monster squad

[MacGuffin]

A Monster Squad reunion movie?
Source: Moviehole

Like a lot of genre pics, "The Monster Squad" didn't do much on its initial theatrical release but has become somewhat of a cult hit thanks to video. There's a renewed interest in the popular 80s flick - Young kids form a club that is devoted to monsters, but soon get more than they bargained for when Count Dracula adjourns to Earth- with a brand spankin' new special edition DVD due out for the film any day now, and its got director Fred Dekker thinking sequel.

"At Monster Mania, I was sitting around with the Squad and we started talking about 'where are these characters today?'" Dekker tells Dread Central. "I got really excited about it the more we talked about it; imagine Rudy as an auto mechanic in Detroit with a crumbling marriage and an alcohol problem, and he gets a phone call from his old pal Sean who tells him they gotta get back together. That's a movie I would go see!"

[MacGuffin]

Monster Squad Monday: Director Fred Dekker
We talk horror with the cult fave's director!

Welcome to Monster Squad Monday - the first in our three-week celebration of the classic horror-comedy. We're leading up to the film's long-awaited DVD release on July 24 with a weekly role-call of exclusive clips, interviews, announcements and more. Stay tuned to IGN for the next few Monday's for all things Monster Squad and possibly some super-secret, ultra-cool news about the Universal Monsters taking over Comic-Con!

Keep on reading for our interview with the film's co-writer and director, Fred Dekker.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monster Squad is a film almost universally-loved - the rare horror-comedy capable of providing laughs and scares in equal measure while corralling a group of young, relatively unknown pre-teen actors into a series of genuinely affable, charismatic performances. Doing for the classic set of Universal monsters what The Goonies did for pirates, Monster Squad never quite achieved the theatrical success that so many of our aging generation now, in retrospect, understand that it deserved. Rather, it was a film - like many such films - that viewers discovered quietly, and over time, curiously plucked from store shelves and slotted into the over-sized VHS players of the late 1980's. And suddenly, rental by rental, the movie - like the Frankenstein or Dracula that threatened its title characters - began to take on an entirely new life.

Twenty years later, the Monster Squad is ready for its first appearance on DVD - a nostalgic reminder of the entertainments of our collective youth - and while the film may now be two decades older, the memory of classic lines like, "The Wolfman's got nards," is poised to drive viewers, both new and old, to this long-awaited release.

"I've heard a lot of stories about ancient, worn-out VHS copies," says Monster Squad director and co-writer Fred Dekker. Immediately likeable - and equally enthusiastic - one gets the sense that Dekker has managed to retain his child-like love of genre storytelling - having aged, perhaps, but never having quite grown up.

"The film really found its cult status rather late in life," he says. "And I think that there are people who saw the film as kids - who now have kids themselves - who want to revisit the film with the entire family. It's been a long time coming, really. But it's very, very gratifying."

Fortunately, however, Monster Squad was the rare film that earned its cult success not in terms of content - the movie, after all, is both legitimately scary and emotionally resonant - but in the rabid passion of its eventual fanbase.

Dekker laughs at the term.

"You never set out to make a cult movie," he replies. "Personally, I always thought of it as an adventure film. The question, I think, for audiences was whether it was too scary to be funny or too funny to be scary. Comic horror movies, after all, are generally difficult to pull off and very few ever succeed. We just wanted to make a fun, enjoyable adventure film. But the fact that there's some degree of violence and genuine danger - that we take it very seriously, despite the humor - is what makes it work."

But one wonders if there is a place for Monster Squad in the post-Buffy world of demon-slaying, ass-kicking teenagers, and if by virtue of being, almost literally, the granddaddy of them all, Dekker believes there is...

"With all humility, I think the film was actually a bit ahead of its time," says Dekker proudly. "When Monster Squad was released, we found that kids didn't go see it because their parents wouldn't let them - mostly because they thought it was going to be too scary - and parents didn't see it because they thought it was a kid's film. And in fact it took another several years before the combination of young people in jeopardy in genre-horror situations - like Buffy and Goosebumps and Harry Potter - really became acceptable. The audience wasn't ready for it in the 80's. Sure there was The Lost Boys and The Goonies, but specifically the kind of monster-slayer approach wouldn't' be popular for another ten or fifteen years. So I like to think that we were a little ahead of the curve."

