RIFFTRAX LIVE: HOBGOBLINS

I got to watch a Rifftrax this Tuesday. It was supposed to be broadcast last year but you know what happened. So this is the first time I got to a theater and it was fun. The show started off with a short called Life in Medieval Times. Some dumb peasant kid named Otto has to take a cow to town to sell for a pair of shoes for his lord. To tell you the truth it was interesting and I learned a lot about live in those times. Apparently the Seneschal the lords second in command wears a green rag on his head and a pair of shoes cost a cow.

Dolt of a security guard who is the first to die.

So the movie starts on an abandoned movie studio. There are two security guards and the younger one who always wears his walkman has just been hired. The old guy warns him not to go into a part of the building which he ignores and finds a vault. He gets an illusion of him being a rockstar and somehow that ends up killing him. The old guard finds this and just closes up the vault. Nothing to see her.

Old guard showing off the pistol. Probably used it to shoot Archduke Ferdinand.

Well apparently they require two guards for this abandoned studio and he hires another young guy. This one is much more enthusiastic. He goes home and we meet his friends which are just pure eighties. There is his girlfriend who always rags on him about how much of a wimp he is. There is this guy in purple shorts who is addicted to phone sex.(This was those primitive times before the internet.) A slutty girl who can’t wait to get it on with her boyfriend returning from the army. Oh and the boyfriend has to embarrass the hero by kicking his butt in a rake fight to show how inept he is.

Big fight with rakes. Thank God the Soviets didn’t invade because if this is what was in the army we would have been screwed.

Well one night at work some guy in a leather jacket tries to break in. Thankfully they have a pistol to chase him off. Only the young guy thinks he went into the mysterious vault and so checks it out. He releases the Hobgoblins.(Why they didn’t escape the last time is a mystery.) Some nasty puppets that have this psychic ability to grant people their wishes but it kills them. The old guard has been keeping them locked in a vault all these years. Why? Don’t know.

The Ho wondering where her boyfriend is while a Hobgoblin must have found a stool to stand on.

Well by some great coincidence the Hobgoblins are drawn to the young guys house were his friends are partying down. The trampy girl is attacked by one of them and uses a hoe to squash it. Both girls later have to fight off the little puppets in a hilarious scene of them rolling around on a couch clutching them, trying to look like they are being attacked.

Ho uses a hoe.

The guy comes with his Army buddy friend and chase them out to the van where they are locked in. Only they are too late to save the phone sex pervert. A Hobgoblin gives him a vision of the phone sex girl wearing spandex that looks way too tight to fit.(I think I need a penicillin shot just looking at her.) She lures him to Reputation Road to make out. Only the real plan is to push the car over the cliff. The young guy comes and saves the day.

Phone pervert being lured to his death.

Only when he comes back home does he find that the Hobgoblins figured out how to open the door of the van and escape. They also lured his girlfriend to Club Scum so she can live out her fantasy of being a stripper. The gang goes to Club Scum and the place does live up to its name. It has a bouncer named Roadrash and a waitress with a beehive hairdo that has to be seen to be believed.

Hey 1963 wants its hair back.

Well stuff happens with the Hobgoblins causing chaos. The Army guy hallucinates that his sergeant is there and gives him grenades and an Uzi which he starts to blow up the place. One grenade explosion sets him on fire. Eventually they defeat the Hobgoblins and go back to the studio for the big final showdown.

Nothing says the eighties like this.

This movie was a very beloved one from the Sci Fi era. One of those just so bad they are good. Obviously it is a ripoff of the more popular Gremlins. The writing and acting is just so bad. The fights with the puppets. The Army guy at the ends comes back fine after being burned alive. This is just one of those perfect movies to riff on. So glad that Rifftrax is back.

The movie trailer.

And finally there will be another show in October. Amityville 4.