Monster Squad: When Classic Monsters and a Semi-Obscure 80‘s Kid Adventure Make a Beautiful Baby

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Finding a $20 bill in the pocket of a jacket you haven’t worn in a while. Sliding into a hole in the wall restaurant out of desperation and having the best meal of your life. A negative paternity test, regardless of your age, location, or relationship status. Bringing home a pet cat and discovering it’s actually a dog. Life is full of pleasant surprises like these, so imagine our shock and pleasant surprise when this episode came to be. Not only did we receive confirmation that real, living human beings listen to our show, but one of them (You know who you are, Matthew) tossed us a flick neither of us even remembered, and it turned out to be way better than it has any right to be.

Monster Squad is the gripping tale of Dracula (who has unclear motivations) raising a small platoon of classic monsters (with no clear motivations) to terrorize a town in a quest to find a gem (with unclear motivations) and the only thing standing in their way is a small band of plucky kids (with no clear motivations). However, much like the obscene amount of ketchup you toss onto your wife’s cooking so you can say “yummy” through gritted teeth and visible tears, it just works - and works pretty darn well. The classic monster look, mixed with decent acting and comedic timing that’s on point, combine to make a movie that went from slipping under our radar, to gathering the kids for a classic 80’s movie night while they break their necks rolling their eyes and calling us old. Fatherhood is an eternal joy.

Turn the lights low, light some candles, and put the spooky music on, as Jay and Benny haunt their way through such scary topics as:

• Matthew started the fire, and more of you have come forward with gasoline. If you listen to our show, and want us to watch something and talk about it, please reach out to us on Facebook, Tik Tok, Instagram, our website, carrier pigeon, horse courier, etc.
• There’s something to be said about the monster choices in this movie. This is the classic 50’s Dracula, complete with broach, cape, and bat transformation. And he does a fantastic job of being menacing while still classy
• Werewolf ends up being one of the most compelling characters in the entire movie. We love his arc, right up to his “thank you” at death
• Rudy is a...perplexing...character. He’s an absolute badass of a stud, who also desperately wants to be part of a group of smaller, nerdy kids obsessed with monsters. That isn’t typically how life works
• The interactions between Sean and his dad are fantastic, and remind us of a couple of great moments in The Gate. Family familiarity and chemistry are really hard to fake in a movie, and Monster Squad succeeds where so many other movies have failed
• The comedic timing is great. Cuts between comments like “2,000 year old dead guys don’t get up and walk on their own” and an immediate clip of a 2,000 year old dead guy walking on his own. Or the monster squad joining hands with a dog paw thrown in and someone asking how the dog got up into the treehouse. These are little things, but they make a big difference in the quality of a movie
• The 80’s musical montage of the kids getting ready to fight the monsters include Rudy making real, live, silver bullet ammunition in a school shop class. Methinks this would be frowned upon
• If you aren’t kicking wolfman in the nards, we don’t know who you are anymore
• One would think that the police would have a better strategy to fight these monsters than to lay down their firearms and charge into hand-to-hand combat
• Do yourself a favour and watch this movie to the end, so you can enjoy the closing credits monster squad rap. This is real. It is a real song you will experience. For real