The film, which was a product of Dekker's childhood love of classic comedy-horror mash-ups such as Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, was co-scripted by Dekker and college-chum-turned-acclaimed-screenwriter Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang).

"This was really a tip-of-the-hat to my own childhood," Dekker says, "and Shane just sort of followed my trail of breadcrumbs into the madness."

It was, of course, the beginning of what would 20 years later become a celebrated genre classic, but both writers - early into their respective careers - tackled the project with the typical bravado of youth.

"Both Shane and I have a penchant for doing kind of big, splashy openings," says Dekker with a half-nostalgic laugh. "The original prologue for Monster Squad was longer than it appears in the movie now. There was another sequence we shot - which we couldn't find the footage for when compiling the DVD - where Van Helsing finds and confronts Dracula. The rest, however, which we didn't film, was all a bit bigger in terms of scale. Horses and machine guns and giant zeppelins. There was more violence...and if you remember the scene in the principal's office where they're discussing the Spider-with-Human-Head - that actually appeared in our first draft of the movie - our own monster that we were adding into the mix. Although, I can't for the life of me remember the explanation for where it originated."

For actors born decades after the advent of the Universal monster movie, the kids - now grown up and nearly unrecognizable on the trail for the upcoming DVD release - were surprisingly knowledgeable about the history of the popular creatures.

"Frankenstein's monster and the Wolfman and Dracula are simply so much a part of popular culture," muses Dekker. "Even though the movies are older, I think that most people are fairly familiar with them. And with the kids, we never talked about the history of these creatures - or the rules - because the script presumes knowledge of them, and the kids just played the script beautifully..."

But where, one wonders, would those classic villains fit in today's horror landscape, so chock-a-block with supernatural superstars such as Freddy Kruger, Michael Meyers and Jason Voorhees. Dekker pauses at the notion, musing, and in the brief moment of silence, one can imagine countless creature-versus-creature films - less Freddy vs. Jason and more Frankenstein vs. Meyers - which, at its heart, marks the timely battle between the modern serial killer ideal and mythic, allegorical monster.

"There's a still a kind of serial-killer reality at work with characters like Freddy or Jason - whether they're human or supernatural - and what appealed to me, as a kid, about the Universal characters is that they were cut from the cloth of myths. Science. More classical material. Much like what Guillermo del Toro is doing with films such as Pan's Labyrinth - a more wondrous approach over the visceral violence we see on the news every night."

He continues, clearly impassioned by the philosophical state of the genre. "It all points to the notion of horror as a means of exercising your own personal demons. And the more modern villains are so closely tied into what can actually happen that you lose the metaphor entirely. It's no longer an allegory. If 9/11 made people nervous, then making a movie about terrorists kind of hits the nail too clearly on the head. It might be better - metaphorically speaking - to create something a little more mythic and fanciful..."

The concept is as old as the genre itself - horror as a response to modern, sociological phobias. Frankenstein born on the threshold of modern science; Dracula in a time of human sexual discovery.

"For my money, the last great monster movie was, in a weird way, a kind of remake of Frankenstein - Jurassic Park," says Dekker. "Michael Crichton has been looking at science for years as a way to tell horror stories...Or, for example, George Romero. What I love about George's films is that they are, in a strange fashion, based in reality. What will this world be like when everything goes to shit? The horror of the end of mankind is much scarier than the idea of zombies themselves. If your movie is just about the monster eating you - then OK- but if the monster eating you applies to some aspect of the world in which we live, then that, I think, is something that will stand the test of time. It's totally subliminal and visceral."

And as for the Monster Squad is there a larger, more complex idea beneath what might at first appear to be an otherwise simple story? Dekker believes so.

"I like to think that Monster Squad, in its own small way, says something about what it is to be a kid and to be afraid in the world, discovering the need for heroism."

As the conversation begins to winds down, the inevitable - and perhaps hopeful - question rises steadily to the surface: Should the DVD find its well-deserved success, is there any hope that fans may be able to revisit the world of Monster Squad in the future?

"I would certainly be interested in revisiting these characters, so long as it's done in a slightly more adult way...Audiences now are much more sophisticated and kids these days are used to seeing things that are much darker. The only way to do it right is to take it seriously. I'd love to see these characters grown up - not remake the movie with new kids. That would be death."

