User reviews

So there's an old security guard and a guy who dies and then there's KEVIN, the world's biggest wuss. Kevin wants to impress his incredibly insensitive, bratty, and virginal girlfriend AMY. As he returns from work to... a random house... he finds his "friends," the sexually confusing red-shorted KYLE and the truly revolting sluttish DAPHNE. They are soon joined by Daphne's boyfriend, the trigger-happy sex-crazed macho lunkhead NICK. And there's the title creatures, horrid little dogeared puppets who kill people by giving them their heart's desire. Kyle's heart's desire is to mate with a creepy, yucky woman in spandex. Nick's heart's desire is to throw grenades in a grade school cafeteria-- I mean nightclub. Kevin's heart's desire is to beat up a skinny thug with nunchucks. Amy's heart's desire is to be a disgusting slut. Daphne's already a disgusting slut, so she doesn't have a heart's desire. Along the way a truly hideous band sings a truly odd song. The hobgoblins randomly go back to where they came from then blow up. "Citizen Kane" cannot hold a candle to this true masterpiece of American cinema.

No matter how you look at this movie, it is just awful.

If you view it as a horror, then it is an unscary movie with the monsters being hand puppets.

If you look at it as a comedy, then you will notice most of the humor falls flat and is just lame.

If it is a romance you will wonder why a guy would stay with such a B**ch!

If you look at it as an action you can't really pull for the whiny hero.

As you can see this movie just fails to deliver anything remotely entertaining. As mentioned the monsters are obvious puppets and this film was another attempt at a Gremlins type movie. This however has the worst looking monsters of that genre. Critters looked pretty good, so did the Ghoulies, heck even the puppets from the Munchies looked better than these. The characters in this film are thouroughly unlikable. The hero is a whiney security guard, his girlfriend is always complaining, they have a tramp friend who has a jerk military boyfriend, and another friend who is a spaz. At one point in the movie the hero and the military guy fight with rakes...this movie is just utterly stupid. I like the scene when they are in the dreaded club scum (which is obviously not a club, but more likely a diner) and the hero tells the waitress that none of them are 21. Give me a break, I am 25 and I look younger than any of them.

Hobgoblins currently sits as the 30th worst movie ever made on IMDb and lets be clear it's terrible.........pee poor stuff that makes the average cheesy 80's movie look artistic.

In a cross between Critters, Gremlins & an ounce of Wishmaster this creature feature doesn't deserve its place on that list and I'm baffled why it's there. Movies on that list are usually there because of an actor/actress (Paris Hilton) because it's got a gimmick or an angle that upsets people or non-existent production values.

Hobgoblins isn't worth your time but one of the worst films ever made? Hardly.

If movies like Ghoulies rip off Gremlins, then Hobgoblins sinks to the new low of ripping off garbage like Ghoulies. These barely-animated furbies have some kind of scheme to fulfill fantasies (which involve basically groteque characters' sex dreams - oh joy), but what that has to do with anything is anybody's guess, except to let the director indulge his kinky penchant for erotica. They show this down in the 8th circle of Hell, one suspects. There's no real plot - just "goblins - kill!" and feeble attempts at humor and a mild attempt to arouse the viewing audience.

This movie is not just bad, not just corny, it is repulsive. Something about Daphne, about the creepy call-girl, about the whole damn (and I use the word literally) film radiates a grotesquery that would offend a brothel mistress. This film makes my skin crawl, makes me regret having reproductive organs, and makes me feel unclean.

One of the things that bothers me most about this movie is that they used such a good concept. A creature that makes fantasies with disastrous results, rather than the cliché Worst Nightmare and the overdone Twisted Wish, is a truly fascinating film idea.

Thought: The reason why hobgoblins need to be killed before day is that they are attracted to bright lights. During the day, bright lights don't show up well, so they could go anywhere.

Count the Hobgoblins: Four hobgoblins drive out of the film studio, and yet at least nine of the pernicious plush-toys are killed throughout the course of the movie.

Discussion Question: If you had a frigid, demanding, unappreciative girlfriend, would you enter garden-tool-combat with a military chunkhead? Explain.

Hobgoblins....Hobgoblins....where do I begin?!?

