The Monster Squad (1987)

Amateur movie with Big budget

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

It's like it was written by a 8-year -old. It was just silly. Unlike other great 80s films, like Gremlins, E.T., Goonies, Back To The Future, and other films aimed at kids, they were cleverly written and well executed. This, however, was just poorly written, structured and over all badly executed. I wanted to have some goofy fun with this interesting concept, but it was difficult to sit through.

I grew up in the 80's and watched this as a child, it was fun and entertaining, and it worked with my imagination which was already leaning towards a tendency for horror. As a thirtysomething year old now, I've re-watched the movie, and I still got some enjoyment out of it, along with a bucket load of nostalgia. Van Helsing and his gang break into Castle Dracula and use a spell to stop a reign of evil by destroying an amulet. Something goes wrong and evil is not wiped out, instead the good guys lose, but evil ends up lying dormant for a while. Fast forward to the 80's and things are about to get ugly. While transporting Dracula's coffin to America, Dracula manages to escape, after which he calls on some of his most trusted henchmen - I mean, monsters. Arise then: Wolfman, Creature from the Lagoon (or Merman), The Mummy, and Frankenstein's monster. Set on destroying the vehicle which would allow them to be banished - the spell and an amulet. Luckily there is a Monster Squad in town, a group of friends who love monster movies, monster facts and trivia, and, well, anything monster related. The Monster Squad manage to work out what is happening. Along the way they slowly convince some adults to help out. The ultimate aim, is to succeed where Van Helsing failed, and put a final end to evil - stopping Dracula and his hench-monsters. Think "The Goonies" with a lot less money for the budget, mixed with "Stand by me" with more horror, and "Fright Night" but with the lights on. This is a fun adventure with all the charm of an 80's cheese tasting session. It's harmless, family fun which a touch of horror. The monsters are camp, the bats are rubber, the soundtrack is synth-tastic, there are tongue in cheek Easter eggs all over, it's cute, it's sad - it's a lot all rolled into one. I'm not saying it's the best kids horror film you will ever see, but definitely not the worst, but it's definitely fun. I'm expecting this to get re-booted at some point, as there is a lot you could do with CGI to amp-up the film, and because in its day, this got a cult following of fans. 7 out of 10.

Unlike some of the other Eighties films that I've reappraised on here, I'd never seen "Monster Squad" before last week - and all I can say is that some of you have some very rose tinted spectacles on when watching this again now. The film centres on a bunch of school age children, who are obsessed with the classic Universal Movie monsters. When the actual monsters come to their small town, on the hunt for a medallion that would allow Dracula to rule the world, the boys, with the help of Van Helsing's notebook try to complete an ancient ritual that would cast Dracula into Limbo. I'm prepared to gloss over some aspects of the movies failings, really I am. It's filmed on an awful 80's film stock that makes the film look grainy and washed out. The script has quite a few homophobic slurs that are quite jarring to hear today (although probably realistic for the time) as is the fact that one character is called "Fat Kid" even by his friends. The revenge porn subplot also wouldn't make it into the movie, if it was made with our modern sensibilities. That said, Stan Winston's effects are pretty good, especially given that the film has a relatively small budget. The acting is a mixed bag, with the monsters doing quite well but the kids not so much. And I got a real "Evil Dead" vibe from the Skeletons and the portal that appear in the prologue . .though really that just made me want to watch "Evil Dead"One of the trivia points for the film says that the producers demanded 14 minutes of cuts to get the film to under 90 minutes - it feels like all the bits that were cut were the expositional sections or the motivational explanations. How does Dracula know where the pendant he's searching for is? If he's drawn to it, why has it taken a century for him to come to America? Who makes the call to the family that alerts Sean to the fact that Dracula is in town, and why? You feel like Van Helsing's book should have played a bigger part, leading all the characters to the house that used to be his, and the pendant . . . but if that is the case it's all up to you to surmise, because the film doesn't tell you. Also, Sean's parent's marriage is failing - but for no real story reason. The film doesn't use it as an excuse to, for example, explain why he's not noticed sneaking out but there's also no reconciliation at the end - it's just meaningless. A good idea, with good effects, but appallingly delivered. It cries out for a decent remake like few other films I've seen.

I was just a bit younger than the kids in this movie when it first came out, and I probably watched it a dozen times. But I haven't seen it since the late 80's. So my first thought with any movie from the 80's is, does it still hold up? And this one, in my mind, does without a doubt. It has all the cheesy goodness one would want, with a low body count, that one would expect of a PG-13 movie in the 80's.Being a kid who loved horror movies, this situation was a dream for me. I lived out in the country so the closest neighbor with kids my age was two miles down the road. Needless to say, I didn't have any friends nearby that I could have formed a Monster Squad with. The parts that I remembered after all these years were when Phoebe first met Frankenstein's monster, and when she was playing dress up with him. I imagine those struck such a chord with me because as a young girl I would have loved to have done this.Some of the things I noticed that I am sure I didn't even stop to think about for a second as a kid were at the beginning when a female vampire is sucking a possum dry, and I think there was an armadillo running around in the scene. I just really thought these were strange animals to choose. And when I was looking over the credits, Charly Morgan comes up as Vampire Bride with possum.The fake bats hanging from the ceiling and bouncing around were adorable. And Ryan Lambert, who played Rudy, reminded me a lot of Corey Feldman, who as a kid, I also thought was adorable.Now for the things that I wouldn't have even thought about when I was younger, but really stuck out to me as an adult, were how many times at the beginning they used the derogatory slur for gay men. Also Horace was called Fat Kid, even by his friends. In this day and age with bullying being such a hot topic, if you watch this with your kids, you just keep it in mind when you watch it.A few other things were an open flame by Phoebe's bed. Her mom had put it there telling her as long as it burned, the monsters would stay away. Open flame next to the bed, not the best idea, but hey, we survived that and a lot worse in the 80's. Also, the black police officer, and I think he was the only black person in the movie, got killed by TNT. It made me think about Scream 2 where Jada Pickett Smith remarks about the black characters always getting killed.In the 80's I remember divorce being a big topic. Sean, the leader of the Monster Squad, had parents who were going to marriage therapy and were on the verge of divorce. But after slaying monsters together (His dad's a police officer, and the mom sees the monsters towards the end) it looks like they will be one big happy family. In regards to if you should watch this movies, as their principal says, "I dig it, man!"