I already knew this movie was legendarily bad, so I only have myself to blame for sitting down and watching it when it came on TV. To understand how this atrocity came to be, you have to understand what they were thinking when they were making it. Garbage Pail Kids was a trading card parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids that was basically a gross or ridiculous take on them. They were so popular that someone somewhere thought, "What if we took this shallow concept completely dependent on making fun of another property and turn it into a feature length film?" It's notable that the Cabbage Patch people never actually tried to go that far (or at least, never succeeded).
What we got was an ill-conceived dumpster fire that is an abject failure in every way conceivable. I could spend all day talking about how the story is nonsensical and aimless, how the suits/animatronics are creepy and nightmarish, etc. But that stuff's been covered a million times, so I'm going to focus on the real odious aspect, and that's the characters: a collection of paper thin, unmotivated tropes. Dodger is your typical bullied kid daring to look for bigger and better things. He's antagonized by a bunch of bullies for no reason other than for us to feel sorry for him (though if they bullied him because of his stupid name, I'd understand). Then there are the Garbage Pail Kids themselves, who are bizarrely portrayed as protagonists despite being repulsive physically and personality-wise. You can imagine the type of comedic depth you will encounter with characters like "Valerie Vomit" and "Windy Winston." When the characters aren't constantly farting and peeing on themselves, they're at each others' throats or even aggressively stepping to Dodger. I can only imagine the audience's reception to E.T. if he repeatedly threatened to shank Elliott if he didn't get to phone home. We're supposed to be rooting for these guys?
The most bizarre part of an already ridiculous movie happens when the bullies kidnap the kids and send them to the "State Home for the Ugly," where people deemed too ugly are executed. Wait, what? What is this twisted, alternate Earth where they kill off ugly people and why is it so out of place in what was beforehand (and after) a disgusting, cliché 80's mess? Lincoln and Gandhi are locked up here so I guess it's insultingly implying the Kids are unconventional in appearance but important for their contribution to society, some sort of misplaced Aesop about true beauty coming from within...despite the Kids being genuinely horrific on the inside. The kids are rescued (unfortunately) but their execution would have been a fitting end to this disaster. There's also a silly romance plot with a girl named Tangerine of all things, facilitated by the Kids' sudden ability to sew fashionable clothes for her fashion show.
So yeah, it's offensively bad. Don't make the same mistake I did and waste you time with it. There's nothing here for you but tears and fecal matter.
