Beasties (1991 Video) User Reviews

Beasties: The definition of "Trash" cinema

[Platypuschow · 2/10 · 11 October 2018]

Beasties is an early 90's creature feature that promises more than it delivers.

From the cover you'd assume a movie with the core being killer monsters and a lot in the way of t&a, both are oddly absent.

You see the plot is a jumbled mess involving little alien creatures (Who are barely on screen at all) and an occult group made up of punks (Because as the 80s and 90s told us, all punks are evil).

The plot is more than a little hard to follow, the creatures (Alike everything else) look terrible and the fact they're barely on screen shows how much false advertising has gone into this and calling this a horror is laughable. In fact if anything I'd call it a comedy horror, a really cheesy campy comedy horror because the tone is far too silly to be taken seriously.

I hate the term trash cinema, generally I quite enjoy these types of films (To a degree) but this is the absolute pits.

The Good:

Erm.....

The Bad:

Script is dire

Looks like crap

Goofy music

That ending.....really?

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Killing aliens could begin an intergalactic war but stealing their children is acceptable

a must have...if you like bad movies

[trashgang · 2/10 · 25 September 2008]

Here in Europe it isn't possible to find this flick anywhere even in the cultshops. So I tried to track it down overseas. And lucky as I was I caught the full uncut(the extra 20 minutes included). Pulled up a chair and started watching. Terrible acting, and the conversations are way too long. Of course you have to include some naked chick and they did. Nothing happens, some alien attacks, no gore even not frightening. Then suddenly some would be goths appear. They are in a cult and there is some stupid fight between two girls. Boring and again too long. And when one of the girls her throat is cut open, you can see the blood coming out of the knife and not from her flesh. Even the fights you can see the punching is fake. The last 5 minutes the aliens attack, one of the goths loses his eye, that's maybe the only gore moment. And then without reason the aliens go back to there space ship and fly off (in a bad keyed blue key). End of story. Of course this one became a cultmovie and has to be seen to be believed. The worst horror ever? I don't know, I thought basket case was worse too, but who am I to complain...

NOT the worst,Charles Band would be proud !

[guestar57 · 4/10 · 18 January 2006]

Steve & his actors really tried hard.The special effects ROCK ! The women are gorgeous. One scream queen in particular, Suzanne Brewer(CORRECT SPELLING) and i had history after this film,She mad a flick with me called Snake Bite(now called She Bites and still not released.) ! Fresno as a town has been a mecca for filmmakers THEN and now ! Steve,think about making another film - maybe about nightclubs from disco-era. The acting came and went,sometimes natural,Sometimes PLAN 9 worthy.David Decouteau could have promoted this little better,but the cover was wild.So,What do we have: A COOL COVER,AWESOME EFFECTS,PRETTY WOMEN AND A MISSED Opportunity---NOW REALIZED .

In the world of video stinkers, BEASTIES is a pearl beyond price.

[EyeAskance · 8 November 2005]

When an extraterrestrial craft lands in that remote part of the forest where teenagers often go to hump, carnage begins expediently as slimy hand puppets emerge from the ship, hungry for human flesh. There's also some ridiculous sub-plotting about a cabal of barbarian punk-rocker types on a violent mission of evil ordained by an all-powerful overlord.

BEASTIES was apparently distributed with a scant 200 VHS copies available, and I gloat with pride for owning one of them. One could possibly compare this film to the heinous WINTERBEAST in quality(or lacking thereof), but truthfully, BEASTIES represents a very strange minor league of its own. Not a solitary frame of this incredible work of short-bus genius bears even the faintest hallmarks of sapien-level brain capacities...BEASTIES is pure and natural bog sludge that should make even the most humorless curmudgeon crack a smile.

Recommended.

Great idea but too low budget

[barb_125 · 4/10 · 10 January 2006]

The $1.99 effects weren't so hot but this movie has something to it. It has a very great idea with sci-fi written all over it. Obviously super low budget, but if this guy had more money to work with I'm sure he could have really made that scene with the Bionaut flying off a bit more,not so corny,but I guess that was pretty decent in the early 90's. I loved the comedy in it too,those two nerds cracked me up XD. I saw the DVD collectors version which had the missing 20 minutes. It gave the characters more depth. I had rented out the VHS version a couple years ago and I think it made a difference. I also really enjoyed the interview of the director Steve Contreras in Rogue Cinema the review was cool too.

