Hobgoblins
It was on the album Hesitation Marks that Trent Reznor sang of his feelings of being “a copy of a copy,” while on the Mariposan colony in another space and time Doctor Katherine Pulaski expressed her concerns that the unresolved issue of “replicative fading” would over time become an insurmountable issue, eventually rendering the next generation of clones intended to continue the colony as unviable, but before either of those was Hobgoblins.
Released in 1988, was Hobgoblins a knock-off of Critters, released two years before, in many ways itself a knock-off of Gremlins released two years before that? All three are comedy horrors featuring small monsters who wreak havoc on the lives of more-or-less teenagers, the origin of the Mogwai unclear but the Krites specifically alien as are the unnamed species held in the vaults of the also unnamed film studio where much of Hobgoblins is set.
Security guard McCreedy (Jeffrey Culver) having kept their secret for thirty years, new recruit Dennis (Kevin Kildow) is easily seduced into their fantasies, believing himself to be a rock star until, like Humpty Dumpty, he takes a great fall; replaced by Kevin (Tom Bartlett), a break-in occurs on his second shift resulting in the creatures being released, causing his friends Kyle and Daphne and her boyfriend Nick (Steven Boggs, Kelley Palmer and Billy Frank) to lose what few inhibitions they have while the more staid Amy (Paige Sullivan) shows a new side.
Written and directed by Rick Sloane and made on a budget which would at best just about buy a decent second-hand car, Hobgoblins is perhaps now best known as being fodder for a ninth season episode of ninth season episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 broadcast only ten years after the film was originally released on video, edited to allow for the host segments and with the poor quality of the print not doing any favours for the already compromised production.
Seen without cuts and in higher definition, Hobgoblins remains far from a masterpiece, strangely reminiscent of another notorious MST3K favourite, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies in that the vague plot is loose to the point of abstract and it boosts the running time with performances of the bands at Club Scum, considerably better than any of the acts of Ray Dennis Steckler’s notorious 1964 stinker, but it never achieves whatever vague ambition it aimed for.
The pacing geriatric and the dialogue repetitive with most of the lines not worth saying even once, it got the actors it deserved with performances on the whole barely rehearsed and amateur, though the ensemble are bravely game for anything, but despite aspects of science fiction, horror and comedy it never commits to or succeeds at any, leaving only the effects as a potential selling point, but the titular creatures are crude puppets where it is apparent during the attacks it is the victims who are responsible for all the movement; an oddity, but ultimately a forgettable one.
Hobgoblins will be streaming on the Arrow platform from Friday 21st February
