Movies that I sort of remember: THE MONSTER SQUAD

Ah, the 1980s. Possibly my favorite decade ever. Coke was new, NBA shorts were hilariously short, strokes were diff'rnt, and movies were full of outcast kids coming together to prove their worth. Whether it was The Breakfast Club discussing the agony of being a teenager or The Stand By Me kids talking about a fat dude barfing over a bunch of people, the movies of the 1980s spoke to the youth better than any decade before them. No movie better represents this idea than "The Goonies". But I am not going to talk about that movie right now. Instead, we will take a look back at "The Monster Squad", which was basically the Goonies fighting famous movie monsters.

Now, this movie really isn't on DVD so most of the plot summary is just from my memory and recaps from IMDB. I am writing this because I feel its a film that has been sorely overlooked if for no other fact than the long awaited movie answer to the question "Do werewolves have nards?".

Quick plot recap: The Crenshaws are the main family here, much like the Walshs in the Goonies. Young Sean Crenshaw is a member of a group of kids devoted to classic movie monsters. Sean gets a hold of super famous vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing's diary, much like Mikey Walsh gets a hold of the map to One-Eyed Willie's treasure. There is a race to find an amulet, which will of course let the bad monsters( who really do exist for whatever reason in this world) stay and wreak havoc.

Over the course of the movie, we touch on subjects that just don't fly anymore in today's PC society. One of my favorite recalled scenes involves the local German occult dude, who is helping the kids fight Dracula and company, asking if there is a Virgin girl that speaks German so they can cast the monsters out of this universe using Van Helsing's diary. So they turn to Sean's older sister and say something like, "Phoebe, you took German in high school!!!". Of course she is reluctant and has a guilty look on her face...she is a dirty whore!!! HA! She gives some lame excuse about her boyfriend and her. It was a great scene that made a little bit of sense to me as a 12 year old, but was one of those jokes that I would laugh at just because I knew it was a joke not because I understood it at all.

There was also this great bad ass from school, Rudy, who eventually joins up with the Squad and is always smoking cigarettes, firing crossbows, and looking for silver bullets. He was like the total Han Solo of the group. This brings me to the Wolfman. Possibly the most famous scene ever in the history of movies. Two of the kids searching for the amulet in an obligatory spooky house are confronted by the Wolfman. They yell and scream, but one says "Kick him in the nards". The other protests, "Werewolves don't have nards!!!". Finally, the other gives in and they give a swift boot to the crotch and the wolfman goes down for the count...silver bullet my ass!!! The kids look at each other in amazement and say, "Whoa, werewolves have nards!".

The movie really peaks there. From there it becomes predictable with the good guys winning and Dracula and his movie monster compadres getting pwnd. All in all, this is definitely a movie that would benefit from DVD. I would appreciate a retrospective by the remaining living cast members (the law of 1980s child star averages tells me there are at least 3 members dead secondary to overdosing). Anchor Bay has been doing a good job of releasing crap that about a few hundred people ever wanted to see on DVD. Why have they not gotten on this cash cow? Call your local congressman, unless he is named Vlad or Dr. Acula, because that guy is probably not going to help you.