Greetings Boils and Ghouls, and whatever other gender you may be currently identifying as. For the next three weeks, I’ll be reviewing films from that wonderful splendiforous genre, my personal favorite, giallo. I’ll be doing this due to the presence of several well-known giallo guests at Texas Frightmare Weekend, coming up May 5th-7th. I’ll choose three different films from three of the genre masters. And don’t worry, my beloved readers, you’ll get a full report of Texas Frightmare after it’s finished and I’ve recovered from my biggest drinking & spending weekend of the year.

But since most of you probably either haven’t heard of that genre or don’t care for it because you are philistines with no taste, who drink knock-off Colt 45 in paper cups drawn out of a large plastic bag being sold by that elderly Mexican fellow pushing it around in the little cart, I won’t subject you to four straight weeks of the best 1970s Italy had to offer. This week we’ll go with a popcorn goofy horror film, one of my favorites from my woefully mundane childhood, Monster Squad. Or more correctly, The Monster Squad. But seriously nobody calls it that in casual conversation, and if you do, you’ll stand out as being that guy.

The movie poster. Pretty much does what it says on the tin.

Monster Squad is a 1987 creature feature with a set-up so ludicrous you can’t help but love it. Dracula is trying to take over the world, and to do so, gets the old band back together. Only our impetuous band of child heroes can stop him.

Monster Squad was directed by Fred Dekker, a man who writes much more than he directs. His few other directing efforts are…hit and miss. You have RoboCop 3 (boo, hiss!), but also Night of the Creeps (huzzah!). More interestingly, the film was written by Shane Black. Now if that name doesn’t ring a bell to you, see if this does: “Billy. Billy! The other day, I was going down on my girlfriend. I said to her, “Jeez, you got a big pussy. Jeez, you got a big pussy.”

That’s right, Monster Squad was written by fucking Hawkins.

Seriously though, check out his IMDB. In addition to being Hawkins, he’s written Lethal Weapon, Iron Man 3, and is directing the upcoming The Predator film. Nuts, huh?

Aside from that, Monster Squad is peopled largely with actors that you may probably kinda sorta recognize, but probably not (depending, of course, on how big a film fan you are). Mary Ellen Trainor (RIP), mostly known from the Lethal Weapon series. Leonardo Cimino, who plays the weird little bald guy with an accent in every movie which called for that role (also RIP). Jason Hervey, who played asshole older brother Wayne on The Wonder Years. Tom Noonan, from all sorts of things like Last Action Hero, and decent little Satanic Panic throwback horror film The House of the Devil. The IMDB photo for the main protagonist, Andre Gower, kind of has a rapey murder vibe going on. Finally, Drac himself is played by Duncan Regehr, whom our friends from north of the border will recognize as also being Canadian. He was in several episodes of DS9 as a Bajoran dude getting to occupy Major Kira’s wormhole and was also the ghost-but-really-it’s-an-alien-who-likes-fucking-Dr. Crusher-and-lives-in-a-candle-for-some-reason on that one episode of Next Generation where they go to Planet Scotland. You know exactly the episode I’m talking about, you fucking nerds.

ANYhoo, our story opens 100 years ago, with Dr. Van Helsing botching an attempt at killing Duncan’s Dracula – Dracan…Duncula? I like Duncula, let’s go with that.

Cut to present. Duncula has set up shop in Red Stick, Louisiana, and has recruited The Mummy (who escapes from the local museum), The Creature from the Black Lagoon (whom I could totally see living in Louisiana), some poor schmuck who has been turned into a werewolf, and even managed to rob Frankenstein’s Monster from an airplane carrying it God-knows-where. Does Red Stick even have a museum that would be fancy enough to host an actual mummy as part of an exhibition? I dunno. Suthenboy, what of it? You’re the closest one I know to that area.

The Jackson Five, as re-imagined by…well, me, I suppose.

Turns out, Mary Ellen Trainor just so happens to buy Van Helsing’s diary at a fucking garage sale (not making that up) and gives it to Rapey McMurderface as a gift. See, he’s really into monsters and has an after school club where they go up in a treehouse and talk about monsters. The only problem is, the diary’s in German.

