u/Tryhard_3

Wes Craven loads the mogwai into an annoying toy robot and, through twists, turns, and reshoots, makes something far weirder than Gremlins and even more lost between between PG and R.

This is the ultimate in 80’s “who is this movie actually for?” technology. An afterschool morality play, a crude teenage sex farce, and a cartoonish portrayal of child abuse conspire to arrive at Mary Shelley. It’s a confused, too-many-cooks-production and a borderline Alan Smithee movie. But the final result is silly and macabre fun, mostly thanks to added, 200% over-the-top gore here and there. The gore saves the movie from its clunky staging and acting.

The original stated vision of Craven is lost, if it was ever there to begin with, and the movie stops well short of asking the obvious and more provocative questions of its premise. But a good cinematic car crash is never a complete waste of time.

I expected yet another three-part anthology, some good, some lame, some charming in spite of themselves. The usual for that setup.

What I got instead was:

1. Bull from Night Court and the bad guy from Space Mutiny torture and murder hypnotized women in an insane asylum until the Space Mutiny guy gets bored and goes on an even bigger violence bender.
2. A dude plays a series of hilariously convoluted Russian Roulette games because his girlfriend met Bob Guccione at the circus.
3. Richard Moll returns as a Jesus skeptic, attracting the attention of a Nazi vampire. Cameron Mitchell floats in and out after the vampire kills a Holocaust survivor. Mitchell then explodes for no reason.

In reality, these are three incomplete movies packaged as an anthology to recoup at least some money at the time, now doomed to Tubi purgatory. They are so incomplete that there is not enough material to edit together coherent narratives or completed scenes.

However, they did manage to get the money shots filmed (dismemberment, voyeurism, lots of stop motion monsters, crash courses in brain surgery, etc.), such that you get:

1. Something that could be enjoyed as a music video, since you have no other choice.
2. Insight into what it must be like to work as an editor on shit movies.
3. The spiritual resurrection of Ed Wood.

If it ever gets boring, just wait 30 seconds for something random to happen. I really enjoyed myself, which I guess is proof that in the end I'll watch anything as long as it's zany enough.

This is a great chaser to Buddha's Palm or other rapid-fire stuff that comes off like it was made by lunatics.

P.S. God and Satan are on a train with break-dancers as a framing device, naturally.