Retro Horror Review: ‘The Monster Squad’ Classic Monsters Meets the 80’s in this Cult Gateway Horror

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. A song comes on the radio, an old toy in a shop window or coming across a movie that you haven’t watched since grade school can really bring you back to a certain time and place. Maybe that’s why whenever you mention the name The Monster Squad, you can see the collective grin on so many faces.

Sometimes revisiting movies from your past are better left there, in the past, as they don’t hold up like you remember or are sometimes cringeworthy. After revisiting recently, I felt that not only does Monster Squad hold up as an extremely entertaining creature feature, but I discovered layers in the narrative I hadn’t picked up on in my youth.

Fred Dekker’s (Night of the Creeps) second film is a love letter to the Monster movies, comic books and Pulp detective stories he grew up with. Co written with longtime friend and collaborator Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Iron Man 3) the two channeled all their childhood nostalgia, love of classic horror and the comedy of Abbott & Costello into the script that, wanting to champion a group of misfits and the supernatural essentially making the Little Rascals meet the Universal Monsters, would become 1987’s The Monster Squad. 

Our story begins 100 years ago in a time of darkness in Transylvania. Van Helsing and small group of freedom fighters are trying to rid the world of vampires and monsters. They blew it. Right away the opening tells you exactly what type of ride we’re in for. Demon bats, ghouls, vampires, mystic gems, a portal to another dimension a la Evil Dead 2 style and an armadillo? (That’s actually a nod to the 1931 Dracula picture)

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Cut to modern day, if you lived in the 80’s. Sean (Andre Gower), Patrick (Robby Kiger) and Horace (Brent Chalem) are friends who are obsessed with Monsters. So much so they formed their own “Monster Club” in what can only be described as the coolest Tree house ever, for horror nerds like me. 

Sean’s little sister Phoebe is always wanting to be a part of the gang, but not very welcome, that is until she brings home a new friend and they have no choice but to let her in. Rudy (Ryan Lambert) is the cool older kid in Jr. High school, who after defending Horace, a.k.a Fat Kid, from a couple of school bullies decides to tag along to the club house. It’s never really explained why he does this, but it might have something to do with a certain vantage point from the clubhouse into Patrick’s older sister’s bedroom window.

Now that we’ve met The Monster Squad, it is time we meet our Monsters. Count Dracula (Duncan Regehr) has returned and he’s traveling via cargo plane carrying some bodies. After spooking a pilot, the bay doors are opened, and a coffin is dropped into a nearby swamp. Dracula turns into a bat and goes after it. A man enters a police station and demands to be locked up as it’s a full moon.

After a brief scuffle he is shot on site, only to be awoken later as a werewolf. A 2000-year-old mummy just gets up and walks out of a museum? Yes, it does. At last our missing coffin is carried out of the swamp by none other than the Gill Man to reveal Frankenstein’s Monster (Tom Noonan) was in there the whole time. The gang is back together again. “It is our time” Dracula exclaims.

The Squad comes into the possession of Van Helsing’s diary due to a good find at a yard sale. The only issue is that Dracula wants it too, oh and it’s in German. Cue “Scary German Guy”, a recluse neighbor the children are afraid of. But having no other options, they go to visit him and find that he’s not what they expected, and he’s happy to help them decipher the diary. He explains that once every 100 years there’s a chance to tilt the balance between good and evil–provided you can get your hands on the ancient amulet.

The kids exclaim after their encounter “Man you sure know a lot about monsters.” To which he replies, “I suppose I do”, revealing a consecration camp number on his forearm. This adds such layers to what, on the surface, is a kid’s movie. 

So now The Monster Squad needs to find the amulet, a virgin to read the incantation, and stop Dracula and the evil from taking over the world. Aiding in the fight are Sean’s cop father Del (Stephen Macht) who is investigating these anomalies parallel to the kids. With the addition of an unlikely hero into the squad, the team will need all the help they can get to be victorious.

Universal would not let the filmmakers use the likeness of their classic monsters so visual effects producer Richard Edlund (Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Arc) and Legend Stan Winston (Jurassic Park, Terminator, Aliens) had the difficult task to recreate the iconic Monsters. Their designs honor the originals but add an extra element that makes them memorable on their own. The Gill Man design is still one of my favorites.

For those who want to use The Monster Squad as a gateway horror movie I feel it is my duty to let you know the opening ten minutes of the movie has some tasteless homophobic slurs. Luckily, it’s relegated to the opening of the movie, but it stuck out watching recently. Other than that, the scares and gore are minimal, the story moves fast, there is a lot of humor and the childhood adventure story makes for an entertaining movie. Reminiscent of Amblin films during this era, it’s sure to be a Halloween favorite.4/5

You can check out The Monster Squad now streaming on PlutoTv and Amazon Prime. Be sure to follow ScaryNerd for more of all things horror, sci-fi and more.

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