The Monster Squad
Few movies captured my imagination as a child like The Monster Squad. Twenty years after its original theatrical release, I’m all grown up and the film is little more than a piece of child exploitive nostalgia. Basically, I still like the movie, but I don’t know why. Maybe it’s all of the corny dialogue, maybe it’s the picture perfect snapshot of eighties youth fashion complete with crappy skateboards and T&C shirts.
The Monster Squad is about a group of kids that find out that monsters are in fact real. The whole stable of Universal’s classic monsters come out to play in this film. You have a deliciously cheesy looking Wolfman, your typical Bela Lugosi-style Dracula, The Creature From the Black Lagoon, a rather interesting looking Mummy, and of course everyone’s favorite retard Frankenstein’s monster. The kids must stop evil from taking over the world by finding a virgin and performing a ritual at midnight, all while battling the forces of evil.
The direction by Fred Dekker (Night of the Creeps) is actually pretty good. The imagery is pretty cool, even though the special effects by Stan Winston are not up to snuff as many of the creature effects are intentionally cheesy so as not to frighten the film’s targeted audience, young children. It’s an aesthetic choice that may have been appropriate in the 80’s, but with today’s violence and brutality centered youth culture, it just doesn’t hold up. Besides, I’m pretty sure the kids are terrifying enough with their cigarette smoking, beer drinking, and gay bashing… I don’t see how a few creepier effects could have frightened the piss out of kids.
The acting is a hodge podge of no name actors and C level that guys. None of the actors except John Gries (Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite) and Tom Noonan (Knockaround Guys, Seraphim Falls) ever really went on to do much in the movie business… nothing of consequence anyways. This makes sense as most of the acting from the child actors is pretty bad… in a cheesy enjoyable sort of way. Sadly, the character that played my favorite character in the movie died 10 years ago. Brent Chalem, the kid that played Fat Kid, passed away of pneumonia ten years ago… there will be no reunion for him.
The biggest drawback of The Monster Squad is that it is basically just a Goonies ripoff. They even borrow the mom from The Goonies and make her the mom in this movie. They also rip off the chunk character from The Goonies by throwing in their own fat kid that is the butt of everyone’s jokes… I’m pretty sure his character is supposed to be Jewish too. There is even a tongue in cheek reference to pirates when the kids are finding the amulet in the basement. It’s sad really. Many of the elements of this movie should work, but their reliance on the child adventure formula that was created in The Goonies makes for some fairly stale parts.
I’m not going to tell you that The Monster Squad is a bad movie. I won’t tell you that it is good either. My own personal past with the film prevents me from saying it’s bad, the memories I have of watching this and enjoying it are just too strong. My critical eye won’t allow me to say that it is good either, despite my own personal attachment to the film.
Final Synopsis: This Goonies ripoff has some cool parts, lost of kids swearing, and cool appearances by Universal’s famous monsters. I still think that kids will get a kick out of the movie, even if parents don’t. If you haven’t seen the movie in a while, but you remember liking it, give it a watch but always keep in mind why you liked it as a kid.
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