10 Sci-Fi Movie Rip-Offs You Won't Believe Exist

You have to begrudgingly hand it to the team behind 1988's Hobgoblins - a Gremlins rip-off so shameless even the movie's trailer literally refers to the titular critters as "gruesome gremlins."

Though there is a faint, campy charm to the cheap-looking creature puppets, make no mistake: this is a roughshod outing from top to bottom, with gutter-level writing and acting throughout.

Yet considering that filmmaker Rick Sloane produced it for a mere $15,000, it's hard to get even remotely mad about the film's existence. After all, it was featured in a hilarious Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, which may well serve as its ultimate legacy.

Incredibly, however, the cult fandom surrounding Hobgoblins was strong enough that Sloane was able to produce a sequel in 2009 - over 20 years later - using a script he wrote shortly after the original's release.

Typically it didn't make much of a dent, with many dismissing it as a follow-up that made an overly self-conscious effort to be "so bad it's good."