The Monster Squad

Some kids who are really into those old Universal horror flicks have this club they call The Monster Squad. But soon enough their knowledge about how to kill some of these legendary creatures comes in mighty handy in their small town.

Andre Gower and Robby Kiger head the group and it's a good thing their services were needed right at this point in time. By the look of them in another year these kids would be hitting puberty full stride, one of them Ryan Lambert is already showing inclination of interest in the opposite sex.

Best scene in the film is during the climax when a virgin is needed to read an incantation and when it doesn't quite work because the virgin's not quite a virgin Gower's little sister is brought in as a pinch hitter.

Duncan Regehr makes a fine, menacing Dracula topping the cast performance list. Regehr plays it absolutely straight for the young audience this film was aimed at.

With an original premise based on how Bud&Lou got tangled up with all their monsters in Abbott&Costello Meet Frankenstein and a climax which liberally borrowed from the Back To The Future films, The Monster Squad is still an enjoyable film for young audiences.

One hundred years ago, Dracula and other monsters survive to the attack of Dr. Van Helsing and his men to his castle with a magical amulet. In the present days, Dracula travels to the United States and arrives in a small town. He summons the Werewolf, the Mummy, the Swamp Thing and Frankenstein's creature to help him to retrieve the amulet.

In the town, a man claims that he is the werewolf and goes to the police station to ask to be locked up in a cell. Meanwhile a mummy vanishes from the local museum and police detective Del (Stephen Macht) is assigned to investigate the case. When his son Sean (Andre Gower), who is a monster fan, learns the news, he joins his friends Patrick (Robby Kiger), Horace (Brent Chalem) and Rudy (Ryan Lambert) in his monster club to read a Van Helsing's journal that was given by his mother. However the book is written in German and they are not able to translate it. So they asks for help from their weird neighbor that they call Scary German Guy (Leonardo Cimino) and they discover that they need to recover the amulet and a virgin to get rid off Dracula and the monsters. Meanwhile Sean's little sister Phoebe (Ashley Bank), who is unsuccessfully trying to join the club, befriends Frankenstein's creature. The unlike group brings Patrick's sister (Lisa Fuller), who claims that is virgin, to read the passage that sends the monsters to the limbo. Will they be successful in their intent?

"The Monster Squad" is a highly entertaining cult movie with a funny story that entwines adventure, dark comedy and horror. This film is also a tribute to the Universal Monsters. There is a touching moment when the Scary German Guy tells to the kids that he has experience with monsters and we see a concentration camp number on his arm. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Deu a Louca nos Monstros" ("The Monsters Have Gone Crazy")

Note: On 24 July 2016, I saw this film again.

Note: On 09 Sep 2018, I saw this film again.

I first saw this movie in 1990 on Sky TV when i was about 12,and obviously loved it. when i was young i used to wish me and my mates were grouped together in a common gang like Sean and Co. they seemed to have so much in common and always had a good laugh, thats the special thing about kids films from the eighties, with Licence to Drive and Goonies being top of the list having the same feel about them as The Moster Squad. films nowadays for young ones are not like this anymore as most will agree, they have done away with the cheesy dialog and juvenile relations and replaced it with complicated storylines and big budget effects that really dont make them watchable anymore.

Basic plot:

a group of youngsters from the US form a squad to stop evil taking over the world by following an ancient ritual with an unusual amulet. in the meantime they are faced with Dracula,Wolfman and a mummy along with a couple of other creatures of the night to save the world.

it really is a simple formula that works very well and is a must see for kids and yourself.

Note to fans of this film and future fans of this film: Brent Chalem who played Horace (Fat Kid) is no longer with us,which was quite sadening for me as i felt i knew him when i was younger as i watched the film several times as a kid and these kids were a cult for me. He died in 1997 - whilst working for a US legal firm - in Las Vegas,Nevada,USA, he was just 22 years old. he had a rather short career so theres not much info anywhere on the web about him....but i feel someone somewhere who knew him could provide us with a little more information about him and the circumstances surrounding his untimely death and post it here on IMDB.

Go get this, you'll love it. RIP Brent Chalem.

"The Monster Squad" is a lot of fun. I wasn't surprised to see that it's become a cult classic. If I could give it 7.5, I would.

Why don't I score it higher than that? Unfortunately, I found some of the plot details needlessly obscure. Plot developments seem to happen off screen. It was like, suddenly the kids know about the monsters and are preparing to fight them, but I missed how they found out.

The movie has a lot of quotable lines. It's an example of a nostalgia trip done right: ie. Filled with affection for the movies the film references, and also filled with affection for its modern-day child characters, and thus they succeed in making a movie that nostalgic adults and kids could both enjoy.

Had very little in the way of expectations with this one, I'd heard a little here and there but nothing really praising or condemning it strongly. Actually watching it was a really pleasant surprise. It's super campy in all the best ways, it totally buys in and lives in it's own world and I really appreciated that. I totally see why this has cult status because it's absolutely the kind of movie that would get people to really fall in love with it's quirky charms. People should definitely give this a shot if they haven't seen it. At the very least, this should be added to people's Halloween repertoire but I think it's got a life outside of that as well.