This film gives Manos - The Hands of Fate and Future War a run for their money as the worst film ever made. This one is fun to laugh at, where as Manos was just painful to watch. Hobgoblins will end up in a time capsule somewhere as the perfect movie to describe the term: "80's cheeze". The acting (and I am using this term loosely) is atrocious, the Hobgoblins are some of the worst puppets you will ever see, and the garden tool fight has to be seen to be believed. The movie was the perfect vehicle for MST3K, and that version is the only way to watch this mess. This movie gives Mike and the bots lots of ammunition to pull some of the funniest one-liners they have ever done. If you try to watch this without the help of Mike and the bots.....God help you!!

After Gremlins hit box office gold it must have seemed like a really good idea to rip it off. Unfortunately Hobgoblins lacks some of the key ingredients of Gremlins, notably the likable characters, plot, credibility and effects, and Gremlins was quite funny in places whereas Hobgoblins just isn't.

In fiction good writers try hard to make you like the main character, that's how fiction has worked ever since some Greek guy put a mask on and pretended to be someone else. So what character have you got to bond with in Hobgoblins? How about a whiny henpecked little weasel in a dead end job with a totally frigid girlfriend and a bunch of friends that are more irritating than having Vanessa Feltz sewn into your face? His friends include a rake-fighting military tough guy, some weedy gay guy in red shorts and a girl so sexual that the mere sound of her boyfriends car horn causes her to lift her skirt up in anticipation.

The film has one good idea, basically these hobgoblins can bring your every fantasy to life. Sadly this good idea is squandered by the actors sheer inability to act as well as plenty of scenes where they hug plush toys to themselves and try to act scared. There's not much logic to it either, the hobgoblins are supposedly locked safely away in a vault with a cage around it. But when we see it neither are even shut. How much effort would it have taken to shout at a stage hand to close them? Too much for this movie unfortunately.

I couldn't escape the feeling that the people responsible for this film put in the very least effort they thought they could get away with. The poster (shown to your left) depicting a 50's pinup being bummed by a gremlin is pretty tacky too.

How Rick Sloane was allowed to make five movies is harder to believe than cold fusion. This film is absolutely criminal. Before watching this movie I thought Manos: Hands of Fate was the worse piece of crap I ever saw, but at least Manos moves so slowly you might fall asleep, thereby rescuing your eyes from the pain it will suffer. The greatest tragedy of this movie is that the old man that keeps the Hobgoblins "locked" up makes it to the final scene. The time I spent watching this movie was an absolute waste of my life.

Hobgoblins is without a doubt one of the best movies I have ever seen. The storyline is compelling, the special effects are breathtaking and the fight scenes are very original and well made. This is definitely one of the movies of the century. I give this movie 10 and readily recommend it to anyone.

The fact that this movie is higher on this list than "Monster A-Go-Go" AND "Castle of Fu-Manchu" is a travesty. I mean, this movie was a riot. Sure, it wasn't great, but it wasn't THAT bad. I mean, at least it's watchable! "MAGG" is absolutely wretched in every aspect. The lighting is atrocious, the dialogue is incomprehensible (of course, that's a good thing, right?), and the plot makes no sense whatsoever. I would watch "Hobgoblins" without MatB and still enjoy it. But...shudder..."MAGG," even WITH JatB is like torture of some sort. So I proudly give this movie a thumbs up. Everyone unite, put "Monster A-Go-Go" where it belongs! "Hobgoblins," "Space Mutiny," "Soultaker," etc...these movies aren't THAT BAD compared to the horror that is "Monster A-Go-Go."

Ever seen a movie that actually caused you pain to watch? This is movie is the poster child of that. The only reason I watched it at all was because it was on MST3K. HOBGOBLINS is without a doubt the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life.

The story is stupid, so I won't go into much detail. I don't really remember many of the characters anyway. A loser named Kevin (Tom Bartlett) is trying to make his annoying and non-supportive girlfriend proud of him, so he takes a job as a security guard and unleashes a band of stupid-looking puppets called Hobgoblins, who kill people by giving them what they really want. The way this leads to people getting killed is very idiotic. The hobgoblins go on a rampage which results in one guy getting hurt a little and a car getting destroyed. The ending is also stupid and not worth bringing up.

The acting is the worst I have ever seen. None of the actors went anywhere after this movie, nor did any of them deserve to. The special effects, if you can really call them that, were unforgivable. The hobgoblins themselves are the most fake looking puppets I have ever seen.

