Quick Movie Review: Don't Look Under the Bed (1999)

I've detailed in previous posts my feelings about the current state of children's television. And while the Disney Channel is the main culprit, I do long for 1999 again when Disney Channel Original Movies (DCOMs) were at their peak. Sure, they were cheesy and full of head-scratching character decisions, but we loved them anyway because the protagonists were just like us.

Don't Look Under the Bed follows Frances (Erin Chambers), a teenage girl living in a small town where, one day, strange things start happening. Dogs are on the roof, the high school's pool is filled with gelatin, and the letter "B" is spray painted all over town. Everyone is convinced that it's Frances who's pulling these pranks, but she befriends Larry Houdini (Ty Hodges)--an imaginary person who only she can see--who informs her that the Boogeyman is framing her. So she tries to figure out why he seems to have a bone to pick with her.

The film is full of twists and has some fun scenes that actually hold up fairly well considering the age of the movie and the target demographic.

Not that it's not without a little schmaltz, but believe it or not, compared to its counterparts, Don't Look Under the Bed isn't terribly cloying at all--possibly due to the fact that it's directed by Kenneth Johnson--the creator of The Bionic Woman and The Incredible Hulk TV series. Whatever the reason, if you saw this movie as a child, chances are it stuck with you.

It's Disney Channel's only PG-rated DCOM--and for a good reason. The scenes with the Boogeyman are seriously creepy. They still haunt me to this day. However, they never make the film lose its youthful essence. Rather, it may be more appealing since it fails to insult its young audience. There's a good enough balance between the macabre and the jovial to maintain its fun nature.

The issues it deals with may not be the deepest, but it's no Dude, Where's My Car either. The themes include deep-rooted denial and growing up too fast. It gets its point across without feeling overly preachy. And even older audiences will find the intrinsic emotions relatable and may cause them to conjure up fond memories of their own childhood--much in a Toy Story type of way.

In the last 15 minutes, the characters venture into Boogeyland, which is a real highlight to this movie. The world that the filmmakers create is so spooky and detailed that we feel like we're there too. We wait throughout the whole story to find out where the Boogeyman goes when he's not creating chaos, and the answer definitely lives up to our expectations.

The film's biggest pitfall is its lead actress. She's alright when she's just conversing with other characters, but as soon as she shows any kind of grand emotion, her conviction is nowhere to be found.

But the plot holes are scarce and mostly towards the beginning, so we grant it forgiveness during its final act--which may the single greatest ending to any DCOM. In Don't Look Under the Bed the characters have a lot to lose, and while so many others of its kind take the easy way out, this one really works for it.

Twizard Rating: 84

Why "Girl Meets World" Won't Be Just Another Disney Channel Show

Let's be honest, the Disney Channel has been going down hill for years now. So much so that it pretty much insults the intelligence of any viewers older than the age of 12. Back in the day I used to watch shows like Even Stevens or Boy Meets World and my parents would actually sit and enjoy the shows with me. Now, the "kids on stage" vibe of Disney's sitcoms is just too painful to experience. It's probably because back then we still weren't far from an era where sitcoms were actually pretty good. Where they didn't insult our intelligence and where kid's shows didn't talk down to kids as much. 

Back in the golden age of sitcoms, it was always the same--the kids were kinda naive and, for a lack of a better term, dumb, and the parents and adults were pretty much always there to catch the kids when they fell or to teach them a lesson. Nowadays, children's television likes to portray kids unrealistically as the smart, clever ones, while the parents are the oblivious idiots. Not to say that it's unimportant to show the faults and imperfections of the adults too, but it should be done only to serve the purpose of the episode. These new over-the-top and contrived archetypes are counterintuitive to what the shows should be about. Now I know that it may sound sappy of me, but let's face it, the reason why we loved the sitcoms we grew up with was because they made us feel good and they taught us life lessons. At least that's what it was like for me.

So with the Boy Meets World sequel on its way to our TV screens, I was nervous. Nervous that it wouldn't live up to our expectations. Nervous that it would fall into the dumbed-down world of modern Disney sitcoms. Nervous that it would take all the characters that I had grown up loving and just ruin them. I know everyone kept saying that it would be okay because they had most of the same writers and crew that the first show had, but I know how Disney loves having creative control, and I thought that they may have wanted to keep the new Disney formula as-is.

But then a couple of weeks before watching the premiere of Girl Meets World I had a revelation. I realized that it won't fall into the format of the last 10 years.  It couldn't. In order for that to happen they would have to change the already-existing characters from a show that was around far before this age of idiocy. So as long as Cory and Topanga's characters were the same (not sure why they would change them) this show will serve the same purpose as the ones that I grew up with in the '90s and before. And after watching the pilot episode I found that I was right. The parents weren't over the top. Cory was Cory and Topanga was Topanga. As for the other characters, they had way more depth and the personalities were balanced out better. It went a different route than simply making every character in the show overly goofy and hyper. It wasn't painful. And although there may have been one or two shreds of juvenility in the episode, the show actually taught a lesson. They are adjusting to the new world as well. It may have simply been a fluke that it followed the old format. But then again, i'm pretty sure they know what they're doing and that it was all deliberate. As long as they don't forget where their roots are it's going to be a new and refreshing change of pace (although not so much new--just reestablished). And maybe they will pave the way for others and it will be the beginning of a new era of children's television for the next generations to be nostalgic about.