Garbage Pail Kids

I, along with many other children in the 1980's, collected those disgusting little Garbage Pail Kids cards. I think they were .50 cents per pack, and contained two or four cards and a piece of gum. The cards featured creative and overtly disgusting children with odd "pun" names, and graphic depictions of their "special feature." Little did I know, as an 8 year old, that they had actually created a live action Garbage Pail Kids movie.

So, nearly twenty years later, I have caught my first glimpse of the liva action schlock. And let me tell you, it's incredible. They released this movie on DVD just this year (don't ask my why) so many people will probably see it for the first time. Or, the second time, if they saw it at some obscure time in their childhood.

As a fan of 80's schlock horror, I soaked in every scene of this low budget masterpiece with giddy enchantment. It has a lighthearted humor, and an edge of 8-year-old-boy grossness. I gawked in disbelief when the bizarre live-action Garbage Pail Kids broke into a musical number. I laughed out loud in awe of some of the hokey one-liners. Some of the visual gags stunned me with their over-the-top cheesiness. The 80's fashion of one of the movie's main characters, ("Tangerine" is her name) nearly had me rolling on the floor with laughter. And, her boyfriend and "main bully" looked a lot like Steve-O from MTV.

The low budget and clunky puppetry of the Garbage Pail Kids is almost embarassing. Yet, near the end, I caught myself actually believing that these bizarre little buggers were real. Talk about suspension of disbelief! I had to laugh at myself. Overall, this movie is an 80's B-movie joy, and you should do yourself a favor by watching it.

Click here to read about The Garbage Pail Kids movie on rotten tomatoes.