So off we go to Leonardo Cimino, playing a Holocaust survivor, who translates it for them. Turns out there’s an amulet that balances good and evil in the world, and once every hundred years, you can bust that shit up and then evil will rule the world. So this is Duncula’s plan in a nutshell.

Our plucky protagonists manage to defeat the monsters one at a time (the mummy never does a goddamn thing except shuffle around and then get destroyed) and even recruit Frankenstein’s Monster onto the Good Team. Finally, we’re left with only Dracula, who, in a pretty badass scene that somewhat presages what you see at the end of Rogue One, purposefully strides through the middle of town casually massacring the entire police force as they run up to him one at a time.

Of course, in the end, a hole is opened to Limbo by having a virgin read some words (that’s how Limbo works, right?), and the mean monsters are sucked into Purgatory forever. Frankenstein’s Monster is also banished, punished for looking weird regardless of the morality of his behavior. Just like in real life. Being an 80s movie, there is, of course, a bitchin’ training montage, and a contrived rap song for the final credits.

Look, the movie has tremendous heart. And the monster effects, particularly the Gillman, are honestly quite good (thanks to the wizardry of Stan Winston). I also personally have always preferred the half-man, half-wolf bipedal werewolves to the “he just turns into a big wolf” variety. And there are some background scenes that still warm my nerdy child heart (one of the characters wears RoboTech pajamas. I wish I had RoboTech pajamas as an adult!). It’s genuinely great for kids, or even for adults just looking for a cotton candy movie on an otherwise boring Saturday night. But ultimately, there are just too many plot holes that you can drive a bulldozer through. How the hell do all these monsters manage to converge in Red Stick? Actual non-monstrous humans have a hard enough time converging there. Why the hell does the US Army show up at the end entirely in response to a letter written to them in crayon by a little kid? Why does Duncula have so much fucking dynamite on him at all times? He casually tosses dynamite at people that he just pulls out of a pocket on his tux at least twice – I don’t remember that as being a known method of attack, and I’ve read a lot of vampire lore.

I have no clue who this guy is wearing the shirt, but he’s pretty fucking awesome, I can tell you that.

Still, it’s impossible not to like this movie down on some level, in the cockles of your heart. Just don’t go into it expecting it to be anything more than it is. The film didn’t do well when it was released but became a “cult classic,” and when the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin held a screening featuring many of the cast & the director in 2006, it sold out with lines around the block. So if you’ve got an hour and a half to kill and want a little old-style Universal Monster action updated to mid-80s standards, give it a shot. You’ve really got nothing to lose except time, which if you’re a frequent guest of this site we all know you have plenty of, and you may find yourself smiling here and there.

Two quick anecdotes: first, there’s a scene where one of the characters (a fat kid who died of pneumonia in real life in 1997; I can’t help but feel it would be more tragic if he wasn’t so goddamn fat) remarks to Leonardo Cimino that he knows an awful lot about monsters. Cimino says that he supposes he does and closes the door to his house, where we see a concentration camp number tattooed on his forearm. As a kid, I had no idea what that was and thought it was Dracula’s phone number. Why else would he be saying he knew a lot about monsters, with the camera then focusing on those numbers with menacing music playing?

The Mummy, right when he realizes he’s about to be vanquished after accomplishing exactly Jack and Shit towards Dracula’s goal.

Also, Rapey McMurderface wears a shirt through the first portion of the film that’s just a red t-shirt with yellow screen-printed letters that say, “Stephen King Rules”. My wife loved that shirt so much she found it at Texas Frightmare Weekend three years ago and wears it around all the time. I think maybe only two people have gotten the reference in all that time, though lots of people just think it’s a pro-Stephen King t-shirt and comment on how much they enjoy that author. I love my wife. I love having sex with my wife. I think I’m going to go have sex with my wife right now while you’re reading this. Think about it.

 

I rate Monster Squad 15 Weather Penises out of 27.