Before Independence Day, Universal Soldier and Stargate, Roland Emmerich made Joey, which was released in edited form in the U.S. as Making Contact. Another of his movies, Hollywood-Monster, was also released here as Ghost Chase.

9-year-old Joey’s father may have died, but he thinks that he can talk to him on his phone. He’s also being attacked by Fletcher, a ventriloquist dummy possessed by a demon that is now calling on an army of demons to take over reality.

Joey must use his telekinesis to go into the spirit world to battle these demons. Luckily, he has a droid-like robot named Charlie and his dog Scooter to help him — even if he must enter the Bates Motel to save his canine best pal. Oh yeah — and there is also a gang of kids who dress like Spider-Man and Darth Vader who use toy tanks to attack Joey, but end up being his friend at the end. There are a lot of moments here where you just have to realize that no one was interested in explaining how to get from story beat to story beat, so they just said screw it and made it was strange as they possible could. I have no issues at all with this choice.

Imagine if you were watching E.T., Poltergeist and The Goonies all at the same time. This movie is a mash-up of influences and completely all over the place. Yet it’s well-made and anything but boring. Isn’t that what you’re looking for in a movie?

You can get this movie from Kino Lorber.