MovieChat Forums > Monster in the Closet (1987) Discussion > More cliches than you can shake a stick ...

More cliches than you can shake a stick at

posted 17 years ago by McQualude
11 replies | jump to latest

Entertaining kids movie but I doubt I've ever seen so many cliches in one movie, there are too many to list. The whole movie is a cliche.

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[–] RobBase086-1 16 years ago

I bet it is a very entertaining kids movie for the little ones to watch! I am not sure if I have seen this movie or not because it has been ages and I have heard of it before but not too sure on it though.

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[–] smerd_70 16 years ago

"Entertaining kids movie but I doubt I've ever seen so many cliches in one movie, there are too many to list. The whole movie is a cliche."

What? A horror spoof with horror cliches? That's absurd!

Hey, this guy's not gonna leak all over my ice cream, is he?

[–] McQualude 16 years ago

I didn't realize it was a spoof. What movie are they spoofing?

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[–] craigman 15 years ago

I don't know why people think this movie is a spoof.
It is just a really bad movie in which nothing scary or funny happens.
-Craig

[–] Incredible_Brightness 15 years ago

I didn't "get it" either... But I liked it anyway. It WAS funny. And very clever.

[–] smerd_70 14 years ago

"I don't know why people think this movie is a spoof."

Because Bob Dahlin intended it as a spoof of 50's monster movies. The characters are right out of a 50's monster movie. Howard Duff as Dr. Pennyworth, Claude Akins Sheriff Ketchem, and Donald Moffat's General Turnbull are right out of a 50's monster movie.

Plus the Stella Stevens shower scene is a spoof of Psycho.

Of course nothing scary happens, it wasn't intended to be scary. Unless you actually think a movie where people are told to destroy their closets is supposed to be scary.

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[–] Incredible_Brightness 15 years ago

No clue. But I'm guessing - any number of 40's, 50's, and 60's invasion, monster, creature feature, and sci-fi flicks.

Look at the pieces - you have: A monster, A scientist, The military, A reporter, A town evacuating itself, TV news segments, Paranoia, A religious figure, A young child (The Fly, The Day the Earth Stood Still), A parent giving advice (The Day the Earth Stood Still), and other things.

A lot of these things were in those films.

How did you not notice it was a spoof?? It wasn't supposed to be serious.

[–] McQualude 15 years ago

With a spoof you can point to something and say this is being imitated... that thing being a specific movie, a sub-genre of movies, a person, a style of acting, a style of direction, something but you cannot spoof thirty years of random movies. I'm not saying it isn't a spoof but I can't name the parody. You might make a convincing argument that it is a tribute to various films if you could tie it back to those films, but seriously I think it is just a low budget movie with some charm reusing many tired story elements. I think calling it a spoof is giving far too much credit.

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[–] smerd_70 14 years ago

Then I'll point to the shower scene with Stella Stevens and Paul Dooley, an obvious spoof of Psycho.

Monster in the Closet is a parody of 50's monster movies. It may not spoof specific movies, but it does spoof that subgenre of films as a whole. Same as Student Bodies is a spoof of the slasher genre and not specific movies.

I collect dead pigeons then I press them between the pages of a book.

[–] larkstung 14 years ago

What about Henry Gibson trying to play the theme to Close Encounters on the xylophone. And the set up of the monster "in the closet" and in San Francisco back in 1986. There are tons of goofy, funny stuff in this movie.

[–] beto_sp0004 9 years ago

Also: "beauty killed the beast" is from King Kong.
And the priest is like the Exorcist; and the contact by music is from encounters of 3rd degree.