This is the second Christy pick for June. I had seen it before but not for many, many years so it got a pass to get watched again. Brian (Fred Savage) has just moved to a new town with his family and everything seems to be going wrong. His little brother (Ben Savage) keeps screaming about a monster under the bed, stuff is going missing or gets broken around the house, and his parents keep blaming Brian for it all. On a dare, he switches rooms with his brother and discovers that the monster is real. Being a forward-thinking kid, he rigs the bed the next night to trap the monster above ground. Maurice (Howie Mendel) is impressed and offers to show Brian the secret world of monsters under the bed. It's all fun and games until Boy (Frank Whelan), the head monster, decides that Brian should become a monster himself and kidnaps Brian's little brother to ensure this outcome.
Surprisingly, the child actors in this are not the most annoying things. Fred and Ben Savage were both prodigies as children, both going on to star in huge TV shows. The most irritating thing about this film is Howie Mandel. Beetlejuice had just come out the year prior and Mandel seems to have watched it repeatedly for inspiration, but Michael Keaton he is not. He is way too manic with this air of forced cheerfulness. I know the character is supposed to be a troublemaker who goes from kid's room to kid's room painting on walls, breaking things, and getting the kids blamed for it and maybe it works if you're a kid watching, but as an adult Maurice is the worst.
The best performance in the movie has to be Frank Whelan. He only gets a limited amount of screen time as the big bad but he packs every moment with creepy menace.
If you're looking for a way to introduce your kids to monster or horror movies, this isn't a bad place to start.
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