, OK, the monster mouth is pretty nasty), has little objectionable except one fairly gratuitous scene of Stella Stevens in an excellent "Psycho" parody, and is just plain fun. Watch a great low budget movie and see why B Movies can be so much fun. Grab "Monster In The Closet" today!
Rating:
Summary: A masterpeice from Troma
Review: Troma king of indie films has another great find here. It's a horror Movie with a lot of dark humor. I thought it was great, plus there are a lot a fimilar faces in it that you wouldn't expect to be in a low budget movie such as this. A real treat for adults and kids alike. A monster that travels around only through closets. What's not to like.
Rating: 
Summary: Where's Col. Sanders when you need him?
Review: Yet another homage to 50s sf/horror flicks. The movie predictably opens with a woman being eaten by the monster of the title (Kevin Peter Hall). No prizes for guessing where it's hiding. Being a PG movie there is no blood, just clothes being thrown out of the door. Strange considering this is a Troma production. But soon the monster, which resembles a man-sized chicken wing breaks out of the closet and as in all B movies wrecks havoc on the townspeople. Soon a biological technician and a small town obituary columnist(?!) are assigned to investigate the strange diappearance while the police, army and every man and his dog are called in to eradicate the chicken. This isn't one of Troma's best, or one of their "Best Worst" but you get to see Stella Stevens in the shower, so that's god enough for me to rate this 2 stars.
| 
