The Monster Squad (1987)

If there was a perfect age to see THE MONSTER SQUAD, I was it. In 1987 I was 13 years old and fascinated by the old Universal monster movies. Why it took so long to do a movie that features all the classics - Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster and the Creature from the Black Lagoon - in one big smash-up a la ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN is beyond me, but do it they did, and in grand style in Fred Drekker's homage to the horror films of the 30's and 40's, comedy like Abbott and Costello and The Little Rascals and to being a kid whose life is all about the monsters.

Watching it again 20 years later I'm amazed at how well it holds up. There's so much to love, little moments that directly recall the old Universal films, nostalgic 80's minutia, great special effects and monsters thanks to Stan "JURASSIC PARK" Winston and kick-ass dialog thanks to first time writer Shane Black, who might be a little better known now for writing a small independent film called LETHAL WEAPON. Maybe you've seen it?

Get all the World Famous Monsters together and you don't really need much of a plot, but THE MONSTER SQUAD has a doozy. 100 years after being foiled in Transylvania Dracula summons all the monsters together to obtain a sacred crystal that will bring about the end of the world. And since no grown-ups believe monsters exist, it's up to a band of young kids who call themselves the Monster Squad to save their beloved town and the rest of the world. There's really not much more to it: the structure is just sturdy enough to hold together all the great set pieces that Drekker cooks up for his cast.

So many great things to talk about. The dialog is vintage Black: where else would you get kids talking like Sean and Patrick, grumbling about a visit to the Principal's office:

PATRICK: Yeah, he was patting my shoulder and touching me and stuff.
SEAN: Yeah, he was totally homo-ing out.
PATRICK: I smell like the 40's.

The last time I heard anyone talk like that it was 1987.

There are a lot of great moments that echo the older films. The opening set piece in Transylvania begins with armadillos creeping around the castle floors, just like Todd Browning's DRACULA did. The scene with the girl tossing flowers in the pond in FRANKENSTEIN is also echoed, albeit with a much different conclusion here.

There are some great visual jokes, including the "There's a monster in my closet" gag that works great here because of both the boy's total sincerity and the father's hysterical attempts to placate him. I remember my own father soothing me and checking under my bed to make sure that Frankenstein's Monster wasn't under there to get. The Dad in THE MONSTER SQUAD isn't so thorough:

But in the end the movie rest firmly on two sets of shoulders - the Squad and the Monsters. In the Squad we have a dynamic group of kids that begin as stereotypes and quickly evolve into a cohesive unit that is equal parts funny, brave, and cool in a way that only an 80's movie can make you. Sean's the Leader, Patrick's the Best Friend, Horace is the Loser, Eugene's the Kid, Phoebe's the requisite Girl, and Rudy? Rudy's the Cool One, the one who you immediately know is cool because he in leather.

Sure, he's also in penny loafers and rides a bike with a banana seat, but in '87 that made you the Shit, my friends. And even though Sean is the leader of the group, Rudy gets all the best stuff by breaking the conventions of what his role typically entails and stepping up time and again. Sure, at first he's only joining the club to spy on the girl next door, but he winds up killing two vampires and the Wolf Man. Rudy rocks, my friends, loafers and all.

The monsters fare equally well. Even though he had to be careful not to step on Universal's toes, Drekker and Black make sure everything you always knew about the monsters are represented. Stakes through the heart, silver bullets, turning into a bat - all accounted for. But they also get the smaller things right, such as the Wolf man's ultimate wish to be stopped, Frankenstein's Monster basic good nature, and the Count's ability to use dynamite and drive a stick shift.

Yeah. This isn't your father's MONSTER SQUAD. It's your MONSTER SQUAD, the one you always wanted when you were 13 years old, and still had a small piece of your hear that believed that somewhere, someplace, those monsters were out there, and you knew you had to be ready, just in case. Watching it again all those same fun feelings came back, and I can't wait until my son is old enough so he can be prepared, too.

