Line #18 Film/Hobgoblins


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/p16163_p_v8_aa.jpg]]
2
3	->'''[=McCreedy=]:''' There's been an accident at the studio...\
4	'''Crow:''' We made ''Hobgoblins''!
5	-->-- ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''
6
7	Slightly dorky [[TheEveryman Everyman]] Kevin gets a job as a security guard at an abandoned film studio mostly to impress his cold and domineering girlfriend Amy. One night, he chases a burglar into an old film vault which his boss, [=McCreedy=], warned him not to enter. By doing so he releases the titular hobgoblins, little furry aliens who have the power to [[LotusEaterMachine make any person's deepest fantasies come true]] and then use those fantasies to kill said person.
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9	Kevin, along with the help of WellExcuseMePrincess Amy, the slutty Daphne, Daphne's obnoxious Army boyfriend Nick and [[IntimateTelecommunications phone sex]] obsessed dork Kyle, sets out to capture the hobgoblins before it is too late.
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11	This movie is probably best known for being featured on [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S09E07Hobgoblins a particularly memorable episode of]] ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''. Rick Sloane, the movie's director, actually ''requested'' that the film be featured on the show. Despite this, Sloane and his film suffered some of the harshest riffing that the show ever dished out. Series writer Paul Chaplin commented that the film "[shot] right to the top of the list of the worst movies [they had] ever done". Nonetheless, the choice of this film led to the creation of an episode that many fans of the show consider to be one of the best.
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13	Sloane would later be known as the writer/director of the equally low-budget and ineptly-made ''Film/ViceAcademy'' series of films which were a ratings hit for the Creator/USANetwork.
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15	Twenty years later, Rick Sloane ''made a sequel''. [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0962728/ Yes, really.]] To this day, it is one of two movies ever covered on ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' that had a sequel released after it was featured on the show (the other was ''Return of Film/TheKillerShrews'').
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17	----
18	!!Tropes:
19	* ActionGirl: Daphne is the closest thing to this. For a horrible, irritating person, she does manage to directly dispatch a few Hobgoblins and actually shows some intelligence by getting wise to one of their "fantasies" [[spoiler: (blowing up the fantasy-military sergeant in the process)]]. Furthermore, she's the only character to actually kill the Hobgoblin trying to off her; everyone else -- including '''the hero''' -- gets saved from their own personal Hobgoblin by someone else.
20	* AffectionateParody: The movie was clearly meant to parody ''Film/{{Gremlins}}'', ''Film/{{Ghoulies}}'' and [[FollowTheLeader other '80s little monsters movies]]. However, it is so unfunny that the result is that it is utterly terrible.
21	* AllForNothing: The entire section of the movie in which the main characters try to chase down and catch the Hobgoblins turns out to be pointless since the Hobgoblins end up returning to the movie studio on their own.
22	* AllWomenArePrudes: Amy in the first half of the film. Though certainly inverted with Daphne.
23	* ArtisticLicenseExplosives: Nick jumps on the grenade he himself threw, and ends up getting set on fire (though he somehow survives). Hand grenades like the ones he was using are concussive, not incendiary, meaning instead of being set on fire, he's likely just get blown up, and/or peppered with shrapnel.
24	* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: There's way too much to mention all of it, but a few highlights...
25	** Nick had just gotten back from several months of basic training, yet he clearly has a full-head of hair. It should be basic knowledge that, in any kind of military setting, soldiers are required to have their hair cut to reduce the chances of contracting diseases and prevent enemies from grabbing soldiers by their hair. [[note]]In the case of women, unless they're in the Navy, they typically have to have their hair tied up in a manner that doesn't go past the bottom of their collars.[[/note]]
26	** Nick salutes his Sergeant. Saluting is normally reserved for dealing with commissioned officers.
27	** Special note is made of Nick's DrillSergeantNasty wearing his uniform (and his ''dress'' uniform at that) off-duty... while visiting a strip club. Military personnel are not usually supposed to wear their uniform while off-duty, and when they do they are expected to present an image of dignity in keeping with military standards, so wearing the uniform while at a sleazy strip club is straight out.
28	*** Lampshaded by Daphne when she sees him in uniform.
29	** The DrillSergeantNasty also mentions he plans to "ship Nick off to some third world country." It goes without saying, Drill Sergeants do not hand out combat deployments. Possibly justified as the Sergeant was actually a fantasy created by the hobgoblins, who probably don't know how the US military works.
