The Monster Squad

Released to mixed reactions from adults, and bombing at the box office, 1987's The Monster Squad did strike a chord with kids, eventually earning cult classic status on cable and home video. The film's strength is in how real the young protagonists feel, speaking and acting like kids who have discovered that monsters are real. Our main characters are a self-named Monster Squad of preteens (Andre Gower, Robby Kiger, and Ryan Lambert, Brent Chalem, and Ashley Bank who begs her older brother to join the group and eventually earns her spot in the film's climax) who already know a bit about monsters which comes in handy when they start popping up all over town.

Rudy (Lambert) only joins the group because he's crushing on Patrick's sister Lisa (Lisa Fuller) whose bedroom is directly outside the club's treehouse. Rudy and Patrick blackmail Lisa into helping them stop Dracula needing a female virgin ceremony leading to a disastrous first attempt at the ritual because of a sexual partner that "doesn't count!" The line is only outdone by the most famous line of the film, which would be used years later by Gower to document the film and its place in history. Ah, the 8os.

For the monsters of the movie we get kid-friendly takes on Count Dracula (Duncan Regehr), the Mummy (Michael Reid MacKay), the Gillman (Tom Woodruff Jr.), and Frankenstein's Monster (Tom Noonan) and the Wolfman (Jonathan Gries and Carl Thibault) who are more conflicted about serving Dracula. There's nothing all that impressive about the villains, being mostly cheap rip-offs of the well-known monsters but the fit a script that needs a group of kids to take them down.

As in most kids' films, the adults turn out to be mostly useless not believing monsters could be walking the city streets. This leaves the saving of the world up to the kids, with the help of an old German man (Leonardo Cimino) on their street who they learn isn't as scary as they feared as he helps them in their plans to prevent Dracula from taking over the world.

The film has been released several times on home video, given limited anniversary releases in theaters, and giving fans a nostalgic look back through Gower's documentary. The film may have been a flop in 1987 but its aged fairly well (which can be rare for a kids film). Currently the film is available on a wide list of streaming services.

Watch the trailer

• Title: The Monster Squad
• IMDb: link