Sadly Over-hyped

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Devoted -MuNcHiEs- fan since 87'Let's keep this brief, this cheap little flick by no means requires a detailed and lengthy review.Producer/director extraordinaire Roger Corman was behind this delightfully cheesy little low-budget Gremlins knock-off, from 1987 we have: Munchies! It's certainly a light-weight among movies, but also very amusing and entertaining and the pacing is tight and rarely if ever slow. Clearly designed to NOT be taken with any seriousness, Munchies is a goofy, somewhat kinky take-off of Gremlin's, but unlike the Gremlin's the Munchies can talk and they prattle off a string of cheesy one-liner's throughout the film - some funny sounding voices on those critters. It stars Harvey Korman in a double-role, his "bad-guy" role Cecil Waterman - a mustachioed, slime-ball businessman, clad in a tacky looking polyester suit and topped off with a bad looking rug - is probably the funniest character. Then there's our hero "Paul" played by a shrimpy, bemulleted no-name actor, who wants to have a career in comedy, only his jokes are usually quite weak and along for the ride is his hot and curvy girlfriend Cindy, played by the lovely Nadine Van der Veld. On the topic of Nadine Van der Veld's butt, I always thought it a shame, watching her running around in those skin-tight Guess jeans, her shirt, being untucked, effectively covering from view that lovely looking derriere of hers - a missed opputunity. I'm sure it's because a lady directed the movie.After some unforeseen meddling by Cecil and stepson, the Muchies are soon running amuck and multiplying out of control, causing mayhem through mostly rural California, starting by making a quick get-away, hilariously, in a two-toned AMC Gremiln (PERFECT CHOICE!!!). On their way, zig-zagging through the countryside they cause mischief at ice cream parlors, miniature golf courses (a 36-hole!!! course), video rental joints and Burger-Land. Then the adventure goes underground (revealing incriminating evidence which is bad for Cecil Waterman's local business empire) and my favorite part of movie happens here, it's during a scene when their all, as a group, chasing Cindy down a tunnel, their over-the-top laughter is just priceless. Sadly moments later the Munchies meet their end, when their dealt a strong dose of "Fire of the Gods". Paul sure can deliver in a pressing situation, after all he's the hero don't forget, an unlikely one - but none the less. The end sets the stage for a sequel, but as of yet I've haven't see a second Munchies movie. With a very brisk running time of only 83 minutes, the Munchies certainly falls into the "short cheapy" category.I can't figure it, some people REALLY take things a bit too seriously. Reading through some of the reviews here, some people actually feel the need to get pissy and vinegary ("what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" or "about as entertaining as a kick to the head"), when reviewing a movie as completely harmless and goofy as Munchies - pretty ridiculous folk's. You can do so much worse then this believe me. Munchies isn't anywhere near the bottom of the barrel - not even close. I've always deemed it a minor classic and it's easily one of the better Gremlin's knock-offs. On an end-note, the cheese-factor for this (starting with it's title) is extremely high, which is a very common thing for movies made in the mid-80's. That's the main reason why it's funny, because of it's over-the-top nature. So just sit back and let any semblance of seriousness leave your mind and enjoy the Munchies.....with some munchies.