Dekker laughs in advance of his next thought. "I've said this before - partly tongue-in-cheek and partly serious - that I'd love to make something mythic and sizeable like the Monster Squad vs. Godzilla... But as for the Universal creatures, it's tricky because those monsters are pretty used up - we sort of tapped that well. But I suspect that the villains we saw in the first film would find some way to return, eventually...because, of course...."

A pause, a breath - of conclusion, of hope - but the grin on the other end of the line is audible.

"They always do."

[MacGuffin]

Monster Squad Monday: Andre Gower
We talk monsters with the leader of the Squad.

In a world of marquee, Hollywood superstars, the name "Andre Gower" isn't likely to earn much reaction from the average filmgoer. Nor would the boyish face of this talented actor command a great deal of immediate recognition. But transform the face from boy-ish to boy, turn back the calendar from mid-thirties to 13 and outfit the man with a wooden-stake and an ages-old amulet and any film-fan worth their weight in nostalgia would be able to identify the leader of the Monster Squad.

Last week, we spoke with one of the masterminds behind the beloved cult film - director Fred Dekker - and where Dekker may have commanded the film's production, Gower commanded the Squad itself. And now, twenty years later, the monster-movie-slash-adventure-film continues to earn a new generation of followers as it prepares to rise from the dead with a two-disc, special-edition DVD.

"We have our original fans," says Gower proudly. "Then we discover the ones who learned about the film through happenstance, over years of running on cable and renting out old VHS copies. And many parents - who were only teenagers when the film first released - are now saying, 'It's the only scary movie I'll let my kids watch, because it was a movie I loved as a kid.' Of course, you start feeling older and older whenever that happens."

Gower laughs, pauses, considers his age and laughs again.

"I suppose that's the reason that the film resonates so well," he continues. "It was never, at heart, purely a monster film; it was an adventure film. And even though we had a viewership ranging from eight to 80 - who were either horror fans or film geeks or simple, everyday moviegoers - they had all, at least, been children at some point. Monster Squad fans are different that way. They never related to the monsters; they related to the squad."

Adventure and childhood spirit aside, the film pays what may prove to be the ultimate homage to the Universal library of monsters, constructed in a time long before a 13-year-old Gower came to the project. Despite the fact, each of the Squad came prepared with a litany of monster lore and terrifying trivia.

"I grew up watching Saturday matinees and reading about film history at a very young age," notes Gower. "I knew the story of Frankenstein and Dracula. And I always dug the Creature from the Black Lagoon. He was the coolest looking monster I'd ever seen - half alien, half amphibian. And, of course, we had a great version of that in the film with our Gilman character. Finally, Young Frankenstein was, to me, what Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was to Fred Dekker...So I had a pretty well-developed foundation of monster knowledge."

What's immediately striking about Gower is the tangible degree of professionalism which carries across his childhood musings. Where most children would view of a set like Monster Squad as something of a cinematic sandbox, Gower recalls the filming in the most surprisingly adult way possible.

"It was incredibly professional," he says. "As an actor, you're essentially there to do a lot of work in a little time. Of course, it was insanely fun and there were special effects and monsters and explosions almost every day, but even as children, we had to be completely focused. But knowing that you were a part of something that was totally unique, we were all completely cognizant of that.

"However, when you're younger, you don't necessarily appreciate the level of people working alongside you until you're older," Gower continues. "Like Stan Winston, for example. Masters of their craft. It's simply not in your wheelhouse when you're thirteen. And for being right on the cusp of the new technology, the effects in this film still hold up. If we did Limbo and the Vortex and the werewolf transformation today, it would all be CG. And it would look great, I'm sure, but it would lack a certain realism that we had in our film. Or you'd see a completely CG Frankenstein, rather than some guy in four hours worth of make-up... As soon as we jumped over into digital technologies with both feet, you simply couldn't go to a movie in '94 and see what we'd done in '87."

Written in the mid-80's by now-notable writer Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), the original draft of the Monster Squad script was considerably longer. "120 pages," states Gower. "And what we shot, I think, was 82."

And with some of those "lost" scenes included on the upcoming DVD, Gower searches his memory for what might have been cut. The what-could-have-been.

"There were 13 minutes that were filmed, edited and subsequently cut from the final version. The chase scene in the mansion was twice as long and much more scary...It was a great sequence of which only a fraction appears in the final film...Monster Squad included a lot of scenes that were actually pay-offs to smaller moments that ended up on the cutting room floor. Personally, I would have liked to have seen those scenes kept in the final film."

