THE MONSTER SQUAD - I sat down with the remastered disc (hadn’t seen the film since the theatrical release - oi!) for a bit of nostalgia. The film is harmless fun (What was with the Suburbs and Monsters in the 1980s? The ‘Burbs, Gremlins, The Lost Boys, The Monster Squad, Poltergeist, A Nightmare on Elm St., etc.) Anyway, the first thing I noticed was just what a screenwriter (in this case Shane Black) could get away with in a kids film - kids smoking, little girls saying “shit” (Hell Drac calls the same little Drew Barrymore type a “Little Bitch” at one point! There are more gay jokes than you can shake a stick at (not a good thing, but surprisingly ubiquitous), The crossbow Murdering of Brides of Dracula and more than a little wanton murder (point blank shooting of Uncle Rico!).
While the film (not surprisingly) doesn’t hold up to the nostalgia or is particularly bright (or even makes much sense), got to give it credit for fucking with the target audiences headspace. For that matter I love the way the production designers snuck in the Zombi2 and Return of the Living Dead Posters in the kids treehouse.
Stan Winston kicks ass in the creature designs and the Evil Dead II vortex is actually done better here than in EDII.
7/10
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