Todd (Billy Corben) loves comic books to the extreme. This twelve year old eats, drinks, and sleeps cartoons. Hoping to change this mania, his dad, George (Alan Thicke) makes his son take violin lessons, which the lad hates. Todd even goes as far as to tape violin music so his father thinks he is practicing in his room even when he isn't. Thank goodness Todd's mother is more understanding. One fateful weekend, the family trio goes camping but, as George explains, its a working minibreak as he is to meet with a beautiful client, Denise Gore (Robin Riker) to design her house. All of a sudden, Mother goes missing without a trace. The heartbroken men go home, even as Todd thinks a comic book monster "got her". Flash forwarding six months, George is now engaged to Denise, all of people, as she has helped him through his grief and loneliness. But, Todd suspects Denise had something to do with his Mother's disappearance. In fact, Todd gathers evidence that Ms. Gore is the actual monster who can shape shift when she wants. Fearing the worst will happen to them both if the marriage takes place, Todd tries everything to stop it. Will this boy be able to defeat a clever monster? It's possible! This silly but funny flick will please families in a minor way, especially ones with preteen boys. When the stepmonster changes form, its not truly frightening but very ugly and its appearance may scare little ones. Also, there is some scenes of her "out for blood" so that may not sit well either. But, tongue in cheek, its pretty entertaining. Thicke does his domineering dad well while Corben is a natural as the child actor. As for Riker, she is very beautiful and sly, fostering a wonder of why she didn't make it bigger. Kind of nice to see Ami Dolenz, Corey Feldman and John Astin, too. The sets, costumes, and effects are only average, kind of campy and cheesy but that doesn't really matter. If you can locate a copy, this film should prove a small hit to you and your youngsters.

This was a pretty good, little horror-comedy film that a lot of people don't know about. If they did, it would get a lot more attention because it's simply entertaining. As far as I know, the DVD is out-of-print and hard to find. That's too bad, because I gave away my VHS, never got it back and probably will never see this film again. Perhaps I can find it at a rental store.The 80-some minute story moves along very fast and has good characters. Robin Riker, as "Denise Gore," has a great face and - at least for me - alone is worth seeing the film. The same goes for Amy Dolenz, who is a lot of fun as "Wendy." Alan Thicke amazed me with his violin talents.The only bad part is the special-effects, which are poor considering the year this was made (1993) but it is still a very good B-movie that should appeal to kids and adults. A reviewer here thinks adults wouldn't like this, but I'm up in age and I really enjoyed it. I wouldn't have little kids seeing this, though.I hope this comes back on DVD because I'd like to see it again. I also wish I had a babysitter in my youth that looked like this!

The imagination, it is limitless as space. It's an escape from the real world. So when a monster threatens the neighborhood, it takes more than imagination to save the day. There's a teen named Todd(Billy Corben) who doesn't like the potential stepmother named Denise(Robin Riker). Simply because she's a tripopkin(a shape-shifting monster), that eats humans. The neighbors are dying off one by one, and his mother is gone too. No one in town believes him, except the beautiful sitter, Wendy(Ami Dolenz, Monkey Mickey's daughter) who he spies on at night, saved her from being tripopkin chow. At least he got a close up of her without her clothes on. He keeps searching for the tripopkin's weakness, the comic have it. But when the father(Alan Thicke) tears it up, he scrambles to find out. The weakness of a tripopkin is violin music. After he marries Denise, he finds out the hard way, and retaliates with some classic moves of his own. Amends go on, and he later finds out he wasn't widowed after all. Denise didn't kill everyone. This movie is very campy, and it's very good got a few known celebs like Corey Feldman, John Astin, and several others. I liked it very much!3 out of 5 stars!

This is a great movie for young kids who like family horror comedies or enjoyed the old Goosebumps series (the novels or the show). Todd is a kid who is convinced that his new stepmother is a monster from his comic book, one of those stories where someone is convinced another is in danger, but that endangered person doesn't believe the warning until it's too late. Todd thinks that stepmom Denise is a Tropokin, this weird aqautic looking beast that eats people and has other strange habits. Well, Todd's dad (Alan Thicke) is that person who disbelieves his sons warnings, thinking the kid reads way too much comic books. After all, monsters aren't real, right?Well, Denise Gore (notice the pun), is a suspicious behaving woman, monster or no monster. She first met during the same camping trip that Todd's mom mysteriously goes missing (and 6 months later, hasn't been found, which is why Todd's dad is marrying Denise). With the help of a couple of comic books (Sean Whalen, who you may remember as Carl Wayne Bishop in 'Jury Duty' is great as the cynical comic book store owner playing the stereotypical comic book nerd), a cool babysitter (played by Ami Dolenz), her doofus boyfriend (Corey Feldman), and an understanding grandfather, Todd has to expose Denise's darkside before the legendary 'summer solstice,' her fertilization and praying mantis like stage (aka biting off the head of her new hubby), which coincidentally is scheduled the same day as her wedding.SPOILERS***Although I would encourage kids to see it, the writers went out of their way to make things too gushy at the end. Followed by a hike in the woods with Todd and his dad in a manner that makes you want to whistle the Andy Griffith Show introduction, suddenly, mom is found in the caves in Tropokin-like webs, and despite being caught in this thing that just appears to be old rags, those who were trapped without air or food or lighting, are all of a sudden a-OK and everything is back to normal. This part should be avoided in order to enhance the entertainment value. If you watch up to the point where Todd is sitting on his bed and dad comes in to tell him goodnight, that's about the best way to end it. End transmission.