‘The Monster Squad’ is Good Enough For Me

Welcome to the latest installment of Flashback to the Present. I’ll be your contributing writer, Charles Knauf.

There are two things in this world that I can appreciate: a good 80s movie and drinking.

A week ago my good friend, Eleanor, and I were discussing this over our fifth or twelfth beer when she stated an undeniable truth. There are two people in this world: Goonies or Monster Squad kids.

Think about this for a moment and let it settle – try as you might, you can’t fight the fact that you either love Goonies or The Monster Squad.

Sure, you could be like me and enjoy both; but, deep down, I’m going to give an opinion that you all may hate me for.

Monster Squad takes Goonies any day of the week.

And since this is on the internet, and I don’t want to be virtually drawn and quartered, I will preempt this article with the fact that I have no problem with Goonies.

Hell, Robert Davi is a really good friend of my old man.

That’s Davi behind the wheel, while Joey Pants tries to shove Chunk in the back of the car

So, rather than do some crap Buzzfeed “why-what-I-love-is-better-than-what-you-love” article and take a hot-one on something you hold dear, I’m just going to talk about Monster Squad and why I love it so much.

Dear Army Guys Come! quik There are Monsters.

–  Eugene

Anyway, The Monster Squad was a 1987 horror/comedy children’s movie about a group of kids fighting ALL of the classic Universal monsters from, what else, controlling the world.
Skip the clichéd logline and think about this for a second – EVERY UNIVERSAL MONSTER IS IN THE FLICK.

No joke, one of the coolest shots in the movie has Count Dracula in a group huddle around Frankenstein’s monster with The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Wolfman and The Mummy (with the creature effects helped by non-other that Stan Winston).

Heck, Abbot and Costello didn’t even get all of them in one flick.

Like every movie in the 80s, the kid’s obsession makes them outcasts, but they don’t care; they’re some of the coolest nerd’s ever to grace the medium. Even Andre Gower, who plays the lead Sean, has a shirt in the flick that says “Stephen King Rules” that is so cool even hipsters would scratch their heads and wonder if you’re trying to be ironic or just a jerk.

These kids need to find a virgin to recite some German incantations over an amulet to send the monsters into Limbo.

So you have a movie with some solid child acting out of Andre Gower, Ashley Bank, Robby Kiger, Brent Chalem, Ryan Lambert and Michael Faustino. That’s no small feat considering child actors are, as a whole, pretty bad.

The director, Fred Dekker, mostly worked in the 80’s and helmed Night of the Creeps.

However, the real prize with this flick is its writer, none other than Shane Black.

That’s right, Shane-freaking-Black who wrote Lethal Weapon that same year. Shane Black who also wrote The Long Kiss Goodnight and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. In case you don’t know, Shane Black is one of the most talented writers to hit the Hollywood scene. If you haven’t had the chance to take a look at one of his scripts for the style, I strongly recommend it.

Black’s style is so recognizable (and fun to read) because he likes to add personal jokes in scene directions, which are only seen by the few that end up reading the screenplay. These joke are so recognizable that they’re known as “Shane Blackisms.”

However, aside from that, Black is fantastic with fast and loose dialog and this is VERY prevalent in Monster Squad. This movie has probably some of the most underrated quotables of any young adventure movie – including the discovery that a wolfman, indeed, has nards.

The Monster Squad? Great flashback flick.

I’d highly recommend grabbing the DVD, inviting a few friends, cracking a bottle of your drink of choice, and play The Monster Squad drinking game.