Eugene: Creature stole my twinkie!

Why haven't I ever heard of this movie? I don't mean now, because ever since I started frequenting horror circles in college I've heard fond remembrances of people who watched this movie as kids and loved it. I mean when I was a kid, why didn't I know this movie existed? Of course back then I wasn't allowed to watch horror movies or anything related to horror (not even the Fred Savage feature "Little Monsters") but my brother and I found ways around that. We would sneak downstairs late at night and watched movies on TV and we even got our uncle to sneak us horror movies that he recorded off TV onto VHS tapes (he even sneaked "Little Monsters" in on a VHS tape labeled "The Little Mermaid"...my uncle was cool). Had I known about "Monster Squad" back then I would have found a way to check it out, and I would have loved it. Because it's cool.

Remember that Nickelodeon show "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" where kids sat around a campfire telling ghost stories, and the stories became episodes, and in these episodes, normal kids found themselves trapped in the midst of supernatural events and they had to figure out what to do about it? That was a cool show. And this is a cool movie. It's everything I would have loved as a kid. Kids who read comics and are obsessed with monsters and horror movies like I was, kids whose parents don't ever listen to them thus once the supernatural events start happening they have no help, kids who figure out how to fight the monsters and save the world, and a good dose of sarcastic humor thrown in for good measure.

Dracula's downfall, however, is that he didn't count on a group of local kids finding out about his plan and stopping him! Of course they need help from some cool adults like a creepy neighborhood guy who can speak German and thus can help them decipher Abraham Van Helsing's diary, and they even get help from one of the monsters themselves, a Frankenstein who isn't as scary as he looks. I for one really appreciated this twist because it hearkens back to the Frankenstein of the Universal films who was more misunderstood than evil. The Mummy seems kind of innocent here too; sure he's DOING evil but he seems to have awakened in a trance as though Dracula is controlling him so I'm not sure he's to blame for the evil plan. Hell, even The Wolfman isn't totally evil, he's just a poor guy who happens to be a werewolf and he doesn't want to kill anyone but he can't get the cops to lock him up to stop him.

Dracula and The Creature from the Black Lagoon seem to be the only monsters acting with purely evil intent, and I think The Creature might just be going along with Dracula's plan because he's still pissed at humans for disturbing his rest back in the 50's when his movie was filmed. Who knows. The motivations of the monsters and their actions showed that the filmmakers really understood the monsters as characters, and I'm willing to bet that they grew up loving these monster movies as much as I did. In case you're wondering, yes, the film is as much fun as it sounds. It IS a little dated with the hairstyles and music and special effects that are at times cartoonish, but none of that mattered because as I was watching it I became a ten year old again, sitting on the couch in the dark watching movies on USA "Up All Night" on the lowest volume imaginable so my mom wouldn't hear and stop me. Grab some popcorn and chips, perhaps some s'mores, and enjoy the ride.

Complaining about sometimes hokey special effects would miss the point of this movie. It's everything I would have loved to do as a kid: fighting monsters with my friends because adults didn't believe us. I would have loved this movie when I was ten and I love it now for the same reason. It's funny, exciting, and action-packed. A great movie that I can't wait to watch with my kids someday.

• Yes, Wolfman does indeed have nards.
• Nards (Noun): Balls, testicles, ballitas, juevos.