If I hot-glued googly eyes onto my rubber oven mitt, it would be a better creature than the cruddy hand-puppets in Gremlins knock-off Munchies, which make the shonky demons in Ghoulies (1985) look positively convincing by comparison. Discovered in a South American cave by archaeologist Simon Watterman (Harvey Korman) and his annoying, wise-cracking, wannabe comedian son Paul (Charlie Stratton), Arnold the 'munchie' (as it is later dubbed) is a foot-tall extraterrestrial that can divide and multiply (no, I don't mean it is good at math... when cut in half, it becomes two creatures). Simon's greedy businessman brother Cecil (also Korman, who gets to be terrible twice) lays his hands on Arnold, leaving his irresponsible stoner stepson Dude (Jon Stafford) to babysit the alien. Before you can say 'With mogwai comes much responsibility', there are mischievous little creatures all over town (or under it, in the caves where Cecil has been dumping toxic waste).
Munchies is so bad, one wonders whether director Tina Hirsch had a beef with the original Gremlins, on which she worked as editor, and found it therapeutic to make a shameless rip-off of Joe Dante's classic. Or maybe it's she's just an untalented hack cashing in on a craze (other Gremlins clones of the time included Critters and Hobgoblins). Whatever the reason for its existence, Munchies is a Z-grade stinker from start to finish, with rubbish special effects, a terrible script, lousy humour, and diabolical acting (cult favourites Paul Bartel and Robert Picardo must surely count this as a career low).
2/10. Narrowly avoids getting 1/10 for the burger joint staffed by dwarfs, and for blonde hottie Traci Huber-Sheridan in a swimsuit (this was her one and only movie: the experience obviously made her reconsider her career choices).
Munchies is so bad, one wonders whether director Tina Hirsch had a beef with the original Gremlins, on which she worked as editor, and found it therapeutic to make a shameless rip-off of Joe Dante's classic. Or maybe it's she's just an untalented hack cashing in on a craze (other Gremlins clones of the time included Critters and Hobgoblins). Whatever the reason for its existence, Munchies is a Z-grade stinker from start to finish, with rubbish special effects, a terrible script, lousy humour, and diabolical acting (cult favourites Paul Bartel and Robert Picardo must surely count this as a career low).
2/10. Narrowly avoids getting 1/10 for the burger joint staffed by dwarfs, and for blonde hottie Traci Huber-Sheridan in a swimsuit (this was her one and only movie: the experience obviously made her reconsider her career choices).