'Book of Monsters' (2018) – Stewart Sparke.

Low-budget UK schlocker 'Book of Monsters' frantically comes across like an entertainingly Lloyd Kaufman-mutated version of 'Goosebumps'. And while this excitable monster-fest doesn't work quite as well as 'Grabbers' it zealously mines the similarly tentacular tropes of teen-screaming 80s schlock, boisterously invoking the likes of B-cult classics 'The Imp' and the bafflingly underrated VHS-era gem 'The Lamp'. 'Book of Monsters' flavoursomely mixes up a gobby dollop of vintage 'Grange Hill' sarkiness with some groovy 'Ghoulies' monster mash, gets the enthusiastic cast royally piddled on sketchy punch and hopes for the B-Movie best, and for the most part the director's decision to be very, very silly indeed proves rather astute! 

Prototypically pretty girl next door Sophie (Lyndsey Craine) somewhat inevitably has her 18^th birthday party calamitously crashed by a barnstormingly boozy mob of noisome nerks, and one of their boorish number is a weirdly sniffy wrong 'un who saucily turns out to be one of David Ike's monstrously mutable lizard folk, and her especially sinister methodology of coitus interruptus acts as the grisly catalyst for Sophie's family home to be gruesomely overrun with amusingly shonky-looking beasties, and it's mostly fun watching Sophie's plucky teenage chums gorily send these party crashing Creepozoids to their Scooby Doom! Excluding the literary demerits of the formulaic script, 'Book of Monsters' gets an 'A' for effort, the conspicuously talented special FX crew all deserve a merit badge each, and the charming Lyndsey Craine has bravely Buffy'd her way to the very top of the B-Horror class! Hey!!! This is one blood-bound Book of Monsters you can happily judge by its deliciously lurid cover!