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Little Monsters (1989 film)

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For other uses, see Little Monsters (1989 film) (disambiguation).
Little Monsters
Theaterical release poster
Directed byRichard Alan Greenberg
Written by
Produced by
  • John Davis
  • Jack Grossberg
  • Andrew Licht
  • Jeffrey A. Mueller
Starring
CinematographyDick Bush
Edited byPatrick McMahon
Music byDavid Newman
Production
company
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release date
  • August 25, 1989 (1989-08-25)
Running time
101 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$7 million
Box office$793,775

Little Monsters is a 1989 comedy film starring Fred Savage and Howie Mandel and directed by Richard Alan Greenberg.[1][2] It tells the story of a boy who befriends a real-life "monster under the bed" and discovers a secret world of monsters who sneak into children's bedrooms at night to pull pranks on them.[3][4]

Plot

Brian Stevenson's family has just moved to suburban Boston, and he feels isolated in his new neighborhood. One morning, Brian finds himself blamed for several things he did not do and is punished for them. Brian insists he is innocent and blames his younger brother, Eric, who claims to have seen a monster the night before. At school, Brian gets into a fight with bully Ronnie Coleman. That night, while sleeping in Eric's room for a bet, Brian hears a loud noise, and is unable to make it through the night. The next morning, Eric and his friend Todd find Brian on the living room couch and joke about Brian being unable to sleep the entire night in Eric's room. Brian bets Eric "double or nothing" to sleep in Eric's room another night. The next night, a determined Brian sets booby traps, and leaves cheese Doritos as bait to attract the alleged "monster."

Brian succeeds in trapping the monster intruder: a blue-skinned humanoid named Maurice. Though scared at first, Brian soon discovers that he and Maurice share the same interests and befriends him. Brian also learns that sunlight causes the monsters to collapse into piles of clothes. Over the course of several nights, Maurice shows him a fun time in the monster world beneath Eric's bed. It consists of every child's dream: all the junk food and video games they want, and no adults to tell them what to do. It also has innumerable staircases leading to the spaces beneath children's beds, from which the monsters cause trouble. Maurice and Brian have fun making mischief in other people's homes, and Brian also befriends a girl named Kiersten at his school.

One night, Maurice brings Brian along with several other monsters to the bedroom of an infant baby, with intentions to scare the baby. Brian finds this to be cruel. He opens the bedroom door, exposing the hallway light to the baby's bedroom. In doing this, Brian learns that he is turning into a monster, as his body parts shrink when the light hits him. He escapes the house through the front door and walks through Todd's backyard, where Todd is sleeping in a treehouse. Todd shines a flashlight on Brian, shrinking Brian's arm in the process. This causes concern for Brian, who saws off the legs of all the beds in his house.

Due to Maurice's failure to convert Brian (all monsters are former children), Eric is kidnapped by Snik — another, much crueler monster — through the couch bed in the living room. Brian enlists help from Todd, Kiersten and Ronnie. Gathering an assortment of bright lights, they enter the monster universe in search of Eric. "Zapping" various monsters along the way, they march to the master staircase, where Boy, the ruler of the monster world, resides. Boy offers to let Eric and Brian's friends go if Brian agrees to convert, but Brian refuses. The bright lights are destroyed and they are all placed with Maurice in a locked dungeon-type room. They manage to escape by turning Maurice into a pile of clothes via an improvised light and slide him through the door crack. They re-arm themselves with more powerful lights and venture back into the monster world. They return to Boy's domain, and are able to defeat him, while Maurice defeats Snik with a flamethrower.

Unfortunately, Brian and the others find that they cannot return home because the sun has risen. Faced with the prospect of turning into monsters if they do not return to the human world by sunrise, the children travel in the monster world from the Eastern time zone to Malibu where the sun has not risen yet and they manage to escape. Before entering the human world, Brian shares a heartfelt goodbye with Maurice, who gives Brian his leather vest to remember him by, promising to meet again with him someday. The kids run to a payphone and Brian calls home to say that he and Eric are in Malibu and begins to explain their story to their parents.

Cast

Brian's father is played by Daniel Stern, who was working on The Wonder Years as the elder, retrospective (voice-over) version of Savage's character, Kevin Arnold. Fred and Ben Savage, who are real-life siblings, play the role of both Brian and Eric since they are siblings, Fred and Ben Savage's sister Kala plays a little monster.[6]

Soundtrack

The movie soundtrack featured the Talking Heads song Road to Nowhere running over the end credits. Two original songs were written for the movie performed by Billie Hughes.[7][8][9][10][11]

The music supervisors were Gary Goetzman and Sharon Boyle.[12]

Plans for the release of the soundtrack album failed upon the pending bankruptcy of Vestron Pictures.

Track listing

No.TitleWriter(s)Performer(s)Length
1."How I Love You"Frankie Paul, A. EllisFrankie Paul 
2."Let's Go" The Paladins 
3."Reason To Change"Mike PiccirilloThe Michael Logan Band 
4."I Wanna Yell"Billie Hughes, Roxanne SeemanBillie Hughes 
5."(I Love The Sound Of) Breaking Glass"Nick Lowe Andrew Bodnar (as Al Bodner), Steve Goulding (as Anthony Goulding)Berton Averre 
6."Little Bitty Pretty One"Bobby Day (as Robert Byrd)Bobby Day (as Robert Byrd) 
7."Road To Nowhere"David Byrne, Jerry Harrison Chris Frantz, Tina WeymouthTalking Heads 
8."Magic Of The Night"Mike PiccirilloBillie Hughes 

Release

The film was financed by Vestron Pictures.[13] Along with a few other films, the distribution rights were sold to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists after Vestron's bankruptcy (though Vestron retained some foreign rights). It subsequently saw a limited release, with only 179 movie theaters showing the film at its high point, although it grossed just under US$800,000. A DVD release was made available in the United States and Canada on April 6, 2004. Lionsgate released the film on Blu-ray for the first time as part of their "Vestron Video Collector's Series" line on September 15, 2020.

See also

References

  1. ^ Landekic, Writer Lola; Albinson, Interviewer Ian; Perkins, Editors Ian Albinson Lola Landekic Will; Published August 13, 2013. "R/Greenberg Associates: A Film Title Retrospective". www.artofthetitle.com. {{cite web}}: |first2= has generic name (help); |first4= has numeric name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ Harrison, Nancy (1990-11-04). "It's Special Effects That Make the Actor". NYTimes.com. Retrieved 2016-04-05.
  3. ^ "MOVIE REVIEW : A Lighthearted 'Little Monsters'". Los Angeles Times. 1989-08-26. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
  4. ^ "Little Monsters - Movie Review". www.commonsensemedia.org. 2010-10-25. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  5. ^ Little Monsters, retrieved 2019-10-10
  6. ^ Little Monsters (1989) - IMDb, retrieved 2019-10-09
  7. ^ Luke (2010-10-24). "Between the Reels: Ongoing Quests: The Little Monsters Soundtrack". Between the Reels. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  8. ^ "Songs from Little Monsters". sweetsoundtrack.com. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
  9. ^ "Billie Hughes | Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
  10. ^ "Little Monsters Soundtrack and Movie Music - The 80s Movies Rewind". www.fast-rewind.com. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
  11. ^ Little Monsters (1989) - IMDb, retrieved 2019-10-09
  12. ^ "LITTLE MONSTERS". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
  13. ^ Thompson, Anne. "`DIRTY` AND DOWN". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2019-10-10.
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