The Monster Squad

Year: 1987
Directed By: Fred Dekker
Written By: Fred Dekker and Shane Black

RYAN’S REVIEW

I wrote my first paragraph of this review yesterday and really hated what I had put down. I spent the whole day with it in the back of my mind turning it over and over thinking of ways to revise.  I had begun with the correlation this movie had with The Goonies and the obvious influence that’s there.  However, it occurred to me late last night that I was going about the whole thing in the wrong way.  Why the hell was I wasting my time trying to overanalyze The Monster Squad anyway? It is what it is and all that needs to be said is that it is awesome and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

So, upon reconsideration I would like to go a different way with this.  One of the most memorable quotes from this movie is “Wolfman has gnards.” It’s universally one of the most memorable lines from a movie that has become a cult classic. I think it is a really funny line delivered with perfect timing in the heat of the moment.  My only question would be why this was such a surprise.  Of course Wolfman had gnards, he wasn’t Wolfwoman and the squad had already gone over the fact that Wolfman needed pants to cover his “wolf dork.” So it should have come without question because the gnards and the “wolf dork” should go hand and hand.

Aside from that I think the only thing that garners serious discussion is Rudy.  What a great “Fonzi-esque” character that wrote the definition for cool in this movie. “Fonzi-esque” is right for Rudy right? Leather jacket, check, Motorcycle/bicycle ridden like one, check, ultra cool and respected by his peers for no apparent reason, check.  He’s Fonzi all the way and anybody that doesn’t know the Fonz needs to Google him. Aside from that doesn’t Rudy in himself represent the changing of the times? Brace yourself people, so much of what you see from him in this film garners R ratings these days.  Not only is he smoking but making bullets in his shop class to boot.  Oh the travesty. I love Rudy in this movie, he represents a time of more honest film making. You would never see a film this day in age where anything he did would be permitted. Regardless of whether or not kids still do such things or not.

The only other thing I want to discuss about this film is the interesting thing I noticed in the credits this time around.  I had never realized it before but when I saw that Shane Black was credited with the screenplay so much more made sense.  Black you might remember has penned some great classic action movie that I own all of incidentally. He wrote really witty dialogue for all of them and that writing went a long way for what made those films memorable to me.  He was credited with the screenplay for both Lethal Weapon and Lethal Weapon 2 (the good half of that franchise), as well as Last Action Hero, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and The Last Boy Scout. Given they all start with “L’s” we reviewed all of them close together.  Clever writer who also directed the most recent Iron Man film and has two more directing ventures lined up for the next year or so.

This was an awesome movie and a fixture in my childhood movie repertoire. For years I looked for it to add it into our collection and couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t find it anywhere.  Turns out somewhere along the way it fell from grace and was forgotten by everybody that wasn’t of the right age when it came out.  It never even made it to DVD until 2007 when it was released as a 20th Anniversary Edition once it was already well established as a cult classic.  It was largely unsung and a bit of a shock to some when support for it came from all over the place.  It was my generation that made it a cult classic I think, those of us that grew up with it and loved it.  If you missed the boat on this one you may never be able to appreciate how great it is and what it meant to us.  It’s never too late to appreciate something awesome though so if you get a chance you should check this one out; it’s worth every minute of your time.

AMBER’S REVIEW

This is such a cute movie. Every time we watch a movie about a boy who likes to read and has a big imagination and vocabulary, I automatically think about Ryan and picture him as that little kid. I love the idea that the little girl is the least scared of anyone in the movie, and that reminds me of our oldest daughter. There is a lot to relate to in this movie and I am really happy that it is in our collection.

I feel like this poster is appropriate for the movie. The typography is bright and in bubble letters. The N is jagged and cutting the plane a little, which I am guessing alludes to the “scary” attributes of the movie. The coloring is cute. I think they did a good job at fitting everyone they wanted to in the poster without feathering out the heads and having them all float there in space. Overall, I think this poster is a good fit for the film. Both are light-hearted versions of a scary movie.

NEXT MOVIE: Moonrise Kingdom (2012)