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From the tender young age of nine up until fifteen I went through a lot of changes; everything from the sound of my voice to my tastes in music fluctuated wildly throughout those six formative years. In spite of all the changes I experienced one thing remained the same, which was the giant “Monster Squad” poster that was posted in a place of honor on the wall facing my bed. I spent a ridiculous amount of my youth simply starring at that amazing piece of art. When I finally took it down, those many years ago it was in fear that the girls that were finally coming over to my house might not think the Wolfman or Frankenstein was as cool as I did. I sure wish I still had that poster now, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the twenty years since Fred Dekker’s amazing film first ran in theaters, no girl’s as cool as “The Monster Squad!”
Perhaps my love for “The Monster Squad” stems from the fact that I was at the perfect age to enjoy this movie when it first flopped in theaters. I can still vividly recall going to class a few weeks following its summer release. I had just begun attending a new school, and while introducing myself to the class I told them my favorite movie was “The Monster Squad.” Much to my surprise nobody in my fourth grade class had ever heard of it. I went on to inform the entire classroom that the film had inspired me to start a monster squad of my own and anyone willing to apply could meet me behind the portable classroom by the blacktop where the kids that had speech impediments went when they were mysteriously pulled out of class three times a week. To my shock no applicants showed up, just handful of classmates that threw dirt clods at me and cemented my place as “the weird kid” in class. But that was what made the members of “The Monster Squad” so identifiably great, they too were misfits and outcasts and they went on to save the whole world from Dracula. And with that thought in mind I realized that no matter what, I’d be alright, but if any big baddies did arrive in my suburb, those jerks that hefted the balled up bits of earth at me where on their own.
When “The Monster Squad” initially showed up into theaters at the tail end of the summer of 1987, hardly anyone took notice. In those days kid oriented horror was few and far between. R.L. Stine’s “Goosebumps”, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Harry Potter” were still decades away and just two years prior the Senate was having hearings looking into the possible satanic influences in everything from heavy metal lyrics to Saturday morning cartoons. Proving the fact that all great movies will find their audiences, through the end of the eighties and on into the early nineties, “The Monster Squad” built a strong and devoted audience in the children and parents that were lucky enough to rent the video or view the countless showings on HBO.
“The Monster Squad” tells the tale of club made up of six adolescents (yes, I’m counting Phoebe the feeb as a member, “or else it’s prescription!” ) that form a club based on their love of all things monster related. They draw pictures of monsters, read books about monsters, watch monster movies and after Drac and his crew come to town, fight monsters! Shortly after Sean (Andre Gower), Patrick (Robby Kiger), Fat Kid…I mean Horace (Brent Chalem), Rudy (Ryan Lambert), Eugene (Michael Faustino) and the forcibly included Phoebe (Ashley Bank) form their horror themed organization the biggest baddie of the horror world shows up in their sleepy town. Not only has Dracula himself arrived in their hometown he didn’t come alone. He’s brought with him some muscle in the form of Frankenstein’s Monster, an underwater tech guy with The Gilman (named such since Creature from the Black Lagoon’s copyrighted), some more muscle when the moon’s full in The Wolfman and finally a steady supply of gauze from The Mummy. Why have all these ghouls shown up in the same place at the same time? Because the town houses an amulet that will help them rule the world of course! Conveniently enough for the squad it’s also the town where Van Helsing’s diary containing the way to defeat them can be found by somebody’s mom at a garage sale. Armed with the unreadable diary but unable to prove the monsters’ existence to anyone in their family the kids enable the help of their neighborhood’s Boo Radley. By using his native tongue the man the children dubbed “Scary German Guy” assists them in deciphering the diary and helps in the attempt to stop the monsters and their nefarious plan.