But if there's a line from the film that has earned its place in cinematic history, its credit is shared between Gower's character, Sean, and fellow Squad member, Horace. The Wolfman, gaining dangerously on the two boys, displays his razor-sharp claws, roaring loudly across the room, and just when it seems as if no escape is possible, Sean provides the answer:

"Kick him in the nards!"

And with one swift kick - the creation of a memorable, oft-quoted movie moment:

"The Wolfman's got nards! "

Thinking back on the scene, Gower laughs. "When I read it, I'd never heard the phrase before. I'd called them something else. I actually wanted to change the line...But we filmed it and, all of sudden, everybody knew it. In fact, I recently read something about how Kevin Smith was at an event where someone referenced Monster Squad and Kevin responded with that line. People love it. That's the line they know. And it followed me through college - people yelling out, right there on the quad, something about the Wolfman and his nards."

Twenty years later, Gower has settled into a life of relative normalcy, still connected to Hollywood through the occasional role and his passion project - a film festival his company is in the process of organizing. And while his life is largely outside of performance, Gower admits that an actor is always an actor, and a member of the Monster Squad is a member for life.

"Would I love another go-around with the gang?" asks Gower, as if the question was hardly a question at all. "I absolutely would! Last year - at some appearance or another - we all sat around at breakfast - Fred and the gang and I - sitting there over our eggs and bacon, tossing out ideas. And it all just clicked. Who would grow up to be what and how? We went totally off the charts and none of it proved outlandish. All of it could totally work. And the bottom line - we'd love to get the squad back together."

And fortunately for audiences both young and old, there are still monsters left in the world, hiding beneath our beds, safe in the shadows of our half-open closets. And as the tongue-in-cheek 1987 tag-line states:

"You know who to call when you have ghosts...But who do you call when you have monsters?"

[MacGuffin]

Sounds of the Monster Squad

Intrada announced it will handle the CD release of Bruce Broughton's score for The Monster Squad. Unavailable until now, the company will press 3000 copies. This presentation was lovingly produced with the assistance of "multiple studio hands, Intrada personnel, Taylor White, musicians and the composer."

01. Main Title; The Van Helsing Prologue (7:20)
02. Scary German Guy (0:19)
03. Bat in the Hold (1:35)
04. Let It Begin (0:39)
05. Lock Me Up!; Wolfman Wakes Up (1:32)
06. At Phil's (1:11)
07. Monster Music (0:51)
08. Class Reunion (3:24)
09. Mr. Alucard; Making Plans (3:25)
10. Mummy's Gone (0:13)
11. Phoebe Meets Frank (0:43)
12. Van Helsing's Diary; Monsters (1:57)
13. Walking Dead Guy (1:12)
14. Scary Mask; Phil's #1 (2:59)
15. The Old Wolfman Russe; Not Clark Kent; Twinkie Creature (2:21)
16. At the Mansion; On All Sides (3:08)
17. Phil's #2 (1:06)
18. Recovering the Amulet (2:10)
19. Goodbye Bandaid Breath (1:42)
20. At Sean's House; The Vampire Killed; Kill a Wolfman (7:28)
21. Creature Carnage (1:29)
22. Phoebe and the Count; The Final Vortex & Finale (9:35)

[Ravi]

I watched Monster Squad yesterday for the first time.  While I didn't love it the way someone who grew up on it would, it was pretty good.  It has lots of funny lines, and I liked the idea of different monsters coming together.  I felt it needed more, though.  Without the end credits the film is about 75 minutes long.  The film could have easily accommodated another 20 minutes of footage.   But if my only complaint about the film is that its not long enough, then I'd say it was pretty good.

"There were 13 minutes that were filmed, edited and subsequently cut from the final version. The chase scene in the mansion was twice as long and much more scary...It was a great sequence of which only a fraction appears in the final film...Monster Squad included a lot of scenes that were actually pay-offs to smaller moments that ended up on the cutting room floor. Personally, I would have liked to have seen those scenes kept in the final film."

They should have included this longer cut along with the original.  It would have fit on the first disc.

[tpfkabi]

i forgot this came out yesterday.
i don't think it was in any of the Sunday sales papers.

