Ahhh "Monster Squad". Watching this now I realize this is pretty much just riding the coat tails of "The Lost Boys" or even "The Goonies", or any other countless movies from the 80's that feature a group of prebuesent boys going on a super wacky and scary adventure.
I'm not saying it's a rip off of those I mention, cause the plot is pretty original. But considering The Goonies came out in 1985, and Lost Boys in 1987, the same year as Monster Squad, you know some movie executive was like "Get me a script where a group of boys fight monsters. NOW!" And the end result is pretty damn good I must say.
The story goes that Van Helsing 100 years ago (so 1887) was looking for this amulet which opens up a portal to limbo. This portal somehow stops all the evilness, at least for another 100 years. Flashforward to "present day" (1987) and we meet our main characters, who all form "The Monster Squad", which really was just an excuse to sit in a clubhouse all day and talk about monsters.
Dracula literally drops in when he's being flown in from probably Translyvania (and the pilot is played by "that guy" David Proval, who was in "UHF" and was Richie on "The Sorpranos") and he bought along Frankenstein's monster. When Dracula meets Richie, he gets the bright idea to open up a hatch in the plane, which causes Frankenstein's monster (Look I'm just gonna call him Frank if that's ok?) to fall off. Dracula turns into a bat and follows the box, which landes into Anytown, U.S.A, where our Monster Squad lives. What a coinky-dink!
All out of nowhere The Gill Man shows up. It's not explained how he got there. Maybe he vacations there when he's sick of the Black Lagoon, I dunno. Eventually The Wolf Man and The Mummy show up to round off the cast of classic movie monsters.
Our Monster Squad are experts and know everything there is to know. The leader, Shawn, is uber-obsessed and gets happy when he's giving the diary of Van Helsing. But it's in German. No matter, there happens to be a creepy German guy in town who can translate.
German Guy (this is what they call him most of the movie) tells them about the whole amulet thing and that the 100 year anniversary is the next day. Shawn and his friends Patrick and Horance aka Fat Kid (They call him this in the movie, this movie should be sold in Aldi's it tries to be generic) decide its up to them to stop the evilness from taking over the world!
Along the way, Frank meets up with the group and becomes friends with Shawns little sister Phoebe, so he's now a good guy. And there's an old kid in the group, who is suppose to be Corey Feldman Lite who makes silver bullets and wooden stakes in a awesome kickass montage.
One of the things needed is a virgin girl to read some passage in German to open the limbo-hole so they get Patricks older sister, who Corey Lite has been obsessing with the entire movie (even getting a nude picture of. For a kids movie, it's pretty raunchy) to read the phrase.
Shawn and the gang find the amulet in this old house Dracula's been using has headquarters and they eventually get cornered by The Wolf Man. Shawn suggests kicking him in the "nards" which Fat Kid does and he gives us this movie's catchphrase:
"The Wolf Man's got nards!"
Indeed.
One by one they take care of the monsters, for instance they unravel the mummy, which works, so now I know when I get chased by a mummy next time. Corey Lite shoots the Wolf Man with a silver bullet, and Horance takes care of The Gill Man, who really didn't do a whole lot in this movie. So now it's just Dracula and Patrick's sister reads the passage but nothing happens. When asked, she says "well, I did it with Steve but he don't count."
So some little kid that tags along with them suggested using Phoebe since she is a girl AND a virgin and it works with the wormhole to Limbo opening up. Shawn stabs Dracula in the heart with the stake before Van Helsing jumps out of limbo and pulls Dracula into limbo.
And there's a mildly tender scene when Frank is trying to hold on but realizes there's no point so lets go and Phoebe starts crying. Awww! The worm hole closes and suddenly the army shows up. At one point in the movie, the little kid that tags along with everyone wrote a letter to the army asking if they'll come to take care of the monsers. Well, THEY SHOWED UP! But Shawn is like "Too late. We're The Monster Squad!" And a kickass rap song that explains the entire plot of the movie kicks in and it's over.
The last time I saw this movie, I was probably 10 or 11 and it's about as awesome as I remember it. You could dismiss it has another "Lost Boys" or "Goonies" rip off, but so what? It's pretty funny, pretty scary (there's even a part that had me saying "What is this 'House of 1,000 Corpses' suddenly?"), and pretty entertaining all around. Even though it's probably aimed for kids, there's a lot of vulgar and raunchy stuff, which makes it that much cooler. I'm totally showing this movie to my kid.
-Jason
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