The Monster Squad (1987)

A group of young horror fans receive Van Helsing’s diary that reveals a plot by Dracula and friends to shift the balance between good and evil and to take over the world.

The Good

How can you not say The Monster Squad isn’t good? This movie is like the stuffed animal or the favorite plaything you had when you were younger that you thought you lost but you finally found, bringing you back to a time of happier days gone past.

Another reason why it was good was the combination of being ahead of it’s time and being shown on national cable outlets. Because film audiences didn’t get it, it didn’t do well in the theater, which then fast tracked it to cable, where it was played to thousands of bored eyeballs. Our little brothers and sisters can boast about how they had R.L. Stein’s Goosebumps books and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but we can now hold up a copy of Monster Squad and trump them.

Another great thing about the movie is the Shane Black script. The man is a dialogue genius to almost Elmore Leonard like proportions.

The Bad

There are somethings that stand out if you are taking a critical view of it or your a silly retard taking apart cult movies. There are some plot holes in the movie. Particularly Dracula’s fetish with dynamite. Sure, he could’ve killed the kids with his bare hands, but decided he didn’t want to. Maybe he wanted a challenge and was being a good sport about it. Or maybe he was lazy. Never thought of that did you. Did you.

The DVD!

Oh my god, the two disc set just makes me hard just thinking about it. The visuals and audio are awesome as well as natural. I now can retire my VHS bootleg HBO copy. The first disc has the movie and two commentaries. One with Director Fred Dekker and actors Ryan Lambert, Ashley Banks and Andre Gower reminiscing about the movie and the other is Dekker wit DoP Brian May talking about the technical elements.

The second disc holds an 87min Monster Squad documentary done by Red Shirt Prods. A very awesome job by them might I add. You also have a materials collection, TV spot, movie trailer, Storyboard set up with the movie soundtrack playing, a rare interview with Frankenstein and deleted footage as well.

Conclusion

This DVD set is a must have for fans of Horror, fans of 80’s films and just DVD fans in general. This is really one of the best cultural tomes available out there. I urge everyone to buy it.

4 stars.

The Black Cat (1934)

A young couple find themselves stuck in the path of a vengeful psychiatrist who wants to get back at a demonic architect for taking everything away for him.

Even though Lugosi and Karloff portray their characters very well, the real star is the house. With it’s art deco and expressionist touches, mixed with the old war battlements, the house sets give a very surrealist and almost evil feeling to it where “even the phones are dead”. Director Edgar Ulmer also plays a grand part. He directed this movie as well as written it very well. The conversations between Lugosi and Karloff are almost like knife fights.

The only fault with this movie is that it’s too short. I’m pretty sure things could have been fleshed out a bit more. Maybe more conversations during the chess match or a monologue about how the war has affected them. I think that Karloff’s satanic intentions could have been worked upon as well. Almost anything about the characters of Hjalmar and Vitus would have been great.

This is a “have” in your collection. Not only for Lugosi and Karloff, but also for Ulmer, who later on, becomes the forefather of Giallo.

4 stars.

The Raven (1935)

A famous plastic surgeon who has a thing for Edgar Allen Poe, falls in love with one of his patients, whose father is a famous judge. The judge denies this love and the surgeon sends a criminal to do his dirty work as trade to fix his face.

This is the second meeting of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. I don’t know what to say really about this film. It’s an alright movie , but it just…it just seems that they’re forcefully trying to get back the magic of the actors’ first meeting except the roles are reversed. I mean, the story is ok. The story is great, it’s just that it just didn’t feel like enough was involved.

I think one of the problems is that the screenplay just doesn’t offer anything. You got all these Poe analogies and they don’t lead anywhere. Oh! You got a pit and pendulum. Oh! Scary. One of the real big problems was that you have this genius who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty. He messes up this criminal’s face to have him do his biding. “Not to dirty his hands”. And then what happens? almost half the murder plan, the surgeon’s hand is on the lever. Why even mess with the criminal? He’s basically a potted plant until the end.

Even though this is something to be part of the collection, I wouldn’t be that eager to buy a copy. If we were getting all the great Universal movies, this is probably the last to pick up.

2 stars

Murders In The Rue Morgue (1932)

An evil doctor uses a carnival to mask his experiments with ape blood on women. A medical student catches wind of his plan and trys to stop him.

This is one of Bela Lugosi’s better films. I think it’s thanks to director/screenwriter Robert Florey and cinematographer Karl Fruend. Lugosi had experience with both men and was comfortable working with them. To put things simply, it’s a German horror film with American funding. You can see it in the set design, in the lighting, the camera work, even the script was a lift from Das Cabinet die Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) but uses an ape instead of a somnambulist. The trademarks of German Expressionism are there. This makes the movie, somewhat unique for it’s time.

There are some flaws to the movie, but I believe these flaws were either out of the hands of the crew or were, at the time, limits to the technology they had. Constant cuts from man in ape suit to chimpanzee is a bit annoying. Florey was irked when he was told to eject some humor into the story to “cut the tension“. I was irked too. The most the comedy was bad even for his time. It doesn’t work and feels ‘horned in at times. This has become somewhat the mark of the Hayes Code at the time.

This is a movie that needs to be in anyone’s horror collection. No ands, ifs, or buts. Get it! NOW!

Four stars.