Never know when you might have to kick Wolf Man in the nards.

Happy Halloween From King Kong and his Dad

Hooray! Halloween not only means trick or treaters, pumpkins, and lots of candy, it also means I'm just about done watching dozens of horror movies!!! In the spirit of good 'ol October coming to an end, my son Jack will help me wish you all a Happy Halloween:

Every time someone tells me how cute Jack looks as a monkey, I sigh and explain for the 100th time that no, he's not a cute little monkey. He is, in fact, King Kong. Need proof? Using the magic of film comparison, I shall remove all doubts about the nature of the boy's costume. Observe this famous scene from KING KONG (1933):

Everyone loves the Kong vs. T-Rex scene. It's a classic. Now see the same scene, faithfully re-created using Jack's King Kong suit:

The fearsome T-Rex approaches, not knowing that Kong is ready for him. They fight!

At this moment Kong has that pesky dinosaur right where he wants him.

Still not convinced? Well, I think these next two images should drive my point home. Rather than a side-by-side comparison, let's take a look and see if you can spot the subtle blending of the actual movie with Jack's life-like Kong suit:

Image #1: Attacking the inhabitants of Skull Island:

Image #2: Atop the Empire State Building:

And there you have it! Have a great Halloween whatever you dress up as!

From Beyond (1986)

"Edward! It's...running itself!"

Only Jeffrey Combs could pull off melodramatic lines like that with such conviction, such horror. The second in a series of H.P Lovecraft "adaptations" to be done by the team of Stuart Gordon and Denis Paoli, FROM BEYOND came after the runaway hit that was RE-ANIMATOR. Toning down the splatter and gore and opting for a more cerebral, albeit still campy vibe, the movie is very loosely on the 7-page short story by the horror master. In fact, the prologue of the movie is pretty much all that remains of the short story - the rest of FROM BEYOND is a twisted modern take on the repercussions of the initial tale.

In short: Crawford Tillinghast is assisting his mentor Dr. Edward Pretorious (in a not-so-subtle nod to BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN'S gleefully mad scientist) with the Resonator, a machine that sends out vibrations at a certain frequency to stimulate the pineal gland, which Pretorious believes is the key to the sixth sense. Unfortunately, doing so opens up a new dimension where strange and hideous creatures roam. Pretorious is devoured by one such beast, and Crawford, charged with his murder, is locked in an insane asylum. A sexy psychiatrist (played by RE-ANIMATOR'S Barbara Crampton) believes his story of pineal glands and extra-dimensional monsters and brings him back to the scene of the horror to reactivate the machine. Bad idea, as it turns out Pretorious isn't quite dead, and isn't quite human either...

Spooky spooky! The story and acting are typically over-the-top and about what you'd expect from an 80's horror flick. Jeffrey Combs is again the high point, as he is in pretty much everything he does. The other night the Missus turned on THE FRIGHTENERS right when Combs goes into wacky overdrive. Here he plays everything with a sense of torture, as Crawford struggles to overcome the changes that are happening to his brain and his insatiable appetite for brains:

The effects are nice and practical - when Gordon is on his game "splatter" becomes the operative word and some truly twisted sequences are the result. In one scene Pretorious, now merged with the beast that devoured him, "kisses" Barbara Crampton. His head falls apart and turns into a sickening, gloppy mess of a thing...

...while in the basement Crawford battles a strange lamprey eel thing that winds up taking all the hair off his body.

I can't make this stuff up, folks.

Is it faithful to Lovecraft? Well, not really. Lovecraft is that last hurdle for horror - no one has been able to crack his stuff and make it work on the screen. Gordon came closer years later with his adaptation of DAGON. Others have tried to imbue some sense of the Lovecraftian only to fall short (e.g. LORD OF ILLUSION) My favorite "Lovecraft movie" is the old made-for-HBO CAST A DEADLY SPELL, featuring Fred Ward as Howard Lovecraft, a tough-as-nails detective trying to stop the summoning of Cthulu. FROM BEYOND succeeds more than RE-ANIMATOR in terms of tone and all-out wackiness, but we'll have to wait for Guillermo del Toro's AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS to really see our first glimpse of the horror Lovecraft is famous for.

