Once upon a time, there was an immaculately designed thriller entitled THE WINDOW (1949). Its boy-who-cried-wolf premise has been ripped off many times since, including this movie about a contingent of generic Little Rascals on the trail of a neighborhood murderer.
Overly curious Billy Rackman (Michael Galeota) spends his time dealing with his tagalong younger brother, Kade (Jimmy Galeota), running unsolicited interference between his mom (Suzanne Barnes) and her dates, and hanging out with his chums at their Blue Heaven Clubhouse. Billy witnesses next-door
neighbor Michael (Michael Ballan), a well-known composer, strangling his lover Marcela (Alisa Harris) to death. Having plagiarized her musical composition, Michael eliminated Marcela to save his good name.
Billy's mom doesn't believe a word of her son's improbable tale. After snooping around the killer's house, Billy's suspicion that Marcela's corpse was stashed in a freezer proves unfounded. Michael stashes Marcela's body in a crawlspace and prepares to move out of town. But he has already slipped
up, having given his piano student Kade some sheet music bearing Marcela's name. With the sporadic assistance of his buddies, Billy locates Marcela's body but gets cornered by a frantic Michael under the latter's porch. Fortunately, Kade saves the day by phoning 911 before turning up to protect
older brother Billy from Michael, who's unable to escape.
Leaving to parents the question of whether digging up a corpse is really suitable comedic fodder for a children's video, other adult viewers are left with an inconsistent suspense comedy with kids who unmask a killer in their spare time rather than building a go-cart or winning the Little League
game. Cast with a bevy of talentless players, CLUBHOUSE DETECTIVES washes over viewers of all ages in waves of undistinguished writing and direction, as unscary as it is unfunny. (Violence, adult situations.) leave a comment