One of the worst films ever made

[Gonzo-23 · 1/10 · 11 February 1999]

For those who have sought long and far for the worst movies ever made, may Beasties soon find them. It has awful muppets combined with even worse Egyptian gang war gods, not too mention some of the worst original synthesizer music in a film. This may very well be one of the top five films ever made. Don't blame me if you become a worse person for viewing it or if your VCR bursts into flames when inserting the tape. And don't go parking when you are out of gas, or the Beasties may get you!!!

Works better then sleeping pills.

[jimy23 · 1/10 · 28 December 2011]

Bear with me I don't know to much about this movie but i will try to explan it. Six young people on a triple date one being a blind date find Creature eggs then find out little monsters are running around. The creatures are never called Beasties but unlike hobgoblins they appear early in the movie and the woman on the cover is in the movie even if it's for a few minutes. There's a subplot with an underground satanic gang besides a two minute scene they don't show up it till 30 Min's in then the whole movie becomes about the teens fighting the evil gang and it's leader you almost forget about beasties. It's a bad movie thats hard to follow it's story lines can't go together it reminds of hobgoblin's on how cheesy it is.

Re-evaluation: Another Look at One of the Worst

[Gonzo-23 · 1/10 · 24 March 2000]

It is clear by my previous irrational comments that I have been far too harsh towards this video treasure, and I would just like to clear the record. A postmodern reworking of BLOOD FEAST, BEASTIES maintains the integrity of its predecessor by introducing the subplot of OSIRIS the Egyptian Sun God (also heavy-metal and punk rock afecianado...of course, if Jesus Christ is allowed to rock 'n roll in a boring Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, than why can't OSIRIS?) and it never quite gels with the ongoing plot that plays out as a mediocre version of Troma's KILLER CONDOM. The actors in BEASTIES positively received their degrees from the Herschell Gordon Lewis school of theater, however the women are far less attractive than the girls of the WIZARD OF GORE. Even the mise-en-scene in BEASTIES is hacked from Lewis', leading me to believe that the film was actually trying to modernize the gore genre, with an unfortunate lack of sex and blood, the key components that gave strength to the memorable 60's underground horror movies. I have to say that it is a truly rotten movie, in that the content is entirely too clean and yet still referential to the b-movie God (perhaps Lewis' IS more popular than OSIRIS)...RANK:#10 in my TOP TEN WORST FILMS

Horrible, mildly confusing and quite entertaining.

[yourmotheratemydog715 · 7/10 · 21 October 2013]

The title seems to place BEASTIES among the ranks of GREMLINS and GHOULIES, but there's really little to no similarity. The 99-cent alien "beasties" are really of little concern here, and an anarchistic punk cult is actually the main focus.

That being said, the parts of the film containing the "beasties" are much more entertaining. The acting is uniformly horrific, but the bespectacled hero and the punk Hammerhead stand out the most. The hero spouts deadpan, faux-scientific lines throughout, simultaneously swooning one of the on screen female characters and making everyone watching the film groan and roll their eyes.

It begins to drag a lot when the punk cult is given the main role, and even the director seemed to notice this, as he introduces random characters that do nothing but run around and get scared by things to break up the monotony of the cult scenes. But the first 70 minutes is still filled with terrible fight choreography, catfights to the death, a crappy goth-rock band, and cheap aliens getting hit with frying pans. Needless to say, it's a good time.

In the last ten minutes, the writer suddenly had delusions of grandeur, introducing twist after twist as to why the "beasties" exist. I'm still not sure how the main character, the aliens and the punk cult all intertwine, but I'm fairly confident nobody involved in the film did either. Some of the writing here was actually mildly clever; too bad it was wasted on such a dump of a film.

Not a bad film classic, but actually comes close. Cheese lovers will have a slight feast.

Pretty imaginative for such a bad movie

[one4now4 · 29 October 2003]

When I picked up the box of "Beasties" in a Mom-and-Pop video store, I read that it was making this out to be a cross between "Back to the Future" and "Gremlins". I knew immediately not to fall for this, but upon renting the movie I found that this is partially true. The problem here is that this is without a fun feel, and it's not scary either. I actually do want to recommend this for a few reasons, but I'm not sure who I'd be recommending it to. Odd, huh? Anyway, it has a fairly interesting premise, and some surprises that I wouldn't want to spoil. Still, my favorite part was the club scene with a performance by a really cool-sounding deathrock band. Hey, if you're bored and dig cheap horror movies, what do you have to lose other than a couple bucks for the price of a rental?