30	** More obviously, Nick's inexplicable and extremely illegal collection of weapons, including an Uzi sub-machine gun and hand grenades.
31	* AscendedMeme: The trailer for ''Hobgoblins 2'' contains a cover of the "Hobgoblins" song Mike & The Bots sing.
32	* AutoErotica: With a side order of {{Squick}}. Nothing happens in the car, mind you, it's just that the fantasy-woman is rather trashy, husky/nasally-voiced and repulsive. That earlier bit with the van, on the other hand...
33	* {{Badbutt}}: The hobgoblins are built up as a threat, but only kill a single person in the whole movie. Nick, who's only been in army training for a few weeks, comes off as this at several points.
34	* BadGuyBar: Club Scum, though once we see the interior we learn it's an InformedAttribute. The movie doesn't have the backbone to do anything actually ''sleazy'', and the set isn't decorated well enough to hide that it's clearly a dressed-up school gym or cafeteria.
35	* BeAWhoreToGetYourMan: Double subversion -- Kevin tries to stop Amy from doing anything she'd regret, but he ''is'' pleased with the new direction their relationship takes by the film's end.
36	* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: The hobgoblins purposefully corrupt their victims' fantasies to kill them.
37	* BeehiveHairdo: One of the girls at Club Scum.
38	* BigDamnHeroes: [=McCreedy=] rescuing Kevin at the end.
39	* BroomstickQuarterstaff: Nick challenges Kevin to a duel with garden rakes. "I can teach you all about hand-to-hand combat!"
40	* CampStraight: Kyle. According to Sloane, actor Steven Boggs is even ''more'' flamboyant in RealLife.
41	* CommonHollywoodSexTraits: That's... not how phone sex lines work. There's more of an interactive element, rather than a lady just describing some cheap porno plot to you.
42	* ContrivedCoincidence: Out of all the places the Hobgoblins could go after achieving freedom for the first time in decades, they just happen to go to a house occupied by Kevin's friends.
43	* CovertPervert: Prudish Amy secretly wishes she could be just as sex-crazed as her friend Daphne. In her fantasy, she's a stripper.
44	* DeathByFallingOver: Dennis's fantasy sees him get {{Crowd Surf\|ing}}ed to the edge of the crowd where he lands on his head and dies.
45	* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: Hahahaha... '''you wish.''' It takes 29 minutes for the title creatures to show up on-screen, and by then you '''want''' them to murder the whole cast.
46	* DisneyDeath: Nick, who gets [[ManOnFire set on fire]], but [[MadeOfIron later returns]] looking as if the worst that had happened to him was a bad sunburn. Though did anyone, either watching the movie or in-universe, really even mourn him when he "died?"
47	* DontComeAKnockin: Nick and Daphne's van starts a-rockin' in a FunnyBackgroundEvent. Twice.
48	* DrillSergeantNasty: Appears as part of Nick's "fantasy." He starts randomly chucking grenades around and viciously pointing a submachine gun at his surroundings (though never actually firing it -- perhaps fake explosions were cheaper than a prop gun that could fire blanks?)
49	* DullSurprise: The patrons at Club Scum aren't exactly frightened of the hobgoblins suddenly popping up.
50	* {{Expy}}: In one of the film's odder aesthetic choices, Club Scum seems to have borrowed the emcee from ''Theatre/{{Cabaret}}''.
51	* FunnyBackgroundEvent:
52	** The extra in the Club Scum fight scene who overturns his own table no less than three times.
53	** Outside of Club Scum, each of them passes their wallets on to the next one in the group for safekeeping. The last guy in line calmly pulls a switchblade and mugs everyone -- which may be the only gag in the film that actually resembles comedy.
54	** Kyle bouncing around all over the place during the impromptu at-home dance party during while Amy & Daphne are arguing outside (Kyle's still in the house & you see him goofing via the window behind the two girls).
55	** Daphne & Nick doing the wild thing in the van while Kevin & Amy argue in the foreground... except the "funny" in FunnyBackgroundEvent is a total fail.
56	* HonkingArrivingCar: Nick, after two months of basic training, pulls up in his blue van in front of Kevin's house and sounds a novelty car horn, much to the delight of his girlfriend Daphne.
