Monsters (TV Series) Household Gods (1990) User Reviews

Silly

[Woodyanders · 5/10 · 10 January 2020]

Independent wife and mother Deborah Levitt (an appealingly spunky portrayal by Deborah Van Valkenbourgh) hires a nanny to take care of her newborn baby and home. This in turn incurs the wrath of a mischievous creature known as a household god (Michael J. Anderson sporting goofy old wizened guy make-up) who makes Deborah's domestic life a living hell.

While director Michael Warren Powell keeps the inane story moving along at a quick enough pace, he alas never manages to find the right tongue-in-cheek tone to make the asinine premise work. Moreover, both the central message about keeping women in their place and the pretty depressing "happy" ending leave a bad aftertaste. Fortunately, Van Valkenbourgh tries real hard and just about makes this other unpalatable fiasco watchable. A lesser show.

not a bad idea, horrible execution

[motionsickness-53561 · 3/10 · 23 April 2024]

This could have been a decent episode given the concept. What's more horrifying than being betrayed by the ones you love so they can put you in a position of servitude? What's scarier than having your autonomy as a woman stripped away? As a person?

But instead of showing how terrifying it can be to find yourself trapped with a baby and a partner who won't hold up their end of the domestic work and parenting, the overall feel of the episode was cheesy and camp. I didn't feel like they captured how monstrous it would be to find the person you married conspiring with some awful bigoted creature just to hold you down because of prejudice they didn't reveal to you until you were in too deep.

Because of the camp feel and displays of "domestic bliss" if the women just give in, you almost feel like sexism is the moral of the story...

Soooo dated

[zephrim-60138 · 1/10 · 23 May 2021]

Some of the series has aged okay. Some has aged poorly and then there is this episode which needs to just be removed and we can all pretend it didn't happen.