Ruth Corday: "He's not a monster, he's a shoe salesmen."

Nostalgic comedy, released in 1993. It was directed by Joe Dante and written by Charles S. Haas. Jerry Goldsmith's score for the film included themes from older movies like "The Creature from the Black Lagoon," "Son of Dracula," "It Came from Outer Space," "Tarantula," "This Island Earth," and "The Deadly Mantis."

The film's stars included:

The stars in "Mant," the movie-in-a-movie, include:

The film is set during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and focuses on the screening in Key West of a campy B-movie called "Mant!" ("Half-Man, Half-Ant, All-Terror!"). The movie's producer, a showman based on real-life producer William Castle, is making extensive (and potentially destructive) alterations to the theater to accomodate the fancy special effects designed for the film and is promoting the hell out of the picture, hoping for a really big premiere. Wrapped around all this is quite a lot of teen shenanigans, mostly focused around boys in love with girls and girls trying to break out of the cages the 1950s and '60s had built around women.

A lot of the fun in this movie revolves around the movies-within-the-movie -- primarily "Mant!" A glorious and hilarious send-up of classic '50s atomic horror films, it included genuine actors from the Golden Age of the B-Movie like Kevin McCarthy, Robert Cornthwaite, and William Schallert and featured corny dialogue, flat acting, and beautifully weird special effects. There were also brief but funny glimpses of a movie called "The Shook Up Shopping Cart," a Disney-style family comedy about a man who gets turned into a shopping cart and, of course, uses his new abilities to fight crime.

The movie was excellently reviewed when it was released but not amazingly profitable. It's considered a cult classic today, but is certainly worth seeking out if you've got a love of old monster movies or the specatcle of Joe Dante's films.

Lawrence Woolsey: "You think grown-ups have it all figured out? That's just a hustle, kid. Grown-ups are making it up as they go along, just like you. You remember that, and you'll do fine."