William Samuel Having just watched Hobgoblins, I now have a new entry for my most hated movies. It's an unbelievably pathetic rip-off of Gremlins which combines the worst parts of a horny teenager movie and a dead teenager movie. It was made for no other reason than the (futile) hope of making a quick buck by director/producer Rick Sloan, who obviously never met a teenager or saw a movie before making this one.The 'hero' of this picture is Kevin, the new assistant security guard at a near abandoned movie studio. He's joined in this worthless enterprise by his girlfriend Amy, a frigid nag, her friend Daphne, a vapor brained nympho, and Daphne's boyfriend Tony (at least I think that's his name) who belongs to an unspecified branch of the military and who or may not be related to the guys on Jersey Shore. Plus there's Kyle, who's only attributes are a vague resemblance to Carl Wilson and a tendency to call naughty 1-900 numbers at the least sensible times, and an elderly security guard who is absent for most of the movie.The titular hobgoblins are small, toothy, extremely ugly aliens who make all your wildest dreams come true, right up until the point where they kill you. They're unleashed onto the world and unsuspecting audiences by Kevin, who accidentally releases them from the vault where they've been imprisoned for the last thirty years. It seems that the old security guard has dedicated the last three decades of his life to making sure they never escaped, but somehow neglected to put a lock or even a warning sign on the outside of the vault. This is only slightly more inexplicable than the fact that despite knowing more about the creatures than anyone else in this travesty, he stays back at the lot after giving some instructions on how to catch them.So Kevin spends the rest of the movie chasing the ugly little buggers while they work their evil magic on him and his friends, granting their fantasies of being a war hero, being a stripper, actually meeting a woman, etc. Their pitiful capers take them to exotic locals such as Kevin's house, the inside of Tony's van, and the aptly named Club Scum, which looks oddly like a Rotary hall. The hobgoblins are eventually vanquished, although unfortunately without killing any of the people in this movie.As you hopefully realize by this point, there's no acting of any kind in this movie. There are also no real sets, no real plot, and no real budget. The titular critters are cheap hand puppets that mostly appear at the edge of the screen or partly obscured by furniture, the better to hide the puppeteer's hand. In the few instances where they directly attack someone, it's painfully obvious that the actors are just rolling around with plush toys. The fight with the octopus in Bride of the Monster was more convincing than this. At least the puppet wrestling has more plot significance than an earlier fight with gardening implements between Kevin and Tony, which takes place for no discernible reason except nagging from their girlfriends.What's worse, Hobgoblins constantly tries to be sexy, but has no idea how. The characters talk about getting it on with such earnestness and regularity that we can be certain whoever wrote their lines has never been past first base. Fifth graders know more innuendos and euphemisms than these bozos. And when Kyle dials up the local phone madam, her spiel comes off not so much erotic as schizoid. She used few complete sentences, and kept changing the pitch and volume of her voice, but apparently her routine has something to do with a mass breakout at the zoo.Nor does Club Scum offer anything remotely sexy. The lights are too dim to see anything clearly, most of the girls look like they crawled out of a gutter, and Amy's 'striptease' looks more like a spastic cheerleading routine, and shows amazingly little skin. It's telling that none of the items of clothing thrown into the sparse audience have any resemblance to the ones she was wearing. Halfway through her act, I began to wonder why a place called Club Scum would have no stripper pole, but dropped this line of inquiry to ponder why a bouncer would hurl someone into the club while yelling at them to get out.I could go on and on about how pitiful this movie is. I could spend page after page describing its utter stupidity and abysmal quality. I could fill an entire page ranting about the music alone. Bottom line, Hobgoblins is utterly worthless and there is no reason for anyone on earth to see it. A blank screen shown for the same amount of time would have been a vast improvement, and I would surely have gone mad had I not been watching the MST3K version. Even Joel, Tom, and Crow had a hard time with this one. Anyone foolish enough to watch Hobgoblins after reading this will deserve what they get. Zero stars.

dcb-4 Remember Gremlins? Wasn't that a fun movie? And Gremlins 2: Electric Gremlinpoo? Or whatever? Wasn't that one fun, too? Well here comes a movie from some people who hoped you saw Gremlins 1 & 2, Ghoulies 1 through 4, Troll 1 & 2, and even some of the lesser Muppet movies, and yet still crave more!!!! Somehow, a bunch of hobgoblins have been locked up in a film vault in a film studio (coincidence? I don't think so...), and they must be kept in there or the mayhem they cause will destroy the earth.So, someone is constantly leaving the door open.No, seriously. Every time they go towards the vault, the door is already open.The hobgoblins mostly do things to your mind, that way they don't have to actually interact with people, because....Well that stuff's expensive! There's also about five people in the movie, and all of about five sets. Not much happens. Perfect for riffing. I saw this as part of Elvira's 13 Nights of Halloween on Hulu, but MST3K did a much better job. Either way, don't watch it without a guide. It could be dangerous to your mental health.

stormofwar 1. Aliens resemble plush toys and hand puppets, while having arms that don't function.2. Aliens mastered intergalactic space travel, but they don't know how to push an unlocked vault door open, yet can push open a door being held shut by five people.3. Old Security Guards know how to get a hold of C4, and are just waiting for the right time to use it, say, when they are suddenly fired for no explainable reason.4. Apparently, US Army boot camp, in the 80's, involved several sessions of "garden tool combat", including the pirouette spin of death.5. To impress your prudish girl friend, you have to "save the world...err...neighborhood" from aliens.6. All women are sluts, either openly or secretly.7. Scummy night clubs look like bad diners.8. "Scummy" waitresses double as dancers for The Fontanelles (how did they get talked into this?) who can only do bad 60's dance moves.9. Army privates secretly dream of being Rambo.10. Grenades apparently have a setting for "flash-bang". 11. Being burned alive apparently only leaves one with minor burns on their arms.12. US Army Staff Sargeants apparently happen to always be in the area and do nothing about aliens in the area.13. Aliens apparently always "go home", which means back to the vault they were un-locked in.14. Aliens are attracted to bright lights, which apparently means in the Los Angeles area one would assume, the protagonist's house is the most brightly lit thing in the area.15. Showing 16 parking scenes in a movie makes the audience clamor for more.16. Vans from the 80's apparently have horrible suspension systems.17. Comedy is supposed to happen in this film.18. Horror is supposed to happen in this film.19. Spoofs and homages are supposed to happen in this film.20. This film cures insomnia.21. Apparently, garden tools make electronic keyboard noises whenever they are used, not just in fights (tell me I'm not the only one who noticed this).The simply truth is this film just came out wrong. Period. There isn't much meat on the bone, nor does it do anything really well. Even average. It's just bad. However, I've seen far worse, and the rake fight scene is pure comedy gold, intentional or otherwise.2/10 - Jaws 4 was worse then this. At least the film never took itself seriously.

garyb04 The first time I ever saw this piece of dung heap was through Mst3k and I couldn't believe anything could be this bad!!! Worse than Manos?? Yes,it's true!! I don't know if I should talk about the so-called acting or the many mistakes this movie has because there's so many to pick.I read that the director did it on purpose in hopes that MST3K would do this,but who knows!! The whiny hero to his non-supportive girlfriend to the nerdy pervert to the over-sexed floozy that is called Daphne;each actor is annoying in their own way.Even the creatures weren't even scary or even cute,like the ones in Gremlins,but it doesn't matter..If you're curious about seeing this,please,please see the Mst3k version and that's it,OK?? You have been warned!!!!!