“The Monster Squad” came out a mere two years after the Spielberg produced “Goonies” cleaned up at the box office. While comparisons between the two are hard to deny, “Squad” creator’s Fred Dekker’s film is simply better than the overdone flick helmed by Richard Donner, Chris Columbus and that guy that hasn’t made an entertaining film that didn’t include a whip or a killer shark. While “Goonies” drowns in the lake of schmaltz that all things Spielbergian crawls from, “The Monster Squad” is charmingly honest in its portrayal of childish awe and never talks down to its audience. Even the revelation of “Scary German Guy’s” past as a holocaust survivor is treated with a careful hand that has never been seen attached to either of the wrists of Spielberg himself. This is not surprising due to the ham-fists that generally reside there.
As great as all the child actors amazingly are, what truly sets the film apart from other kid friendly horror films is the excellent cast acquired to play these famous monsters. While all of the creatures are based on the ones seen in the old black and white Universal horror films, the film had to take some liberties by altering their looks to avoid a letter from Universal’s legal team. The end result was the iconic look that these monsters will be remembered for by anyone born after 1970. As Dracula, Duncan Regehr brings a fearfully elegant version of the king of vampires to the screen not seen since Christopher Lee last donned a cloak for Hammer studios. For some, choosing to play Frankenstein’s Monster in a kid friendly film might seem as an odd choice to follow up his career defining role as the serial killer “The Tooth Fairy” in 1986’s “Manhunter.” None the less, Tom Noonan gives a shockingly honest version of the cobbled together creature that comes to find that he has much more in common with the children that he was sent to destroy than the monster that ordered him to do it. While the final three villains were all played by actors in costume that did great jobs, their parts were mostly memorable due to the remarkable work done by the great Stan Winston and his studio. While all three looked amazing it was the stand out job done on “The Gillman” that looked better than anything on the screen back in 1987 and still looks far more “alive” than anything done with computer today. “The Monster Squad” is the film that started my life long love of monster movies and all things horror. Girls will come, girls will go, but great horror movies last a lifetime, especially once they’re finally released onto DVD!
This is the first time since its original theatrical run that “The Monster Squad” has been seen the way it was meant to be viewed. Both the VHS and Laserdisc versions only offered a terrible pan and scan version of the flick severally altering the majestic look of the film. Lionsgate did a superb job with the newly mastered widescreen showcased in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. While most fans will always keep their VHS copy for sentimental reasons, we can finally trash the DVD bootlegs of the Laserdisc version picked up at various conventions from unscrupulous dealers. This DVD is the way fans have always wanted to see the film and it looks brilliant. The amazingly mastered 5.1 Dolby Digital audio track will have fans hearing often quoted lines like “Wolfman’s got nards”, “Mummy came to my house” and “I’m in the goddamn club aren’t I” in ways they’ve never experienced before.
Lionsgate pulled out all the stops for this two-disc 20th Anniversary edition of “The Monster Squad”. While many fans would have been happy to simply see its long awaited release on DVD, this set provides more extras than one would expect for a cult film. But with used VHS copies of the out-of-print film selling regularly on Amazon for well over a hundred dollars, Lionsgate rightfully realized that the rabid fan base wanted, no, needed more than a simple bare bones DVD release like MGM did with the cult film “Night of the Comet.”
Easily the first thing fans will want to view after checking out the film is the wonderful feature length retrospective “Monster Squad Forever!” Running a little over ninety minutes the documentary splits itself into five different and mostly unique parts. Part One: “The Monster Master” covers writer/director Fred Dekker’s journey as a filmmaker, from the begging of his career on the genre favorite film “House” up to his idea for “The Monster Squad.” Part Two: “The Monster Makers” is a very cool look at what went into creating the monsters that played havoc on the children in the film. While the inclusion of Stan Winston himself is sorely missed, the feature more than makes up for it with interviews with a large number of his team on the film. Part Three: “The Monsters and the Squad” takes a look at the actors that appeared in the film and shows that Tom Noonan might be one of the grumpiest and ungrateful actors around. He complains about everything from Dekker’s directional abilities to the fact that the child actors behaved like children on the set; surprise Noonan, they’re kids! His curmudgeonly sour demeanor is probably what keeps this genuinely great actor from receiving more high profile roles. Part Four: “Light, Camera, Monsters” is a wonderfully in depth look at the production of the film. It contains interviews with everyone from the cinematographer to the creator of the films haunting score. This section of the documentary contains the heart wrenching moment where Dekker reveals that the poorly received film all but killed his career. Although, to be fair it was the almost unwatchable “Robocop 3″ that put the final nail in his directing coffin. Finally, Part Five: “Monster Mania” gives the fans both famous and otherwise a chance to discuss their love of the film. While most of the fans interviewed seem incredibly sincere, it’s the gold chain adorned track suit wearing “tough guys” at a New Jersey horror convention that really show how widespread the love for this film is.
