Oh the 1980’s a classic time for the horror genre as perfectly demonstrated by this little movie. With realistic kids, a fun story, and awesome practical effects this one was a lot of fun.

When his parents cut down the old tree in the back yard, 12 year old Glen, played by Stephen Dorff, and his friend Terry, played by Louis Tripp, go poking around in the remains of the treehouse. They unwittingly open a portal to hell and unleash tiny demons into their subdivision.

I love the way they wrote kids in the 80’s. Glen is goofy and immature. He can’t understand why his older sister Al, played by Christa Denton, wants to be called Alexandra now and won’t play with him anymore.

Terry is a goofball. There’s a great little scene of him listening to records and pretending to perform a concert in his bedroom. It’s just the kind of thing a bored kid would do at the end of a long hot summer.

It’s endearing and fun. It also leads to some trouble when the kids use language that I haven’t heard in years. They’re throwing around racial slurs and insults that are now very offensive and quite jarring to hear today. Now I’m not overly sensitive, but it still caught me off guard to hear some the language these kids were using.

This has a great little story about growing up and overcoming your fears. It’s also a classic story structure. All this demons and horror happens over the course of a long weekend while the parents are out of town. I love it. Parents are gone. Daughter throws a party. Kids open a portal to hell. It’s fun. It’s a classic setup.

My favorite element of the film was the effects work. I love the specials effects on display. It’s all practical. It’s all people in costumes shot on force perspective sets. It’s stop motion. It’s matte paintings and phenomenal puppet work. This movie delights me in the way that these tiny demons are brought to life. I loved it.

The movie was a lot of fun. I highly recommend it for a fun off the beaten path 80’s horror.

It was my cup of tea. B+