BEST OF THE BAD: THE HUGGA BUNCH

Not many people have heard of this film, but those that have remember it fondly… as one WEIRD CHILDREN’S MOVIE!

As a little girl one of my favorite dolls was my Hugga Bunch doll. So, you can imagine my joy when my mom brought home a VHS copy of THE HUGGA BUNCH, a puppet filled bonanza of craziness! Keep in mind that this was 1985. FYI, my doll was not this terrifying!

THE HUGGA BUNCH is the story of Bridget, a polite young girl trying to save her grandmother from moving to a retirement community and out of her house. After all, Grams is the only one in her family that gives her hugs. Her brother Andrew is way too into baseball to hug, and her parents are always busy with work. The only way for her to keep Grams in the house is to travel to HuggaLand and obtain the youngberries from the youngberry tree. She can’t do this without her pal Huggins, who also loves to hug.

Along the way she meets a slue of characters, from Huggins friends, to an patchwork elephant named Hodge Podge, who she saves by hugging him. She learns from the book worm that the only youngberry tree belongs to the evil queen. Now, Bridget must sneak inside the castle and steal some youngberries to stop her grandmother from aging and keep her living in their house.

Let’s see… all of the problems in this story are solved by hugging? Was this the pilot for Full House???

The puppets in this film were just plain creepy! Although Huggins and her friends were all identical to the dolls, they barely blinked and didn’t have much mobility, with the exception of bouncing and weird head bobbing. Imagine blank stares and slight head tilts as the only form of communication. Awkward! Whenever someone would hug, some techno failure of a melody would play, which was reminiscent to a tune that could play before things go horribly wrong in a horror film. Then, add a big headed doll popping out of the mirror and talking to you. Heck, even Bridget was scared! The whole land is made up of pillows and squishy stuff, like one giant hug… or Michael Jackson’s bedroom. (Too soon?) The background was clearly painted with just some props up front, and you never see the hug-people walk with their feet on the ground. If you do see them move, it is scary! Way to give children nightmares!

Let’s talk acting, as in, the acting in this movie was awful! It both looks and sounds like they chose the worst actors from their local community drama workshop and filled the parts with them. The only actor worse than the Gennie James who plays Bridget is Aarika Wells who plays Queen Admira. She is just plain OVER THE TOP in her role. It is so bad that it is just plain entertaining to watch!

Sidenote: This film gets extra points for putting a St. Louis Cardinals hat on Huggins! GO BIRDS!

All of these horrible features make for a highly entertaining movie. As a child I loved it simply because I saw my doll come to life (In a scary, frozen sort of way!), and now I can appreciate the horrendous, disturbing, and all together strange nature of the whole thing!

If you can manage to find a copy… I highly recommend watching it! I just hope one day that I find out that there really is a youngberry tree!!!

I will leave you with a sample of the film… you’re welcome.