Goblin


Title: Goblin (1993)
Rating: 2/5
Genre: Horror
Starring: Bobby Westrick, Jenny Admire, Kim Alber
Director: Todd Sheets
Duration: 74 mins

While sitting around watching horror movies, eating pizza, and talking about old times at a housewarming party, a group of headbangers discover that they are being targeted by a bloodthirsty goblin summoned by the previous owner of their residence. Carnage ensues.

I tried to stretch out the plot summary as much as I could, but don’t worry, I have PLENTY to talk about here. Chances are, you’ve never heard of shot-on-video auteur Todd Sheets or his $10 movies. His early 90’s effort Goblin is easily one of his best to date. However, shooting on video with an obviously miniscule budget usually brings along some technical problems. In the case of this splatter fest, a whole boatload of technical problems.

I really don’t know where to begin, so I’ll simply start with our antagonist: the goblin, which reminds me of The Beast in La Belle et la Bête sporting cargo shorts and tennis shoes. Only half of the time is the goblin even in make-up and costume. The other half he is off-screen except for his blatantly human hairy forearms and a clean white t-shirt. Also, I have no clue why this demon from another dimension has a penchant for using gardening and power tools as his means of execution more often than his brute strength, but I’m not complaining in that department as the kills are all very gruesome, meaty, and bloody. Some of the best of the prolonged gore scenes involve vaginal mutilation, anal impalement, and the extracting of a brain through an ear. While there are entrails aplenty, the blood is anything but red. Lastly, regarding the goblin, his exposition is one of the worst and unbelievable attempts at a backstory I have ever heard. I just don’t understand why such a low budget gore flick even NEEDS a backstory. I wasn’t wondering where the goblin came from! I didn’t care!

And onward we go… This film is loaded with typical horror movie clichés: the old “if we don’t do something fast, we’re all gonna die” routine; reaching for the doorknob very, very slowly without any built up tension to necessitate such an act; and walking around in the dark for 10 minutes saying “Is anybody there?” We’ve all seen this hundreds of times before, which leads me to the next problem: referencing better movies. In my book, this is a no-no. Friday the 13th, Halloween, Lucio Fulci, and George Romero are all name-dropped as if we didn’t already know the filmmakers liked horror movies. The Dutch angles used towards the end are reminiscent of Sam Raimi’s avant-garde camerawork in the Evil Dead movies, as is the plot to some extent. And contained in this movie is a stolen ambient soundtrack from the Scott Spiegel film Intruder (which I have reviewed previously). I suppose that the original lo-fi heavy metal score makes up for this little copyright infringement, but I’m almost certain that this ambient track isn’t the only part of the soundtrack lifted from another film.

Let’s attack the acting now. It is baaaaad, but luckily for us it provides this film with some much needed unintentional humor. Funny lines such as “Eat saw bitch!” and “Honey, I’m home. OH MY GOD! NO! OH NO!” had Yours Truly laughing in his seat. The characters are not very interesting, though. They seem to simply serve to keep the movie running along while other smaller characters pop in and out, serving no purpose whatsoever, except maybe goblin fodder. Director Sheets even makes a small appearance, looking like a chubby Dave Mustaine in short shorts. But the most hilarious scene arrives when our heroes unsuccessfully try to stop the goblin by running into him with a lawnmower. Some dishonorable mentions include visible cameraman shadows and unnecessary flannel-wearing zombie filler tacked on at the end, most likely to make the running time closer to feature length.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is a bad movie. One that is so entertaining despite its many flaws that I can’t help but recommend it to someone who can tolerate SOV splatter. It is a certainty that I will soon be adding Todd Sheets’ Zombie Bloodbath trilogy to my DVD collection. Enjoy

Comments

  1. B. Bennett11 January 2012 at 02:27

    Goblin is one of my favorite flicks by Sheets. Perhaps because it was one of the first. So it has that magical attachment. Yeh, it was crap. But you can tell it was a bunch of friends having a good time. To me that makes it worth it.

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