[grand theft sparrow]

Last year, I got my fiancee a copy of Flight of the Navigator, which I hadn't seen maybe since it was first on cable, so we're talking close to 20 years.  And it was just fucking terrible.  Almost nothing happens in the movie! 

Monster Squad is a whole different story.  I'm pretty impressed at how well the movie holds up overall, considering that I haven't seen it in more than 15 years.  And I must have watched this movie a lot as a kid because I remembered so much from it, like the song from that wonderfully cheesy 80s montage (which is now stuck in my head) and other little things here and there that I have no reason to have remembered after all this time.

Shane Black's mark is all over this movie, particularly the dialogue between the cop dad and his partner.  Between hearing that there was 15 extra minutes that was filmed (I didn't listen to the commentaries, does that footage even exist anymore?) and that Black called the original script one of the best he ever wrote, it's a shame that a director's cut couldn't be put together for it.

So is disc 2 worth a netflix rental?

And where's mod? 

[tpfkabi]

were you able to purchase it from a physical store or online?

Best Buy/Target/Circuit City had no copies.
Hasting's had 3 backordered by people but had no plans of buying any extra copies.
Seems pretty dumb to me.
i'll have to wait until i put together an online order.

[MacGuffin]

Best Buy/Target/Circuit City had no copies.

Wal-Mart had it for $14.44

[tpfkabi]

Best Buy/Target/Circuit City had no copies.

Wal-Mart had it for $14.44

really?
you probably live in a large city though.
i doubt a small town Wal-Mart would have it (especially since all of these other stores in bigger towns didn't), but i'll definitely check it out.

my statement about it not being advertised in the Sunday ad papers could have been erroneous, as i forgot that our sunday paper was stolen (and yesterday's too). =(

[tpfkabi]

Best Buy/Target/Circuit City had no copies.

Wal-Mart had it for $14.44

really?
you probably live in a large city though.
i doubt a small town Wal-Mart would have it (especially since all of these other stores in bigger towns didn't), but i'll definitely check it out.

my statement about it not being advertised in the Sunday ad papers could have been erroneous, as i forgot that our sunday paper was stolen (and yesterday's too). =(

Wal-Mart did end up having it, which was very odd - especially considering this is a cult film.

After watching it and listening to the commentaries I'm still not sure if I actually saw it as a kid or just saw the trailer in front of a movie rental.

Watching it did remind me of an 80's horror flick that I saw on cable now and again dealing with a house, mirrors and vampires. Of course, I cannot remember the name or anything.

[john]

Watching it did remind me of an 80's horror flick that I saw on cable now and again dealing with a house, mirrors and vampires. Of course, I cannot remember the name or anything.

Fright Night, maybe?

[tpfkabi]

Watching it did remind me of an 80's horror flick that I saw on cable now and again dealing with a house, mirrors and vampires. Of course, I cannot remember the name or anything.

Fright Night, maybe?

hmmm, i don't know. the finale seemed to happen in the house, but oddly all the lights were on - unusual for a horror film.

[MacGuffin]

UPDATE: Rob Cohen Talks 'Monster Squad' Remake?!
Source: Bloody Disgusting

Update: Rob Cohen quotes inside. This afternoon SpookyDan conducted an exclusive one-on-one interview with Rob Cohen, director of Universal's upcoming The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, who revealed some interesting news about Fred Dekker's classic '87 movie. Cohen tells Bloodyy-Disgusting that Paramount Pictures has acquired the remake rights to Monster Squad, which followed a group of kids hunting down Dracula and his minions who are attempting to take over the world. Cohen also reveals that he is planning to produce the remake, but does not intend on directing. Read on for more info straight for the horses mouth.

"The Wolfmans got Nards! What a great line" Cohen jokes with Bloody-Disgusting. "I am talking with Paramount about the ownership rights, we just found out that because of all the different companies being bought and sold, (it was so hard to do) but we believe all the rights are back at Paramount. I have been waiting to finish this (third Mummy) film, to really start the talks about remaking it. Maybe I would direct, maybe someone else with me producing. I really think highly of that that film...I mean, how great is it with The Mummy, the Wolfman, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, Frankenstein they all were in it! It would be a prime remake!"

Cohen is one of the original executive producers of The Monster Squad, directed by Fred Dekkar in 1987.

[gob]

He can go fuck himself. I'll lead a militant resistance to this remake. Some things are worth dying for. I say dying, I mean complaining on the internet about. But he can still go fuck himself.