Ernest P. Worrell and friends find themselves in a situation like no other in this child-geared horror film. An age-old myth comes back to haunt Ernest and the people closest to him and while, as usual, Ernest finds ways to regularly make the situation worse than it already is, his heroics shine in the end. What is quite often overlooked by audiences is Ernest’s ability to get people out of the binds they find themselves in, regardless of whether or not he is the reason they were in those predicaments in the first place. He always, by the end of the film, finds a way to save everyone and restore some form of normativity to the town. What was unique about this particular film was the fact that, even though the story was completely ridiculous, the antagonist in this film was far superior to the others that Ernest faced; it was actually frightening and seemed to pose a legitimate threat. For once John R. Cherry III appealed to his audiences’ emotions by having the threat target not only the dimwitted Ernest (and it was wonderful for Cherry to provide an explaination of why Ernest is so dumb), but the children of Briarville, Missouri and Ernest’s dog, Rimshot (played by Barkley). This film was, by far, the best of Varney’s Ernest films. The story, the characters (who were intellectually superior to any of the characters in the previous films), the comedy and the appeal to emotion made this film incredibly enjoyable. While the film is certainly geared towards Halloween, it’s a film that can be enjoyed all year. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101821/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1
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