Ernest Scared Stupid (1991) review

(6/10)

This one's kind of a guilty pleasure for me in terms of liking a "bad" movie. No matter how many times I see it, I get the same feeling. This movie's a mess, but it's a durable mess.

PLOT:A long time ago, the Worrell's were cursed by Trantor the troll before he was banished to eternal darkness. In modern times, Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney) works as a sanitation engineer, or garbage man, in his local town. He's made friends with a few of the local schoolkids along with his dog, Rimshot. When the school bullies knock down his kid-friends' haunted house, Ernest takes them to find a tree to build a treehouose; however, it's on wicked, old lady Hackmore's (Eartha Kitt) land. She knows of the curse and judges Ernest before it even happens. Ernest and the kids eventually find a tree, but little does he know that it's the tree that holds Trantor's prison. Due to his stupidity, he frees Trantor from his prison and now must stop him before he captures the children, turns them into little wooden dolls, and unleashes his troll army. All of this takes place Halloween and the night before. It's an good plot executed decently.



ACTING:The acting in here is pretty mediocre overall. Jim Varney does his usual wacky job as Ernest, and it's pretty good. Eartha Kitt plays a pretty memorable role as Mrs. Hackmore, but it's not spectacular. Almost all of the child actors got on my nerves, but they didn't completely ruin the movie, just the scenes without Ernest. He is actually the saving grace of his own movie!

SCORE:The score is good in some places, and cheesy in others, but mostly good. It puts out a few cool and memorable themes, such as the opening title, the eerie music at the tree, and the lighthearted version of the title theme. Everything else I believe was played for effect.

EFFECTS:The effects were decent, but had a little trouble with execution. The make-up effects used for the trolls were pretty well done; I liked the way they were detailed. The effects more played for comedy weren't executed too well, as simple as break away windows, to a troll exploding. I think this is partially editing's fault. I really liked the effects used for the likes of the ghosts; for me, they have become memorable.



OTHER CONTENT:This movie's a hot mess, but I love it. It has its own brand of pros and cons, but I'll give you the cons first. Aside from the mediocre acting, the execution and some of the humor needed help. The plot and effect execution wasn't so good under Cherry's direction, as usual. The effects were easily spotted out and edited too soon. The humor had its bad moments as well. I like slapstick humor, but there were some pretty dreadful moments here. I mainly laughed, but there were moments. There are good things about this movie though. This movie brings memories back to me, as it was an essential part of my childhood and love for Halloween. My next reason is because of my love for Halloween. All this movie needs to be is a fun movie for the kids and lovers of Halloween; it's simply a lot of fun! This one has just seemed to stick to me throughout the years.

OVERALL,an ok Halloween movie with a good plot, mainly mediocre acting, good score, decent effects, memories I have associated with this movie, and just a lot of fun, but it has lots of problems with execution and a few with humor.