The Monster Squad

A scrappy, foul-mouthed group of 80's pre-teen who love horror movies finds their knowledge of the genre put to the test when their town is overrun by Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, the Wolfman and the Creature From the Black Lagoon.

I had not seen The Monster Squad since I was a little kid, when they ran it on HBO nonstop, and I'm happy to report that this likely Goonies ripoff still holds up as a lot of fun. Although structurally somewhat sloppy and rushed (the end credits start rolling at about an hour and fifteen minutes), the movie is funny, clever and exudes a lot of love for the old school monster movies. Not so much a surprise when you realize that the film was directed by Fred Dekker, maker of the classic 80's horror/comedy Night of the Creeps, who cowrote the screenplay with Shane Black. My one beef: they should have bit the bullet and gone for the R-rating. The kids say "shit" and "fag" and talk about sex enough, and the film is violent enough, that it's not really appropriate for children, and throwing in some "fucks" and gore would make a slight improvement.