57	--> '''Daphne:''' I'd recognize that horn anywhere!
58	* IndecipherableLyrics: Iced Chicken? Pig Sticker? Pig Liquor? FISH PICKER! [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0DPvBFqBPg Kiss Kicker '99]] The mysterious lyrics are finally revealed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kspr_19zgl4 here]] (see video description)
59	* InformedAttribute: [=McCreedy=] describes the Hobgoblins as being ObliviouslyEvil LiteralGenie types who try to make people's dreams come true, but inadvertently end up killing them. This is completely at odds by what we actually see in the film, where the Hobgoblins are completely malicious and AlwaysChaoticEvil, and are very deliberately trying to kill the people whose fantasies they bring to life.
60	%%* InsecuritySystem:
61	* IntimateTelecommunications: There's a scene involving a phone sex line that betrays that no one involved in the production has any idea how phone sex lines work. Real phone sex lines are an interactive experience, not just someone reading off a really lame porn script at you.
62	* {{Jerkass}}: Amy, so very much. Not only does she treat Kevin like shit but in one scene, [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext he has a fight with someone using rakes]] and is defeated. Rather than ask if he is ok or anything she immediately [[ItsAllAboutMe starts berating him for "humiliating" her by losing]].
63	* JumpingOnAGrenade: Nick does this during his "fantasy"... which somehow sets him on fire.
64	* {{Leitmotif}}: Poorly done and inconsistently rendered, but there's a recognizable musical sting that plays when the Hobgoblins are active.
65	* MadeOfPlasticine: Apparently Dennis was killed by attempting to crowdsurf when nobody was actually there to hold him up. His fantasy appears to have been "to perform a rock concert from a really, really tall stage to an empty room," though this may just be the Hobgoblin's use of artistic license, as it's hard to imagine Kyle's fantasy was a slutty woman who would actively try to murder him.
66	* MakeoutPoint: Called "Reputation Road". It's surprisingly elaborate, with signs to indicate where you should park based on what you plan to do.
67	* MickeyMousing: Hitting something with a garden implement, such as when fighting with rakes, or killing a hobgoblin with a hoe.
68	-->'''Crow T. Robot:''' Their garden tools make little Casio sounds.
69	* MildlyMilitary: While minor in the grand scheme of ''gaping'' plot holes this movie has, Nick has an incredible amount of hair for someone a) in the Army and b) just out of boot camp. Mike seems to lampshade this, "Time for my hourly shave..."
70	* TheMockbuster: The film is an obvious ripoff of ''Film/{{Gremlins}}''.
71	* MundaneMadeAwesome: Epic rake-dueling! With Casio sound effects!
72	* MyGirlIsASlut:
73	** Daphne to Nick, all the way.
74	** Zigzagged with Amy; see BeAWhoreToGetYourMan, above.
75	* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: The exact powers of the hobgoblins are... inconsistent to say the least, ranging from just brainwashing (as they do with Amy, and a couple Club Scum employees), to downright RealityWarping (as they subject Dennis, Kyle, and Kevin to). And apparently they will sometimes just resort to attacking physically, as if they have none of those abilities at all. [=McCreedy=] claims that they inevitably end up killing people with these fantasies, but the only time the fantasy ever actually directly acts on this was in Kyle's case.
76	* OurGoblinsAreDifferent: They're plush-sized furry space creatures that can make your deepest fantasies manifest. They're also incredibly incompetent for monsters. They only manage to kill one guy in the entire film. They even failed to kill one of the main characters!
77	** And that one guy was in the ColdOpening prologue, for crying out loud!
78	* {{Parody}}: In this case, it's ''not'' a ParodyRetcon. (The "PLEASE WAIT TIL THE MOVIE COMES TO A COMPLETE STOP" at the very end confirms that this was intended as a parody of little creatures films.)
79	* ParodyAssistance: Rick Sloane personally gave the film to ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' to riff.
80	* PlotHole:
81	** Why is it the Hobgoblins didn't escape from the vault when it was open for several minutes but the second time it was opened they run out in a second?
82	** Here's another: Why didn't the old man just blow them up immediately after it was clear they were dangerous? Sure, he would've lost his job but he wasn't too old at the time and would easily have gotten another as long as he could cover up the whole "blew up my last job" thing.
