Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

Deadtime Stories is just a totally lame, poorly made, almost completely unwatchable failure of a film. It's unbelievable to me that this thing actually got a theatrical release; I guess no more than a handful of people actually paid to see it because I don't remember hearing of any bloody riots from mid-1980s moviegoers. What you have here is an annoying kid dumped on his uncle one night and whining no less than three stories out of the guy - who, for obvious reasons, would much rather be downstairs watching the Miss Nude Vail contest on TV. You would think there would be some potential for a version of Little Red Riding Hood in which the protagonist is actually "a hot-looking high school senior with deep blue eyes, and fine, firm breasts," but you would be wrong. As lecherous as Uncle Mike (Michael Mesmer) is, the only real looker we get in the entire film is Goldi Lox (Cathryn DePrume), and that's way too little way too late.

Uncle Mike's first story is Peter and the Witches. Not only is the whole story horrible, the film print is so bad that I didn't even recognize young Peter to be Scott Valentine (apparently, neither did NBC or he would never have kept his job playing Nick on Family Ties). Then you have the aforementioned Little Red Riding Hood, which takes place in a thoroughly modern setting. Rachel (Nicole Picard) is sent to get her grandmother's prescription filled but is accidentally given the drugs needed by a rather wolfish hood who gets to grandmother's house ahead of her because she stops off to have sex with her boyfriend. But wait - it gets even more idiotic in the final story of Goldi Lox and the Three Baers. It starts with Mama Baer helping Papa Baer and the hulking simpleton Baby Baer break out of the Home for the Hopelessly Insane. They arrive back home to find serial killing, psychic Goldi Lox naked in the shower. Enjoy that shower scene, boys, because it's the only part of the whole film worth seeing. The filmmakers, apparently having figured out that the first two stories stink like Limburger cheese wrapped in a jock's dirty socks, decide to take a more comedic angle -- but it just doesn't work.

Some guys seem to have a soft spot in their heart for this film, but I can't begin to imagine why. There is nothing clever about these twists on traditional fairy tales, and there is certainly nothing here for any horror fan to relish. What's more, the film's rankly amateurish attempts at humor fall flat as a fritter. Deadtime Stories is just an awful film.

When a babysitting uncle is asked thrice to tell bedtime stories to get his nephew to go to sleep, he concocts three weird yarns that must be seen to be believed. The first is an ancient tale about a young man owned by two sister witches working to awaken a long dead third. The second tale is a modern day Red Riding Hood story about a sexy young jogger who is pursued by a werewolf with good intentions but no self control. Last, we have a goofy dark-comedy inspired by Goldilocks and the Three Bears, only in this story the three bears are a family of escaped, homicidal mental patients and Goldilocks is a cute but murderous girl with psychic powers.

If that synopsis sounds interesting to you, then that's a good start. You may want to look into this movie. Here's what you have to know. This is a low-budget horror film from 1986, and the DVD case doesn't represent the movie at all really. Bottom line, this is a fun horror-anthology movie. Not one that is going to really scare you or creep you out very much even (depending on your creepometer), but it's great for a night of wacky horror movie watching. It's lots of fun, that's all. It's no masterpiece. It's presented in fullscreen, and I have no idea what is up with that. The case says it is presented in its original aspect ratio, 1.33:1, but Internet Movie Database gives the O.A.R. as 1.85:1, and, I'm thinking IMDB is probably the more trustworthy source here since the DVD doesn't even give us the full credits, ha. Seriously, the film cuts off shortly after the credits start. I thought it might be my unreliable bedroom DVD player, but I've read the same complaint from other folks, so... Besides that, the presentation quality is pretty weak. I mean, it looks the same as the VHS I originally saw of this film years ago. Still, I got this REALLY cheap, so I'm not really complaining, even if there are no extras. Like I said, I find it to be a very fun film. Oh, yeah, and Mallory's boyfriend on "Family Ties", Scott Valentine, is the young man in the first story, for those who wanted to know. I know a lot of people have sought this film out for that reason alone. Myself, I just have a thing for Red Riding Hood stories, though Goldi Lox's shower scene turned out to be even nicer.