It's Worse Than it Looks

Jack's had a fever since yesterday morning, so I think the Missus is taking him to the doctor's this morning. No runny nose, no pulling at the ears (a sign of teething), no coughing, no loss of appetite, no diarrhea - just a fever of about 102 and a case of the crankies. It's gotten colder up in the wonderful Northeast, and even though we just had new windows installed to replace the 40 year old heat dissipaters the former owners claimed were windows, it's still a might chilly in the old house.

I continue to be bleary-eyed and ragged from a head/chest cold that never seems to want to leave. I think part of the lethargy is the loss of any structure to my eating habits - the 40+ pounds I lost for the surgery last year have been steadily creeping back on me, and what free time I have isn't being spent on a lot of physical activity. Plus I haven't had a haircut in forever, and I don't have the kind of hair that works when slightly moppish. Instead, I have that wonderful wispy hair that, when left to grow, collects massive amounts of static electricity and only makes me look more disheveled and, what's worse, even balder than I actually am.

I just looked back and realized I was complaining about my hair. Sorry. But I can't be alone in my loathing of wayward hair - it's one of the things that absolutely drives me crazy. If you're out there, and you feel the same, know you have a comrade who feels for your plight, brother (or sister).

Where do you go after ranting about your hair? I was going to quickly run through some music and movie stuff, but everything seems so bleak and hopeless now. The stray strands of my despair cling to me, weighing me down in a bog of neck fuzz and unruly sideburns. Natural conditioner are useless; my shampoo has surrendered.

Hair, we shall duel at noon...

The Happiest Days of Our Lives

Last Friday I walked in from work to find the Missus holding up a white padded package from that day's mail.

"What did Wil Wheaton send you?"

I had to laugh - it sounded so personal, so familiar, despite the fact that besides an autographed copy of his book Just a Geek, I have absolutely no personal connection with Mr. Wheaton.

Or do I? That's the question millions of readers ask themselves after having spending some time perusing Wil Wheaton's now-famous blog Wil Wheaton Dot Net (currently and happily still in exile here). For a number of years Mr. Wheaton has been transforming himself into one hell of a writer on the Internet, and just a few days reading his blog presents a life at once both unflinchingly honest and open - examining his loves, his fears, his hopes - in other words the the staples that make up anyone's life.

 

And that life is once again opened up in print. I jumped in early Sunday morning and in short order devoured his new book, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, a collection of, as he puts it, "rewritten, updated, expanded upon, and "de-bloggified"" posts and articles that have appeared elsewhere in wacky Internet-Land, and what makes it so special is the disarming, genuine emotion and sentiment that's on display. Whether it's standing in awe in front of the massive pegboard of STAR WARS action figures, frantically deciding on which one to buy before your mother comes, or sharing those special musical moments between a parent and their teenage child (my 5-month old son just giggles when I sing "Mr. Roboto"), each story is filled with a warmth and sincerity that causes you to go along for every ride, reveling in the joys of being a Geek, being a Father, and being aware of the fact that we're not alone.

 

The book is admittedly a little short (about 132 pages), but the sequencing of the stories all work to take the reader back and forth through Wil's life so as to never overstay its welcome too long. Any more and we might have got tired; any less and we may have felt cheated. In the immortal words of Goldilocks, "Just right."

But about the best compliment I can pay to The Happiest Days of Our Lives is to once again quote the Missus, who stopped for a moment as I was lying on the couch reading it, my son playing on the rug next to me:

 

"Why are you smiling?"

 

I stopped reading, smiled back at her, picked up my son and decided the book could hold off a few more minutes. I think Wil would have done the same.