All I can say is; Thank you God. The Monster Squad is finally available on DVD. I was ten years old when The Monster Squad came out in theaters and it quickly became a one of my favorite films as a kid. I only got to see it once in theaters but when it came out on VHS I was one of the kids who rented the film on a frequent basis, It also helped that we had cable at home and all of the movie channels like Showtime and HBO who showed the movie all the time. I can remember watching this film with my sisters on Saturday mornings instead of cartoon, and watching it with my friends and then going down to our tree house in the woods and forming our own Monster Squad. This film is a childhood memory for me, and now that it’s on DVD I get to share this film with my daughter when she gets older and relive that experience again.
The Monster Squad is about a group of friends who have a very big obsession with horror films. They have a tree house that they hang out in all the time and discuss monster movies and the likes. When a time portal is opened up in the past by a secret amulet all the monsters of the past, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy and the Creature are all sent into the future. Hence the modern day, and what do you know, they all end up right in the hometown of the monster squad. Now this band of young horror fans along with Frankenstein must help save the world of Dracula’s terror and with the help of the scary German guy get the proper tool to send the monsters back to where they came from.
What can one say about this film, because being that it is one of my all time favorite childhood movies any flaw that is within it will always be overlooked. All in all I think the movie is perfect. Everything from the script to the acting and the directing are all perfect. Co-writer and director Fred Dekker was so involved in the creation of this project that I honestly think that it is his best film to date. Some might argue with me and say it’s Night of the Creeps, but I disagree.
In terns of effects in The Monster Squad one can’t help but point out how well they were for the time in which this film was made. CGI didn’t exist, and matting the effects into the film was the only way you could get the visual effects to work in the film. The vortex scene is a great example of this. The make-up effects in this film are so great and the problem that ensued to make the monsters look real. The movie was not released by Universal so the filmmakers had to make sure that the monsters looked nothing in comparison to the Universal Monsters. so my hat will always be off to the effects team who managed to pull off a great look for the monsters without making them look so much different that people such as myself would make light of how different they looked than the original Universal Monsters. Of course watching the movie now, I notice the difference, but still look at how great the monster effects are in this film.
The Monster Squad DVD has a lot of extra features, there are two audio commentary tracks both involve director Fred Dekker, once with members of the monster squad, Andre Gower, Ryan Lambert and Ashley Bank. And another one with director of photography Bradford May. A five part retrospective featuring interviews with the cast and crew of the film twenty years later. There are some never before seen interviews with Frankenstein, deleted scenes, Trailers, Stills and plenty more.
The Monster Squad many have said is a bit crud because of the language used by the kids and the fact that Dracula calls a five year old girl in the film a bitch. My defense to this is that when I was ten years old, when I was around my friends we sweared all the time among ourselves that is, but never when adults were around. If you think this is bad by today’s standards then your living in the box, because the kids of today have far worse mouths than we did and do far worse things. A film like Monster Squad won’t even phase the nine and ten years olds of today. If anything they’ll want to get out of the house and go start a monster squad of their own and learn to respect the horror genre. The Monster Squad is a great starter film for the horror fan to be.
Overall, I love this movie and I’m glad that it’s finally out on DVD, It will probably be one of the DVD’s that I will end up watching over and over again, and down the road enjoy it with my children. It’s a true classic that brings out the young kid in all of us. A true gem to the genre and a classic among the monster movies.
Sad but true: Actor Brent Chalem whom played the fat kid Horace in The Monster Squad died of pneumonia in 1997, He was 22 years of age.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