With an understanding of how thirsty “The Monster Squad” fan base is for information on their beloved film the set includes not one, but two full length commentary tracks. The first, with Dekker and actors Gower, Lambert and Bank is cute and enjoyable but it feels as if none of the actors had seen the film in the past twenty years. While enjoyable, it offers few revelations about the movie other than former “Saved by the Bell” star turned amateur porn actor Dustin Diamond was originally slated to appear in it. The second commentary track with Dekker and Cinematographer Bradford May is where most viewers will find any source of sustenance. Reflections upon the difficulties of working with the notoriously impatient director Peter Hyams who was Executive Producer on the project are the main points of conversation. While both Dekker and May refrain from becoming catty about the subject, their belief that the man is a far greater director than producer is evident by the fact that “The Monster Squad” was the last film Hyams would ever produce.
Included on the second disc is a never before seen interview with Tom Noonan in full Frankenstein makeup who remains in character for the entire eight minutes. Filmed on the set during the downtime of production, this weird “shoot interview” that showcases a playfully improving Noonan is worlds apart from the unhappy man shown in “Monster Squad Forever!” The eight minute collection of deleted scenes found on the second disc starts off with a note about how very little footage was left out of the original film. But the majority of what was cut out has since gone missing and what is included on the DVD is about as interesting as watching your parents argue. Although the additional footage of The Gilman is appreciated since he had such little screen time in the film. Also found on the special features disc is a rather pointless ninety second long “Animated Storyboard Sequence” and a very cool “Still Gallery” filled with production photos, print ads, lobby cards, foreign video boxes and more. And of course, what kind of collector’s edition would it be if it didn’t include the original theatrical trailers and TV spots.
“The Monster Squad” is one of those rare films that you haven’t seen since you were a kid and it’s still actually as great as you fondly remembered. It was a film that was ahead of its time and is still as enjoyable for today’s audiences as it was twenty years ago. Just as it was when it was first released, many adults may never view it thinking it’s just for kids, many more children will be deprived of it by adults afraid that it may scare their youngsters. While the first group of adults couldn’t be more wrong, the latter collective of parents are correct in their assumptions. “The Monster Squad” does have its scary moments, but it’s the right kid of scares for kids. Hell, it might scare them enough to form their own squad, and when Dracula comes to you’re town, you’ll be glad they did.
With the release of “The Monster Squad” on DVD a gap in the collection of films fans around the world has finally been closed, but there is still at least one more cult flick in need of a home. Fred Dekker’s directing debut “Night of the Creeps” is sadly unreleased on DVD. With a cult following that mirror’s his follow up film “The Monster Squad”, “Creeps” is Dekker’s love letter to horror fans. Featuring characters named after famous horror directors like Hooper, Carpenter, Romero, Raimi and Landis and plot devices that involve every genre checkmark from an axe wielding maniac to crash-landing aliens, “Creeps” is an all-time classic. There is a legion of horror fans born in the fifteen years since its last release on VHS that don’t even know the film exists, and even more that have signed multiple petitions begging for a DVD release. Alright, Lionsgate, we don’t want to sound greedy, but since you did such a great job on “The Monster Squad” let’s see the same love shown to “Night of the Creeps.”
10 out of 10 shotgun toting fat kids named Horace
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