There are a number of films that I remember fondly from my childhood and many of them I still watch and enjoy from time to time as an adult with a similar appreciation. One series of films that seemed to fall through the cracks over time was the Ernest films, starring Jim Varney, that were popular from the late eighties through the early nineties and I have fond memories seeing a couple of them in the theater even with my Dad and my Brother. I've recently been revisiting these to see if they still hold up including, for the Halloween Season, his final theatrical feature Ernest Scared Stupid.
Ernest P. Worrell (played by Jim Varney) lives a simple life in the small town of Briarville, Missouri with his beloved dog Rimshot and his quirky inventions. He works in the city Sanitation department and is tasked with cleaning up around the estate of Old Lady Hackmore (played by Eartha Kitt). After she chases him away, Ernest meets a few of his middle school friends, Kenny (played by Austin Nagler), Elizabeth (played by Shay Astar) and Joey (played by Alec Klapper), and agrees to help them build a treehouse after their planned haunted house gets trashed by local bullies, Mike and Matt Murdock (played by Nick Victory and Richard Woolf). Turns out, the big, old, gnarly tree they pick to build their treehouse on grows over an entrapped troll named Trantor. In the late 19th century, the troll was captured and imprisoned in the ground by the townsfolk of Briarville, led by Phineas Worrell (played by Jim Varney). Before he was imprisoned, the troll placed a curse on the town that one day he would be release on the night before Halloween by a Worrell and that each passing generation of Worrell would get dumber and dumber until the dumbest one would be foolish enough to release him. Of course, as Ernest relates the story to the kids he manages to do just that. Realizing what has happened, Ernest tries to warn the townsfolk of the troll's return. When no one believes him, it falls to Ernest to mount a one man (and one dog) operation to stop Trantor and save the children of Briarville, who Trantor intends to turn into wooden dolls and use them to bring forth an army of trolls.
The film was directed by John Cherry from a script by Charlie Gale and Coke Sams. Revisiting this movie all these years later, and it's probably been a good thirty years since I last saw it, I was surprised by how much of it I actually remembered. The film is an odd mix of very goofy comedy with some genuinely creepy and spooky moments, including a couple moments that I remember actually starling me a bit as a kid. Based on what I have read online in the past few years, as I came to realize this movie had a bit of a cult following, was that others shared similar reactions of finding this film genuinely scary as kids. Now, watching it as an adult I did not have the same reaction, but I still clearly could recall the moments that did scare me as a kid, so there is something to this after all. The effects for the trolls are solid, with the main troll Trantor being a large, slimy, nasty creature, no doubt contributing to little kids nightmares. Yet, this is paired with very silly comedy with Jim Varney mugging for the camera at every opportunity in the one part of this film that probably did not age as well for me. Some of it works but a lot of it didn't as I revisited the film.
There is something that I still find endearing about the character of Ernest P. Worrell and the way Jim Varney plays him. The character has a certain innocence about him and yes, there is some foolishness and stupidity there too, but the character always means well and that makes it easy to like him. At different times in the film, Ernest adopts a series of different personas that I still find amusing, including a army general and my favorite, Auntie Nelda, who is a eternally put upon older woman who complains constantly. It's completely ridiculous of course and Varney switches rapidly between the personas to the befuddlement of his middle school friends and probably the viewer as well. Eartha Kitt is clearly having a blast playing Old Lady Hackmore, playing up the character's eccentricities in a very amusing performance as she initially warns Ernest not to build the treehouse in the old gnarly oak tree and later becomes his ally in trying to defeat Trantor. Bill Byrge returns as one of Ernest's friends Bobby Tulip, this time paired with Tom, played by John Cadenhead, on hand to sell Ernest an assortment of troll fighting items, none of which do any good at all. Austin Nagler does reasonably well as Kenny, often playing the straight man to Ernest's goofy antics throughout the movie.
One very interesting thing about re-watching this movie all these years later is discovering just how much the plot resembles another beloved Halloween film called Hocus Pocus, which came out two years later. An ancient evil lays down a curse before they are defeated only to have the curse fulfilled many many years later by a foolish individual only for it to fall to that individual, and their friends, to defeat the threat themselves and save the day. I'm not saying one is ripping off the other, but the similarities are striking and amusing. As it stands on it's own, I imagine one's mileage would vary greatly with Ernest Scared Stupid, depending on one's tolerance for silly humor, Jim Varney's mugging and the amount of nostalgia one has for these films. Since I do, I found I still enjoyed the film all these years later and look forward to revisiting some of the others.
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