I think the people who don't like movies like these are the people that expect well done high quality films every time they sit down to watch something... and not just stupid fun.

Deadtime Stories walks the like, it isn't exactly adult and it isn't exactly child friendly either, but so went most of the movies from the 80s, I mean Robocop was a huge hit with kids back then, they even made toys and cartoons and by today's standards CPS will take your kids away if you watch it.

But back then, sticks and stones broke bones, now words, and kids where less sensitive, tougher, less influenced, and more able to separate reality from entertainment... that or we just Molly Coddle too much these days

The problem here though isn't so much the content as it is the humor. It needed to choose if they were going to make the jokes more geared for adults or more geared for kids for them to really land. The mixture between the two is a little weird and off-putting and, though it is entertaining and has it's funny moments, it clearly couldn't decide which it wanted to appeal more towards.

But in the end, however, it doesn't matter, it's still a cheap fun movie to watch, and is all it was ever supposed to be.

"Deadtime Stories" is a three-tale Horror anthology inside a wrap-around story of an uncle trying to get his nephew to go to bed. The uncle tells the sleepless boy about two evil witches trying to raise their sister from the dead. This one is the most redeeming of the lot because it features a corpse being reanimated. It contains some really good special effects and is the highlight of what is a poor movie overall.

The second tale is a modern retelling of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. Let's just say this one works way too hard for its payoff punchline, which isn't worth suffering through anyway.

Finally, the uncle twists up Goldielocks and the Three Bears. This is a dark comedy, if you can even describe it as that. It's totally vapid and tedious and just what is Goldilocks singing in the shower? This one feels extremely cheap and just slapped together. It's painful.

The end of the wrap-around story is really weird, with the nephew getting his due for constantly crying wolf to his uncle. It's unsettling because of the entrance of the monster in the boy's room. Where did it come from? Of course, whatever was gained in the oddity of that moment is quickly lost by the disjointed reaction of the boy's uncle.