The Monster Squad is a 1987 horror comedy that's basically The Goonies with monsters. It's about a group of kids who love monsters so much that they have their own monster club, and one day they have to defend their town from real-life monsters who want to take over the world.
This movie is a love letter to the classic Universal Studios monster movies of the 30's, 40's, and 50's. It features Dracula, Frankenstein (the monster, not the doctor), a werewolf, a mummy, and a gill-man (the monster in Creature from the Black Lagoon), and it treats these horror icons with the love and respect they deserve.
The filmmakers didn't have the rights to Universal's creature designs, so they had to come up with their own looks for the monsters, and they did it almost flawlessly. They found a way to make the monsters look different enough to avoid a lawsuit but still similar enough to pull at fans' nostalgic heartstrings.
Similarly, while some of these monsters have meatier roles than others, they all get their moments to shine. For example, there's a funny scene where the mummy hides in a kid's closet, and when the monsters mount their final attack, the gill-man has a cool scene where he gets to show just how dangerous he really is.
Of all these classic characters, though, the heart of this film is undoubtedly Frankenstein. He gets a great character arc with an emotional climax that's almost as powerful as the end of Bride of Frankenstein, and actor Tom Noonan gives arguably the best performance in this role since Boris Karloff. If you're at all a fan of this monster, you will absolutely love this incarnation of him.
But Frankenstein isn't the only standout of this movie. Dracula also shines, due mainly to actor Duncan Regehr's great performance. He plays the count with the suave class of Bela Lugosi and the cruel bloodthirstiness of Christopher Lee, so every time you see him onscreen, he's exactly what you expect Dracula to be.
After the monsters, the other strengths of this film are hands down the characters and the dialogue. Child actors are notoriously hit-or-miss, but these do a really good job. They play their roles quite believably, and they have great chemistry together. Several of them even add some real emotional depth to their characters, so by the time all hell breaks loose in the third act, you're really invested in the story because you genuinely care about whether they make it out alive.
This film also gives us some of the best one-liners in horror movie history. While most comedies lose their laugh-out-loud factor after you've seen them a few times, there are a few moments in this film that always make me laugh no matter how many times I see it. These jokes call back to previous events in the movie, so they have an added punch that goes beyond mere cleverness. They piggyback on your love of the characters, so because the characters are great, the jokes are that much better.
All in all, The Monster Squad is just a super fun monster team-up movie. It's basically The Avengers for monster fans, and it has the great characters, great one-liners, and great emotional beats to go along with that description. If you're a fan of these classic monsters, you should definitely check this one out. You will not be disappointed.
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