Film is Pwn

Monster Squad.  Monster Squad is a relic from the late 80s resuscitated in modern times due to nostalgia, prompting a 20th anniversary DVD release in 2007 with hoopla and fanfare for the grown up child stars and the director, whose most recognizable credit since Monster Squad is the towering achievement that is Robocop 3.  I was not one of the kids who grew up watching Monster Squad and getting a tattoo of the signature line like “Wolfman’s Got Nards!”  I had better things to do growing up in the 80s, like T-ball, playing with G.I. Joes, and repeatedly replaying every single Chevy Chase and/or John Candy movie ever made.

Despite that, I feel uniquely over-qualified to blog on this film, as one who has studied every single scene and frame.  No, I don’t think Monster Squad is a great movie or even a good movie, but it IS a fun movie, very watchable.  The sole reason why I’ve studied Monster Squad with the fervor of a film student obsessing over the Godfather is that it is the subject of Film Is Pwn’s second ever, feature-film iRiff.

An iRiff, for those who have not enjoyed our first effort on the Asylum classic Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, is a downloadable audio commentary that syncs with a particular film, a la Mystery Science Theater 3000.  I was first introduced to Monster Squad when friend and fellow Pwner recommended Monster Squad when we were throwing around ideas for movies to riff.  One viewing and I knew Monster Squad was perfect.

It has everything you could want: It stars a motley crew of pre-teens who for some reason hold the key to whether evil will be defeated or will reign over the Earth.   There’s an older, super-cool high school kid (Fonzie level hipness is inferred) who inexplicably wants to be in the titular Monster Squad to hang out with geeky pre-teens, and subjects himself to a “monster test” in order to gain admittance.

There’s a veritable cavalcade of ye olde time Universal movie monsters, featuring Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, the (utterlyl pointless) Mummy, and the Creature of the Black Lagoon.  Dracula is the lead bad guy, trying to rule the world or something like that.  Wolfman, the Creature, and the Mummy are relegated to useless henchmen.  Frankenstein is portrayed as a simpleton who opts not to obey Dracula’s commands and instead proves a ineffective force for the good guys.

I don’t think it’s possible to make a case that Monster Squad is a “good” movie, but it’s equally hard to argue that it’s not fun.  Sure the plot has holes big enough for Jabba the Hut to build a summer house in with room for a swimming pool; sure the rogues gallery is completely anemic other than Dracula, and even Drac uses his amazing powers to do stuff like lighting the fuse of Acme dynamite; sure the heroes are snot-nosed brats whose primary weapon is a kick to the nardulars and a compious serving of luck; sure there’s homophobic dialogue and oodles of cruelty to the fat kid constantly referred to solely as “fat kid;” and sure there are plenty of other “sures” I’m sure I left out.

If Monster Squad was part of  your childhood experience, what better way to relive it than with the dulcit tones of Yours Truly, Brian Alterman, and Tom Stephens poking fun at it along the way?  If you’ve never seen or heard of Monster Squad, what better reason to go check out it and endure — I mean, enjoy — it for the first time with the hilarious iRiff from your favorite cinematic masochists, the aforementioned Your Truly, Brian Alterman, and Tom Stephens?

Check out the Youtube sample here, embedding is disabled for reasons we can’t seem to fix.