Unless in MST3K, this movie should be avoided at all costs. I am only praying that some day the government will burn every copy still around, or maybe use it as a weapon in the army someday.

For starters, "Hobgoblins" tries to ape the more successful "Gremlins". That's bad enough but they don't even try to make anything that closely resembles a movie here. Instead, it's more like a bargain basement, everything-must-go clearance of embarrassing scenes, inappropriate sound FX, acting as bland as unflavored tapioca and a script that takes everything humans hold sacred in their motion pictures and throws 'em down the old tube-aroo.

The plot? Grrrr.... Meddling kids track down gremlin-like creatures from movie lot before they kill people by projecting their fantasies. Sound cool, does it? Well, see that wall on the other side of your room? Run right at it, top speed, face first. See, THAT is cooler than this movie.

You dare to doubt? Quick, name something else one of the leads has been in other than this. What other scripts have the writers done since "Hobgoblins"? Name another Rick Sloane directoral effort. How many "Hobgoblins" action figures do you have? See? THANK you.

I cannot believe I took so long to write about such a horrible film. I'd rather write about more important things; like the separation of church and state, economic restructuring in Europe, that kind of thing. But no, "Hobgoblins" it is and it is bad - bad like your grandparents' wallpaper, bad as pink flamingos on your lawn, bad like underwear that says "Home of the Whopper"...and I think we'll stop there.

Well, Mike and the robots fight valiantly but try as they might, they can do only so much with "Hobgoblins" before they realize that, yes, the director DOES need kicked in the shin.

Real, real hard.

One star for "Hobgoblins", seven stars for the MST3K version.

Wow, I just finally managed, after several attempts, to finish watching this god awful movie, only to learn that Rick Sloane and his production team have completed a straight-to-video sequel this year.

Of all movies reviewed by MST3K--and they truly dig from the bottom of the barrel, screening the reputationally bad 'Manos,' 'Werewolf,' 'The Incredibly Strange,' and the lesser know disasters like 'Laserblast,' 'Zombie Nightmare,' and 'Time Chasers,'--this certainly has to be the absolute biggest pile of garbage they'd ever shown (which makes it perfect for riffing). Very simple, the movie is about a bunch of Munchies-like gremlins on the loose, exploiting people's desires for fame, fortune, prowess, and of course, sex in ways that end up with people getting killed. But this is the kind of movie where the acting is so ridiculous (a test of machismo, for example, is illustrated by two guys who battle in the front yard with garden tools), the writing is so forced (such as the oft-described scene of a gremlin hanging on the arm of one girl who would notice it, if only she turned her head a quarter to the left... and this isn't the first time in the movie this happens), and the story is so... rarely given attention (hence the MST3K riff about a "law in the future where films have to be made by FILMmakers), that you actually root for the furry puppets to kill off everyone on screen. Worst movie... ever.

Little furry monsters escape from film vault and it's up to some idiot teens to save the day! It ends up at a strip-bar.

Absolutely lame trash horror of the 80's, Hobgoblins is one of the worst excuses for a horror movie ever made. Hobgoblins has one flat-liner of a story, some hilariously awful 'special effects', stupid attempts at juvenile humor, a painfully bad cast, and not a bit of talent in sight. Want to know what the FX of this movie consists of? It's basically people rubbing plush 'creatures' on over-acting teens, that's the kind of cheap happenings here.

Believe me, Rick Sloan should be ashamed of himself!

BOMB out of ****

At first a held certain reservations against watching a film with what appears to be a no-brainer title for a film about the very same beasts, but sometimes the direct option is the best.

Starring Tom Bartlett as Kevin, a young and brave assistant security guard, and Jeffrey Culver as McCreedy, the wizened old security guard who has seen too much, "HOBGOBLINS" takes us on a horrifying journey to the realm of the darker aspects of human consciousness made flesh. After a lengthy but suspenseful tour through the corridors of a mysterious storage facility, a group of frightening creatures known as 'hobgoblins' are released from a wicked bank vault within the facility. These demonic beings posses the ability to take the lives of humans by making their innermost wishes come true, hover at human shoulder height at will, and drive golf carts. What follows is a twisted ride into the psyche, as a gang of hormone-laden teenagers witness the horror of the hobgoblins, and their own inner selves.

