The Good

A great film from the 1980s gets kids and horror right.

The Bad

I only wish there was more… or at least a sequel in the works.

The Monster Squad is one of the lost kids movies from the 1980s. People will talk about The Goonies, The Lost Boys and other films, yet we never seem to hear too much about The Monster Squad unless that talk is coming from die hard fans of the horror genre. I am certainly not saying that those other films are lacking, but I will submit that The Monster Squad is indeed just as good.

The gist of The Monster Squad is that Count Dracula has until midnight to obtain a secret amulet that will let him rule the world. Helping him are his friends The Wolfman, Gill-man, the Mummy and Frankenstein. Now all of this might indeed take place if a bunch of horror movie and scary book fanatics called The Monster Squad ’t gotten wind of things. What ensues is the ultimate battle between good and evil. The Count uses his ability to evoke fear, while The Monster Squad relies on their wits and knowledge of movies to see them through this dark hour.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

For whatever reason, this movie opened to crickets in the movie theaters but has since become a succes d’estime on home video. Here’s hoping that even more people find out about The Monster Squad and it spawns a sequel!

Features

Disc One

There are two tracks on this DVD. One is with Director Fred Dekker and Director of Photography Bradford May. The other is with Dekker and Andre Gower (Sean Crenshaw), Ryan Lambert (Rudy) and Ashley Bank (Phoebe Crenshaw). Which one do you think I listened to? They open up by making jokes and Director Dekker even says, “I hope it holds up.” They then talk about where things were shot and they even ask questions about their characters, like if Rudy was so cool why would he run away with the rest of the Monster Squad when they would got scared? Ashley Bank talks about being young and getting to curse in the movie, then they talk about the effects and Dekker points out that he got tremendous energy from all the actors. Lastly, I love how at they end of the film someone points out that these kids do what a platoon of cops can’t in regards to dealing with the monsters.

Disc Two

Monster Squad Forever

This 5 part featurette is comprised of the following sections:

  • Monster Master

  • Monster Makers

  • The Monsters & The Squad

  • Lights, Camera, Monsters

  • Monster Mania

I was very impressed with all of these sections. There is something for everyone here so even if you only want to know about certain things, there’s bound to be something to satisfy what you need. I personally liked the Monster Master, The Monsters & The Squad and Monster Mania featurettes the best. I found that this whole piece was a nice adjunct to this film. It was great to hear the cast talking about the movie and it seems that Fred Dekker really knew what both kids and adults would enjoy. There are many insights and fascinating things to learn here, so if you are a fan I would highly suggest checking a few (if not all) of these sections out.

A Conversation with Frankenstein

Animated Storyboard Sequence

Featuring the final fight between the Mummy and The Squad this section is also presented with the soundtrack to the film. It is well cut together and in synch and this really plays quite well. I had to laugh while I was watching this, especially when Andre Gower says, “If this works, I’m gonna sh*t!” There’s something about not seeing this play along with the movie, but with moving drawings, that just cracked me up.

Deleted Scenes

Video

Newly Remastered 16x9 Widescreen. This movie looked really good on DVD although, to be honest, it wasn’t that much better than my VHS copy. You must understand, I have been watching that copy for years and I was expecting to be blown away. The picture is sharp but it is clear Executive Producer Peter Hyams’ smokily lit influence will remain on this film’s print forever. Aside from that, it was really nice to watch this movie and finally get to see all the intricacies on the monsters themselves.

Audio

Newly Mastered 5.1 Dolby Digital. Original 2.0 Dolby Stereo Audio. Close Captioned. English and Spanish Subtitles. The audio on this release was great. My VHS copy is so worn out, I practically have to turn it all the way up to hear anything. On this DVD that was never a problem as everything is leveled very fully, with the whimsical audio giving us everything we need in order follow the story.

Package

This new cover (I actually liked the old one a lot better) has one of the kids holding up a lantern which illuminates all the monsters in front of him. The back cover features a very well written description of this movie, an in-depth Special Features listing, technical specs and a credits list. This 2-disc set is stored in one amaray case which features the old poster from this film and a special note of thanks to the fans from Fred Dekker.

Final Word

To be honest, I was one of those people in the mid-1980s who didn’t pay much attention to this movie when it was released. I didn’t see it in the theater, even though I thought the one-sheet of all the kids on the car looked cool. Then when it had its cable run the only thing I really noticed was that “Fat Kid” (the late Brent Chalem) had a very hot sister. In fact, I didn’t even watch the whole movie. So it was actually sometime in the late 1990s, before DVDs took over the world, that I sat back and really got acquainted with this movie. Let me just say that the experience stayed with me and as a screenwriter it very much informed my writing of the script, “The Awesome Monster Bashers.” It wasn’t until recently when I again watched The Monster Squad on this DVD, that I realized just how much I had actually aped that movie. Hey, good artists copy, great ones steal, right?

I savored every minute of my experience with The Monster Squad DVD. From getting to learn about the movie through featurettes, to also going through the extra features, this DVD is an instant collector’s item.