. . . And that's a bad thing, because at least if this had been a Troma film, it would have had wanton violence and a greater sense of anarchic abandon that might have brought my rating up a bit.So what we have instead is a very tame (rated PG), barely lukewarm, low budget (Roger Corman produced it with an unknown director who has subsequently remained unknown) Gremlins (1984)/Critters (1986)-wannabe with almost exclusively flat humor, little of the logic that made Gremlins work so well--fantasy logic or not, no suspense, no sense of adventure, and no violence or nudity to make up for it.Although I'm sure some of the problems with the film are inherent in the script--let's face it, no one could deliver these jokes so that they would be funny--it seems like the biggest blame has to fall into the lap of the director, Bettina Hirsch. In more capable hands, Munchies could have been entertaining.After all, it starts out like many great adventure films. Simon Waterman (Harvey Korman) and his son Paul (Charles Stratton) are in Peru on an archaeological dig. Simon is a bit of a wacky archaeologist who is always floating theories about the connections between ancient sites and alien civilizations. For example, he thinks he sees evidence of laser-cutting on ancient stonework. So they're at Machu Picchu looking for more evidence of Simon's theories when they happen upon a secret chamber. Inside they quickly find the animal they later dub "Arnold", one of the titular munchies.They take Arnold back home to their small California desert town. Simon, who thinks that Arnold is probably an alien creature, has to go off to a colleague's lecture, and he plans on telling the colleague that he finally has an alien specimen. Paul and his extremely cute girlfriend, Cindy (Nadine Van der Velde), are left in charge of Arnold, but as they haven't seen each other in a long time, they leave Arnold unsupervised while they hop in the sack.Meanwhile, Simon's brother Cecil (played also by Korman in a dual role), owner of a successful snack foods company, is eager to buy off Simon's home and land--they're adjacent to his own. Simon doesn't want to sell, so Cecil hits upon a scheme to steal Arnold. Things gradually spiral out of control, and the munchies, who have a mean streak to go along with their cravings for junk food, begin to overrun the town.That reads better in a summary than it plays on the screen. The best shots in the film are those with natural landscapes in the background, such as when characters are driving on the outskirts of the desert town. Interiors, with the exception of Cecil's home, tend to look like poorly decorated, cheap sets, and more importantly, they tend to show that Hirsch is not very skilled at blocking and setting up shots. Oddly, given the paucity of the production design overall, Cecil's home is quite a gem, imbued as it is in overblown 1980s style down to the smallest details, and Cecil's stepson, Dude (Jon Stafford), was an amusing counterpoint. Too bad, then, that he's out of the film so quickly.At any rate, Korman is a fun actor, but he comes across much better here as Simon than as Cecil. Unfortunately, Simon ends up being absent for most of the film. Cecil, who is differentiated physically by a ridiculous wig and facial hair, is not only the "evil capitalist" of the film, he's one of Korman's classic inconsiderate, boorish characters--that was one of his specialties, frequently capitalized on in "Carol Burnett Show" (1967) skits. Unlike "The Carol Burnett Show", which tended to succeed because directors Clark Jones and Dave Powers had a studied way of pushing the skits just to the brink of chaos, Hirsch reins Korman in way too far, and the Cecil character just doesn't work the way it should.There are a lot of other director-related problems, not the least of which is wonky pacing and editing, which completely sap any possible suspense or compelling dramatic impact from the film. Even scenes that should have been shoe-ins for amping up the drama--such as when the munchies are harassing an old lady on the road--are put together far too awkwardly to have much affect.There are also serious logical problems with the story as it stands. Where did the munchie in the chamber at Machu Picchu come from? The film's trailer seems to show an answer to this, but it was edited out of the final cut. A more serious problem is that, unlike gremlins, there is no clear reason for munchies to go from cute, cuddly furballs to menacing monsters. It just happens. Further, because Munchies was kept PG, and the violence remains toned down, when the creatures are in their monster phase, they're never very threatening. They're also easily dispatched, at least temporarily.Admittedly, the gist of the film isn't suspense, horror, compelling drama or any of that other stuff, but humor. It's intended more as a spoof of Gremlins and the countless rip-offs in its wake. The only problem with that is that the film just isn't funny, even though I chuckled a couple times. A surprisingly high percentage of the jokes are bland clichés. Too much of the remaining material consists of non-sequiturs. Given bad timing from Hirsch, it all just falls flat. There was potential to make a film that while a spoof, was both funny and frightening, hilarious and disturbing, cheesy and suspenseful, all at the same time, ala Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988). Too bad, then, that Munchies comes nowhere near that.

This movie was made for people who found Gremlins too serious and Critters to hardcore. Like many of the critters/trolls/gremlins movies of the 80's this movie is bad. The sad part is that there's no punchline to that comment. It's just bad and not in a funny way.The problem with this miniature monster movie is that it actually tries to be funny and ends up being as successful in doing that as Howie Mandell was in Walk Like A Man. What made the other 80's horror movies into classics was that they were genuinely trying to be scary, but were hilarious because they failed so miserably. Someone must have told Bettina Hirsch (yes THE Bettina Hirsch)she had a knack for comedy before she started directing this movie. Unfortunately they were wrong.Sure seeing a weird little mutated cross between a ferret and a tumor wearing a brown trenchcoat and throwing pool balls at an outcast from the Lost Boys is amusing, but not enough to save the movie.By far the most annoying part of the movie is the Paul character. His Paul Reiser wannabe schtick is enough to make you start fast forwarding from the time of his first scene until the ending credits only stopping once to see a scene where a munchie throws pool balls at a guy...not that I did that.So the bottom line is run, don't walk, to your nearest Blockbuster and shake hands with the manager and thank him for not having the grapes to stock this pile of garbage on the shelves.

When I saw this movie, I couldn't believe my eyes. Where these hilarious creatures, dustbin muppets with big pointy teeth, really meant to be scary? Or where they designed to have a good laugh (I sincerely hope so). If you watch carefully you can even see the strings operating them (better; dragging them across the screen). The whole was rather funny than scary and I had a good time watching the movie because I was amazed by its overall incapacity to have only one good part. It is one big joke from beginning to end and I believe this movie belongs into a new category: So unbelievable crappy you'll be laughing from beginning to end. (I'm not even gonna try to comment on the acting or all the other things)