Writer/Director/Director of Photography/Editor/Producer Rick Sloane allows the audience no pause from the terror of the sickening creatures, and the atmosphere and execution is overall spot on. Forgivably Freudian, the movie posits that when the primitive urges of the id infect the aspirations of the superego, what wishes we hope to fulfill will inevitably doom the self, but through the use of rationality and technology, even the most misguided soul can be retrieved from apparent demise.

Unfortunately, the film is held back from inducing true insight in its audience due to some unfortunate use of prosthetic eyebrows on Mr. Culver. This distracting little mishap did cost the film one star in this review.

In the end, "HOBGOBLINS" left me with an optimistic view of humanity. For if we can successfully survive the onslaught of such abominations that attempt to let our darker selves consume us, what else is there that could truly destroy us? I found the title ultimately an impeccable choice, since as we all know: hobgoblins are more introspective than regular goblins.

*********/10 stars.

I know the most common version Is The MST3K one But I saw not only that Version but the Original. There are a few parts edited like MCcreedy's bosses scenes were cut Kyle's first phone sex call Kevin telling him that he's got a ton of phone bills for the sex hot-line not knowing Kyle is the reason and Nick suiting up for his grenade throwing spree. This is just to weird to understand it has so many plot-holes a pointless rake fight that seems like it goes on for ten minutes The Hobgoblins don't appear in till 20 or so minutes into it. The movie just makes no sense 1 person dies in a very cheesy way maybe two Nick's sergeant gets blown up but he could have been an illusion. The Hobgoblins can cause people to see things but other people can see someone else's illusion which is solid to other people to. This is easily one of the cheesiest movies i ever saw The beginning is weird the middle is Boring and unintentionally funny and the End has to be seen to be believed MCcreedy could have blown up the vault at any time so he's responsible for the whole movie. If that isn't enough there a part were some one is being fanned with a bottle acting like there getting hit an extra tipping there table over to make a chase look more wild.

I can't review this without mentioning MST3K, since even a tenth of the reviews and responses this film has received would not be here if Hobgoblins hadn't been featured in their 9th season. As of this writing, it's still available on DVD in Rhino's MST3K volume 8 boxed set. While there's no official consensus, I believe that this it the only true "Maw of Hell" caliber film they did for Sci-fi channel (see the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide). While most movies in that category tend to come from the the mid 60s (the oily period), this one from the 80s was far more excruciating for me since that was the decade of my childhood. Nearly every positive memory of 80s pop culture was unearthed, beaten with garden tools, urinated on, and then reburied in a humorous position. And I wasn't even one of the badly scarred viewers.

Since there are already over 150 reviews of this film on this site, they probably don't need another synopsis of this movie. To explain just how bad this movie is, I need to tell a story of the second time I saw it with a group of people, in the spring of 2000. I'd already shown these three friends half of Rhino's then released tapes, including Manos, Eegah, and Red Zone Cuba, all Maw of Hell caliber. It was a Friday night, so we stopped after the first quarter to watch Space Ghost, and the second for Gundam Wing, so the wretchedness unfolded upon them slowly. With no show to pause for after the third quarter, I made to fast forward through the commercial, only to be halted by their cries, begging me to stop. The youngest among us was actually curled into a fetal position, shuddering. They implored me to just give them a few minutes to recover, to which I responded, "Oh, well I know it's bad, but I guess I may be a little desensitized since..." Now these people were close friends with whom I had shared much, like confessing attractions to various cartoon characters as 3:00 AM, and my most bizarre substitute for toilet paper I've ever resorted to story. So I had freaked them out routinely in the past, but when I finished that sentence with "...I've already seen this 3 or 4 times.", that was the only time in my life that I have looked into the faces of other human beings and seen genuine horror. If you were just going by their reactions, you'd have sworn I'd said something more along the lines of, "Well, I know live puppies SEEM hard to chew at fist, but after my dog had her third litter..." And this was the MSTed version. I shudder to think of the effects of the uncut version, especially for the MST crew themselves, who had to watch this 10 times in a week. I'm not sure the show completely recovered after this; a little of the love seemed to be gone.

So like I said: read other reviews for a synopsis. The point of mine was to warn all novices to watch as many other MST3K episodes as possible to soften the blow of this one. I've seen evidence of short-term mind-warping in viewers who made this their first MST, and long term trauma in those who actually watched the regular version. Follow these guidelines, and you'll find it a least as funny as it is painful.