83	** He could at least have ''locked'' the vault. I mean, that's the sole reason for using a vault, isn't it?
84	** Why don't the hobgoblins use their mind-warping mojo on [=McCreedy=], as they do on ''literally every other human'' they encounter?
85	** What happened to Dennis's body? Did [=McCreedy=] just leave it to rot in the vault? There is a scene in the uncut version where [=McCreedy=] tells his boss that Dennis "quit"; but this doesn't plug the hole because Dennis would surely have family and friend(s) outside work who might possibly notice his disappearance, not to mention the implication that this has happened to some of [=McCreedy's=] previous assistants as well.
86	** At the end of the movie, the hobgoblins return to the studio on their own, which makes the main character's pursuit of them them throughout the film completely pointless. They could have just sat around and waiting for the hobgoblins to come back.
87	** How did Nick know where everyone else went after they left Club Scum?
88	* ReallyGetsAround: Daphne. Many jokes are told, many groans are heard.
89	* ScareChord: Used bizarrely during the rake fight scene.
90	* SelfParody: The sequel, at least [[TrailersAlwaysLie so it would seem]] from the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI8omyZbfeEthe trailer]].
91	* ShoutOut:
92	** To another Rick Sloane film (Yes, he made other stuff. shudder). During the flashback, [=McCreedy=] is shown reading some sort of promotional material or script for ''The Visitants.''
93	** The idea that the Hobgoblins are attracted to bright lights may be a not-so-sly nod to ''Film/{{Gremlins}}'', wherein the titular creatures were '''harmed''' by bright light.
94	* SmolderingShoes: The Army guy conjured as part of Nick's fantasy is blown up with a grenade, and leaves a pair of smoking boots behind. (This was probably done for the gag, but it does raise the question of whether the guy was a real person that the gang really killed, not a hobgoblin fantasy.)
95	* SpeedSex: After the rake fight, Daphne and Nick immediately make for the van for some celebratory sex, and it's seen [[DontComeAKnockin rocking vigorously]] [[FunnyBackgroundEvent while Kevin and Amy argue in the foreground]]. They reemerge after exactly thirty seconds, dressed and none the worse for wear.
96	* ThanksForTheMammary: Kyle [[{{Squick}} sure looks excited]] as he pins the corsage on Daphne's chest.
97	* ThreeChordsAndTheTruth: "Kiss Kicker", the song played by the band at Club Scum.
98	* TitleDrop: During [=McCreedy's=] narration during his flashback sequence, "...out emerged a strange creature... a sort of... ''Hobgoblin''..."
99	* TooDumbToLive: A list of the characters that aren't too dumb to live would take ''much'' less time to account for.
100	* UnexplainedRecovery: Nick's DisneyDeath. Guy gets charbroiled near the climax, and then returns at the very end with nary a scratch.
101	* TheUnintelligible: The singer who garbles his way through "Kiss Kicker".
102	* WeaksauceWeakness: Turning off the lights is enough to subdue to Hobgoblins, as old man [=McCreedy=] explains that they're attracted to bright light. Of course, this doesn't take into account all the times the little buggers are raising havoc in places with no bright ambient light sources, but that's just one of many plot holes in this movie.
103	* WellExcuseMePrincess: Amy scorns Kevin when he loses the rake fight with Nick. Kevin complains that Nick's had army training and it wasn't a fair fight.
104	* WhyDontYaJustShootHim:
105	** [[spoiler:Why didn't [=McCreedy=] blow up the hobgoblin's vault in the ''first place''?]] It makes a "bit" more sense in the uncut version, as [=McCreedy=] uses the opportunity to screw his boss over on not being able to file an insurance claim because said boss never believed [=McCreedy=] about the Hobgoblins. Of course, Kevin is almost certainly going to be fired too, but the movie never really addresses that.
106	** In the sequel, [=McCreedy=] gets thrown into the psychiatric hospital as a consequence of his actions.
107	* WithFriendsLikeThese: With so little in common, it's sort of baffling to wonder how this group of kids came to be friends. Even without the hobgoblins drawing their latent fantasies to the surface, they don't seem to really trust each other or have much fun being together. The one thing that seems to be holding them together is the hope of sex.
108	* YouCanLeaveYourHatOn: Prim, prudish Amy's fantasy turns out to be losing her inhibitions so she can put on a stripshow.
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Context Film / Hobgoblins