Fred Dekker
14 connections found
View:
Connections, in both directions
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Directed by Drew Goddard
influenced by The Monster Squad (1987)
Themes
It's possible to be funny and make a horror film that deconstructs itself--I'm thinking not of The Monster Squad, probably The Cabin in the Woods' closest spiritual analogue (and even as I say that, I feel bad--while Fred Dekker is an idiot, he's our idiot), but of genuine genre masterpieces like John Landis's An American Werewolf in London, Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn, and Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead.
Stranger Things (2016)
Directed by David Champion
influenced by The Monster Squad (1987)
Themes Plot
…but there are also more subtle references to stuff like The Goonies, Monster Squad and It…
It’s a classic small-town-with-BIG-mysteries story (think Twin Peaks meets Aliens meets Monster Squad)…
Yes, this is a Power Ranger movie that talks about gruesome serial killings, but I would have flipped for that when I was 10 in the same way we now worship The Monster Squad.
The Predator (2018)
Directed by Shane Black
influenced by RoboCop 3 (1993), The Monster Squad (1987), Night of the Creeps (1986)
Though he didn’t pen this one — Fred Dekker of “RoboCop 3” has that distinction — all of those films possess one positive that is desperately needed to make a horror film believable.
Black and co-writer Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad, Robocop 3) have stuffed the movie to the brim with plot and characters that unfortunately cannot fit into the movie’s 107-minute runtime.
This being a Shane Black script (co-written with The Monster Squad pal Fred Dekker), special attention is paid to adding as many quips, bon mots, and vulgarities as he can, transforming each character into an insufferable wiseacre.
It’s not a very complicated mythology, and Black, co-writing with Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad), expands on it just enough to set up additional sequels, making sure not to get bogged down in world-building or references-to-previous-movies-inserting.
Black and co-writer Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad, Robocop 3) have stuffed the movie to the brim with plot and characters that unfortunately cannot fit into the movie’s 107-minute runtime.
In its narrative, as co-written by Black (The Nice Guys) and Fred Dekker (Black’s writing partner on 1987’s The Monster Squad), The Predator first takes one of the film’s protagonists to the eponymous creature.
For about an hour, ParaNorman is just about what one might expect and hope for from animation studio Laika: a gorgeous-looking stop-motion cartoon that operates somewhere at the intersection of Monster House and The Monster Squad , slyly harkening back to '80s Amblin adventures and B-grade creature features.
They'd be better off checking out the far superior, infinitely cleverer 1987 gem "The Monster Squad."
Anchoring fantasy in a real-world setting and never forgetting that special effects and sheer spectacle mean nothing if there aren't relatable characters and an emotional thematic throughline to first and foremost care about, Abrams takes the popular Spielberg modeljust as 1987's "The Monster Squad" did twenty-four years agoand runs with it.
The biggest surprise is that Gunn appears to have seen and liked Night of the Creeps, and that, like that film, Slither does what it does without sacrificing too much of its good-natured, self-deprecating sense of humour along the way.
A basic remake of “Night of the Creeps”, James Gunn’s “Slither” strives to be its own entity, and in many respects he succeeds in attempting such an endeavor.
The fact is, for anyone looking for logical links between past and present efforts, films like Night of the Creeps, Robot Holocaust and Bad Taste provide far more credible creative starting points.
The plot, by-the-numbers, floats somewhere between a Spielberg coming-of-age adventure, a Big reboot and a late-’80s horror comedy—think The Monster Squad in that it’s intended for kids but is too old for its ostensible demographic.
On top of all that, director Joe Johnston awkwardly shoehorns in a tepid romance, stupid twists, and a final showdown so predictable and tame that even the Wolfman from The Monster Squad is like, “Guys?
In fact, It could almost be sold as a hybrid of Stand By Me and The Monster Squad .
What many will enjoy about this film is that it’s very much in the spirit of classics like “The Monster Squad” and “The Goonies”, in which we have a small group of kids whom are also outcasts that have to take on a giant obstacle when no one will stand in and help them out.
Frankenstein (2025)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
influenced by The Monster Squad (1987)
Characters
…though I still maintain one of the best renderings of the creature is in 1987’s “The Monster Squad”…
Shane Black has also written the " Lethal Weapon " films, " The Monster Squad ," and " Last Action Hero ."
Riding on the success of the Lethal Weapon movies (1987-1992), The Monster Squad (1987), The Last Boy Scout (1991) and Last Action Hero (1993), Black was paid a whopping US$4 million to write 1996’s The Long Kiss Goodnight — one of the most expensive screenplays in history.