The Monster Squad
directed by Fred Dekker
Rating: 
I was a young child when I first saw this movie. It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that it informed much of my childhood conceptions of movie monsters, since my watching it preceded any other classic monster films, and I didn’t read any of the seminal horror classics until my college years. So it’s fair to say that I’m a little biased when I rate this movie. I’m not comparing it to anything outside of itself, and I’m paying special attention to the fact that the movie is both made for children and attached to its time (it came out in 1987). I make no apologies for that.
I love The Monster Squad. The writing in the movie is honestly excellent. Stan Shaw (Detective Rich Sapir) plays all of his lines for laughs, and his character’s hypomanic sarcasm is definitely a source of hilarity throughout the film. His favored funny one-liners all involve him mentioning different things that make him “a very good policeman”:
DET. SAPIR: ”Last night, near the ambulance crash? Get this–eye-witness report–a long, black hearse, no plates. You wanna ask me about the hood ornament?”
DET. CRENSHAW: ”What about the hood ornament?”
DET. SAPIR: ”I thought you’d never ask. A silver skull! I consider this an exciting lead. I’m excited. Are you excited?”
DET. CRENSHAW: ”I’m thrilled. Put out an APB.”
DET. SAPIR: ”Already did. I’m a very good policeman, you know?”
. . .
DET. SAPIR: “Del, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but we’re going 100 miles an hour. I notice little things like that. I’m a very good policeman, you know that?”
And, of course, one of my favorite of Sapir’s lines:
DET. SAPIR: “That’s it, Del. This case is too hard, man. Let’s be firemen instead.”
The other characters are amazing. Too-cool-for-school middle-schooler Rudy (Ryan Lambert) is a bad ass. He spends the requisite ’80s montage (to the tune of Michael Sembello’s “Rock Until You Drop”) making many of the Monster Squad’s anti-monster weaponry, including stakes and silver bullets. Rudy makes the movie. From his not-so-subtle questioning Patrick’s sister’s (Lisa Fuller) virginity to his classic line when he single-handedly takes on Dracula’s brides with a lit cigarette in his mouth and a stake-shooting crossbow in-hand:
RUDY: “I’m in the goddamn club, aren’t I?”
Coolness abounds in this film. As quoted above, Dracula drives an long, black hearse with a silver skull. It’s a sweet ride. The werewolf make-up design is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Not to mention the fact that the werewolf’s human form (Jonathan Gries) is pretty hot. Dracula is delightfully evil. His powers are phenomenal: he can turn into a bat, hover in his human form, has the requisite super-strength, and can shoot beams of light from his hands. When he gets pissed, he even makes use of dynamite to fuck people up. He even has a cane with diodes and a lightning rod extension. High-tech!
And there’s Frankenstein’s monster, played by Tom Noonan. He is as adorable as the little human girl, Phoebe (Ashley Bank), who eventually becomes his best friend. They even play dress-up together. “Frankie” is a remarkably complex monster character. In a touching moment, Rudy hands him a Frankenstein mask. Frankie looks at it for a moment before jumping and throwing it away, calling it scary. The final Frankie-Phoebe scene of the movie still makes me cry.
Also, good news about Ashley Bank, boys:
She's legal now.
The movie even has a “Scary German Guy”! Played by Leonardo Cimino, who is incredibly still alive at 93 (the time of this post’s publication), Scary German Guy turns out to be a kindly old man who loves to bake pie. He also comes in very handy when he joins the Monster Squad to defeat the evil that threatens to destroy the world. One of my favorite moments in the film is when he proves to the kids that he’s not a monster, which is followed by a shot of his forearm, with an Auschwitz serial number tattooed onto his skin. He’s a Holocaust survivor, so he knows more than anybody would ever want to about monsters.
HORACE: "Man. You sure know a lot about monsters." SCARY GERMAN GUY: "Now that you mention it, I suppose I do."
What else is there to say about this movie? I honestly believe that all of you should watch it. It’s a cult-classic and has a lot of great inspirations for Innocents games. If you haven’t tried the new World of Darkness’s Innocents system, you should. It’s very interesting and very applicable to The Monster Squad, since the primary members of the squad are 12 years old.
Is this movie really worth four glooms? I think it is, if nothing else for its status as an ’80s cult classic. Although the movie gets a little confused near the end, and I’m not sure what to make of the random Van Helsing popping to put Dracula in a headlock, the rest of the movie is made of win. I’m not gonna fault the movie for its last few minutes–at least, not anymore than I already have by not rating it a five. Something also has to be said for Fred Dekker’s work, which apparently sculpted the majority of Kattastrophe’s childhood. Dekker is also responsible for classics such as House, Night of the Creeps, and Tales from the Crypt. Seriously, his work is worth getting to know, especially if you’re a fan of classic horror.
