In theory, MAD MONSTER PARTY has everything required to blast you into your childhood past: the voices of Boris Karloff and Phyllis Diller; characters that are riffs on Universal horror classics; and animated by Rankin-Bass, which created such memorable holiday television specials as Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. But at ninety minutes, MAD MONSTER PARTY is much, much too long for the very slight story it has to tell.
The story, as such: Dr. Frankenstein, who earlier discovered the secret of life, has now discovered the secret of destruction. He invites all the monsters under his control to his remote island, there to announce his discovery--and his retirement and plans to pass his secrets onto his klutzy and inept nephew. The monsters are not pleased and decide to off said nephew and use the new discovery to suit themselves.
The premise is okay, but the actual result is remarkably tedious. The script is dull, the occasional song atrocious. The pace is very, very slow. The character designs are uninspired. As for the famed Rankin-Bass animation... let us be generous here and say that in this instance it has not dated very well. This is essentially stop-motion animation, the same process so memorably used by Ray Harryhouser in such memorable films as THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD and Tim Burton in THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE Christmas--but without the same budgets.
If you are considering a purchase for "family film purposes," you can do a lot better than this. If you yourself recall the movie fondly from your childhood, do yourself a favor and don't return to it, for you will almost certainly be disappointed; some nostalgia really is better left in the past. The only people likely to find the film of interest are hardcore collectors of stop-motion animation--and even then the interest is more likely to be technical than anything else. Such fans excepted, not recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
The story, as such: Dr. Frankenstein, who earlier discovered the secret of life, has now discovered the secret of destruction. He invites all the monsters under his control to his remote island, there to announce his discovery--and his retirement and plans to pass his secrets onto his klutzy and inept nephew. The monsters are not pleased and decide to off said nephew and use the new discovery to suit themselves.
The premise is okay, but the actual result is remarkably tedious. The script is dull, the occasional song atrocious. The pace is very, very slow. The character designs are uninspired. As for the famed Rankin-Bass animation... let us be generous here and say that in this instance it has not dated very well. This is essentially stop-motion animation, the same process so memorably used by Ray Harryhouser in such memorable films as THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD and Tim Burton in THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE Christmas--but without the same budgets.
If you are considering a purchase for "family film purposes," you can do a lot better than this. If you yourself recall the movie fondly from your childhood, do yourself a favor and don't return to it, for you will almost certainly be disappointed; some nostalgia really is better left in the past. The only people likely to find the film of interest are hardcore collectors of stop-motion animation--and even then the interest is more likely to be technical than anything else. Such fans excepted, not recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer