"She's boring. And has an odd-shaped head."
Another thing this reminds me of is Good Omens, a splendid comedy novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry
Pratchett, which also uses the whole kids versus supernatural baddies thing to
hilarious effect, but I suppose it's a fairly common trope. It works well here,
anyway. The child actors are, well, child actors, but they're pretty much ok as
child actors go, and the whole thing is amusing enough to work without
requiring more than competent performances. The kids are such great characters,
though, especially Phoebe. I love their dialogue.
I'm not sure how realistic it is for a bunch of (mostly)
twelve year old kids to be so interested in Universal horror movies, of course,
but I think we can gloss over that. It's such a joy to see Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, Frankenstein's monster and, yes, even the Creature from the
Black Lagoon, all together at last. There are some nice little subtle bits of
homage, too, from the armadillo in the opening titles (evoking the original Dracula), to Frankenstein's monster ("Frank")
befriending Phoebe, the little girl. And I'm sure there are plenty more that
I've overlooked.
Probably the funniest bit of the film is where we cut to
Scary German Guy brandishing a knife, ominously, and then using it to cut a
tart for the kiddies because, as we all know, obviously you'd need a really
sharp knife for that. Our impression of the character changes completely at the
end of the scene, though, when we see those numbers tattooed on his arm. That's
probably the only serious moment in the film.
It's all a bit light, perhaps, and it's a very short film,
but it's definitely worth a look if you're fond of the many films like this
being made at the time. There's even a montage scene with a soundtrack that's
way beyond cheesy. It's not a particularly metatextual film, but there are lots
of nice little subversions of tropes here. Where else could you see the Wolf Man
being kicked in the bollocks?
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