The Monster Squad (1987)
Directed by Fred Dekker
Count Dracula returns to the world of humans accompanied by Frankenstein's Monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and the Gillman. The uglies are in search of a powerful amulet that will grant them the ability to rule the world. A group of horror-loving heroes are the only ones daring to stand in their way.
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What critics compared The Monster Squad to
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.
…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.
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 those who don’t know, Shane Black is responsible for writing cult-classic films of the 1980s and 1990s, including Lethal Weapon (1987), The Monster Squad (1987), The Last Boy Scout (1991), Last Action Hero (1993) and The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996).
Director/co-writer Shane Black and co-writer Fred Dekker last worked together on 1987’s The Monster Squad, and while both have far better films on their resume — you know it’s true — the movie showed their talent at blending horror, action, and comedy into something memorable.
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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 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.
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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 .