The Monster Squad Aura is No More

I watch The Goonies at least once a month and that isn't because I have kids. (My kids aren't quite old enough for Data, Chunk and the boys.) I watch it because I love it and it was a huge part of my life when I was younger and one of the movies along with Raiders that churned my imagination every which way leading me down the path I am at today. Epic, the huge fantasy script I wrote had many 'Goonie' and other movies of that time elements to it. My friend Chip, was a Monster Squad guy. I loved The Monster Squad too. It was a couple years past "The Goonies," but at that age, movies like that just rocked and I have/had always been a big fan of the Hammer Studio/Universal Studio Monster Pictures and anything remotely similar to those characters I would line up for any day. Well, "The Goonies" throughout the next 20 years never really went away. You could find it on TNT, Superstation, VHS, and finally in a Deluxe Edition DVD. I owned both and had The Goonies whenever I wanted them at least for the last seven to eight years.



The Monster Squad wasn't that way. It had come out in the theater and then disappeared into thin air, maybe surfacing back in the day of Russ Russell's basement on HBO... I can't remember. Well, I had occasionally seen little reminders online, TV, books of that campy film, "The Monster Squad." In fact, I had been excited for quite awhile for a DVD release of it.

Finally, what, two years ago, I got my wish in a Deluxe Edition DVD. With the release of the DVD came lots of articles and press on the film where I found out 20 years later that the film had bombed miserably at the Box Office and Critics/Audiences had torn it apart. I don't remember it being that way. I loved that fraggin' movie. Yeah, I was 14 but so what?

Even looking at The Goonies, yes there are some real fake, cheesy parts, dialogue and the whole premise is rather ridiculous. Do I still watch it? Hell yes! The same went for Monster Squad. The only difference is I had not seen MS in maybe twenty years.

In the past year and a half, everytime I'd walk by it at Wal-Nuts, Best Buy, Circuit City, I'd check the price, pick it up, yearn to have it, but I had promised my wife only 8 films a year, (I could purchase,) and I guess subconsciously I found $17.00 for this film not caliber enough to be put on the 'Big Eight' list especially when I had not bought "There Will Be Blood" yet. I thought, Christmas Time would be right around the corner and I'd get to relive some more memories of my childhood while being inspired like I once was with Goonies and the other Imaginative Movies of that time.

Well, a week and a half ago, I got a break. I had succumbed to an acute kidney infection and was sentenced to bed rest. My DVD player shit the bed a week before and my loving, sympathetic mother gave me some money to go replace it since I had just blown $400 on a Doctor visit and could not do so myself. Well, the DVD Player ended up being on sale so of course I was like, "Well, let's find a movie to watch on it as well." I hate giving Wal Nuts a red cent of my money but today it just so happened I was there at their pharmacy cause it was close to home. They have something called Roll Back Pricing, (whatever that means,) but anyway Monster Squad had been victim of the Roll Back and was only nine dollars. I thought, "Today was my day.... I was buying Monster Squad."

That night after the kids went to sleep I watched the film for the first time since before puberty, (don't quote me on that,) and well.... I'm not sure it was the same movie. I mean maybe, back in the day I was suffering from no Goonie Sequelitis or something and this Monster Squad at the time was enough antibiotic to keep me pushing on. Like I said earlier, I watch Goonies and see the cheese that I never saw back in the day, yet I'm OK with it because I get it.
Well, Monster Squad's cheesiness and ridiculousness was inexcusable and the effects were awful and it just wasn't the same movie I remembered. That's heart breaking considering the patience and anxiety I had toward finely owning and watching that film again.

Yes I know now why it bombed. Nice try but I'll keep wearing out my Goonie, Dirty Dancing, Ferris Bueller DVD's out.

My Big Eight List Thus Far I've Bought:

1. Planet Terror-- *Doesn't really count as list of eight. (Christmas gift card)
2. Heat Deluxe Edition
3. Midnight Cowboy DE
4. There Will Be Blood
5. Monster Squad-- *Gift
6. Juno

*The Eight are actual movies I buy out of my bank account with MY money.

The Original Kick Ass Poster



The Not so Kick Ass DVD