My Pet Monster (1986) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! Happy Friday! How're you all doing today? I'm pretty good. As promised I'm back with my review of the 1986 direct-to-video movie, My Pet Monster since I watched it on Wednesday night with Katie and Nat for the VHS Club monthly movie watch party. I don't really have a whole lot to say other than, this was the first time I'd ever watched it. I'd heard of this movie and heard some fairly negative things about it, so I was a bit prepared for it to be bad. It was actually pretty good. I'll get into that more in the review. So, let's get into it!

Like The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin the year before, My Pet Monster was produced as the pilot for a live action TV show. Unlike The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, there doesn't seem to be a reason for why the series remained unproduced. The movie didn't air on TV, as far as I'm aware, but it was released on VHS in lieu of airing on TV. Instead, a 13 episode cartoon series was produced by Canadian animation studio, Nelvana Limited and aired on Global TV here in Canada and on ABC in the U.S.

The cast for this movie is great. We've got Sunny Besen Thrasher as Max/Monster, he also voiced Max, who was a separate character from Monster in the cartoon, Alyson Court as Max's sister, Melanie, Colin Fox as Dr. Snyder, the antagonist, Yannick Bisson as Max and Melanie's older brother, Rod, and Kelly Rowan as Rod's girlfriend, Stephanie. Aside from voicing Max in the cartoon, Thrasher was in a bunch of cartoons as various voices, including the Care Bears, Alyson Court voiced Max's sister, Jill in the cartoon, but she is also very well known as Loonette the Clown on The Big Comfy Couch and a girl named Ruthie that Big Bird encounters on a farm in the 1985 movie Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird, as well as tons of cartoons. Colin Fox played the storekeeper in the first episode of the 1995 Goosebumps TV series, Yannick Bisson played Agent Jack Hudson on Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye, and Detective William Murdoch on Murdoch Mysteries, and Kelly Rowan is very well known as Kirsten Cohen on The O.C. So this movie has a pretty stacked cast.

The plot of the movie is that Max and his sister go on a field trip to a museum, where Max gets turned into a monster by a statue, which he transforms into whenever he's hungry. Meanwhile, the scientist who theorized about the monster's existence while studying the statues discovers what happened to Max and wants to use him to gain fame and fortune for his work.

I loved this movie. Like I said earlier, I'd only heard bad things about it, but it's actually pretty good. It's definitely different from what the cartoon series is, but that doesn't automatically make it bad. Sure, the production quality isn't great, but it was made with a low budget because it was supposed to be the pilot episode for a TV series that never got produced, and it was released direct-to-video. 

What makes this movie fun is that there's the mundane aspect of Rod trying to get on his girlfriend's good side by taking care of her dog for her, to get her ready for a dog show. Of course, he tries to take the cheap way out and the greedy dog groomers end up kidnapping the dog, so it's up to Max as the Monster, Melanie, and Rod to get the dog back.

This sounds like the craziest '80s movie plot, and yet it works so well. Dr. Snyder is a typical '80s kids show antagonist that isn't a supervillain. He's greedy and a glory hound, and Colin Fox plays him really well. Max and Melanie are my favourite characters though. Of course I grew up watching Alyson Court on The Big Comfy Couch and in Follow That Bird, but the character of Melanie is pretty great and was always willing to help Max when he turned into Monster. 

Overall this was a really fun movie. It's nothing spectacular, but it was a great watch for a Wednesday night virtual movie night with friends. I had a great time watching it.

Alright my friends, that's it for me for this week. I'll be back soon with another blog post. I have an idea of what I want to talk about next. Until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.