Writer(s): Dekker, Shane Black
Starring: Andre Gower, Robby Kiger, and Stephen Macht
I have a personal theory that horror movies should not be
rated PG-13. If they are, I generally
won’t watch them. How can you cram a
sufficient amount of terror and/or violence into a rating designed to appeal to
teenagers? Of course, studios do it,
because obviously the more people that can see it, the more money they can
make, but most such “horror” movies are despicable, lowest-common-denominator
drivel that succeed solely because the American public is undemanding; we don’t
want anything that might challenge us, or provoke us. We just want something familiar, that we’ve
already seen a thousand times before.
Rant aside, I made an exception for The Monster Squad a decade-or-so
back, based solely on the fact it’s one of the very few directing credits for
Fred Dekker, the man responsible for crafting one of my favorite horror movies
of all time, Night of the Creeps (his only other feature-length credit is for RoboCop 3, so it was very easy to narrow down which one to watch). I had very little hopes for enjoying the
film, expecting it to be a typical movie that panders to younger audiences, but
figured I was doing my part by giving it a chance, no matter how small that
chance was.
The plot is actually fairly unique for a kid’s flick: Dracula, Wolf Man, Frankenstein, Gill Man,
and The Mummy come to life, in search of a mystical amulet. You see, the amulet, which is typically
indestructible, can be destroyed within a very small window every hundred
years; if it is destroyed, all five movie monsters will be banished to an
alternate realm. As we learn from the
intro, Van Helsing and a small team attempted to destroy it back in the 1880s,
and failed. Flash forward to the present
day, and a group of kids who call themselves The Monster Squad learn of the
amulet and its story. They also learn
that the movie monsters that they idolize are real…and are looking to secure
the amulet to help them rule the world.
It also just so happens that the next hundred-year window opens
tomorrow…
It didn’t take long for me to realize that this is NOT a
children’s movie, at least not in the traditional sense. Kids play the main roles, sure, but there is
a shocking amount of violence and swearing spattered throughout, to the extent
that I’m actually kind of surprised it got away with a PG-13 way back in
1987: Little girls are called “bitch”,
“titties” are mentioned,“faggot” is uttered twice…and there are literally a
handful of other such words uttered. There
are also some moments of threat and terror that I could see really getting to
younger kids, so once again, the rating is not meant to be taken lightly.
On a technical front, the effects are pretty darn good; I
feel like most kids movies will shave a few bucks off the special effects
budget, knowing they’re easy to fool and entertain, but even today, the visuals
hold up pretty well. The creatures also
look fantastic, but considering they were designed by Stan Winston, that
shouldn’t come as a shock. All in all,
I’m surprised at the level of attention and detail that went into this movie;
it’s evident that it wasn’t just the kids that Fred Dekker was trying to
entertain, and the end result is a fun romp for just about the whole family.
RECAP: This movie is filled with inventiveness, solid
writing, and loads of humor, but do not take the rating lightly: There is quite a bit of profanity, and some
violence and terror that may be too intense for younger viewers (even early
teenagers). But for fans of horror
films, The Monster Squad is a welcome change from the non-stop gore and
splatter that seems to permeate movie screens these days; it’s funny, it’s fun,
and it can be enjoyed by parents just as much as children.
SCORE: 8/10
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