THE MONSTER SQUAD
Canada, 1987, 81 minutes, Colour.
Stephen Macht, Duncan Regehr.
Directed by Fred Dekker.
The Monster Squad is an amusing horror imagination story. A group of American youngsters have a club devoted to horror films and monsters. They certainly know a lot about horror lore. Suddenly out of the sky, Dracula, literally, falls - along with some coffins of vampires, Frankenstein's monster. A mummy escapes from the local museum. A local man is a wolf man. The gill monster emerges from a lake. There is also a book of Professor Van Helsing and the boys use it to rid the world of the monsters - there is also an amulet which creates a hole in the universe through which the monsters, of course, go. (The film has a lot of crass and crude schoolboy humour which rather spoils the overall humorous effect.) Co-writer, Shane Black, went on to write Lethal Weapon and other action thrillers.
1.Exercise in imagination? Reality and fantasy?
2.The town, the way of life, school, homes? The monsters, make-up and special effects? Stunt work? Musical score?
3.Plausibility/implausibility? The boys and their love of horror, its effect on them? Their knowledge, tests and initiations? Nightmares?
4.The boys as ordinary, life in their families, school, together, the club, initiating Rudy, the quiz, their knowledge of details? Meetings, comics, posters? The leadership, decisions? The book and the need for translation? Going to the old German and his befriending them? Seeing the monsters? Looking for the virgin to read the formula?
5.The plane and Dracula, the coffins, falling from the sky? The wolf man and his anguish, ringing the police, transformation? The mummy escaping? The Frankenstein monster and Dracula raising him to life with the lightning?
6.The role of Dracula, van Helping’s diary, his mission? Frankenstein's monster trying to get the book? Re-enacting sequences from the Boris Karloff original - especially his playfulness with the little girl? Making friends? Dracula seeking power, in the house? All the monsters coming together in the house?
7.The old German, reading the book, with the boys, knowing monsters - and his concentration camp number? With the boy's sister, the little girl and reading the formula?
8.Sean's father, the police work, the wolf man and his phone calls, Dracula's car driving through the police car, the fighting with Dracula, the police shooting the vampires? The fight with the explosives?
9.The build up to the climax: the truck, the mummy unwinding, Rudy combating the three vampires, the sister trying to say the formula, Dracula as a bat, the father's struggle with the wolf man and shooting him, the creature and Horace shooting him (and the scoffing boys looking on)? The little girl reading the spell, Dracula's advance, the amulet, the Frankenstein monster saving them? The hole and everybody being dragged through? Van Helping’s reappearance? The pathos of Frankenstein having to leave?
10.The sketch of the boys, their age, experience, relationships with each other, Eugene and his nightmares, Phoebe and her presence? Rudy and his initiation?
11.A tongue-in-cheek horror film?
