Recently, my sister made the claim that I hate all movies.  This is not true, of course.  Also, “hate” is a strong word, as the saying goes.  The problem is that there are a lot of bad movies.  They should be given some leniency, though.  After all, it is no small undertaking to make a motion picture.  It takes a lot of people working together for many hours in a short period of time to get it done at all, never mind the quality.  More often than not, these efforts result in some aspect of the production not being done quite right, and it is easy to tell in the finished product.  Sometimes, this can lead to a movie being so bad it is good.  This is not quite the case with The Monster Squad (1987).  It is billed as a horror/comedy flick.  Yet, the parts of it that I think are supposed to be horror turn out to be funny, and what is meant to be laughed at is, well, it is just not good.  Perhaps you will see why as I describe it further.

One hundred years before 1987 is when The Monster Squad begins.  I had to say that because if I just said 100 years earlier that would have been confusing.  According to the opening crawl, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Jack Gwillim) “blew it” in his attempt to end the reign of terror of Count Dracula (Duncan Regehr) and his monster allies.  I am not sure this is what takes place, but I will tell you about it anyway.  You see, there is this amulet that needs an, er, special kind of person to read a spell and open a worm hole to limbo.  I guess the failure comes with Dr. Van Helsing being unable to get Count Dracula and company into it, falling in himself.  We then cut to a modern-day middle school . . . somewhere.  Perhaps this does not matter as much as the group of friends on which it focuses.  This is Sean Crenshaw (Andre Gower), his best friend Patrick Rhodes (Robby Kiger), and their other companion Horace (Brent Chalem), who everyone worryingly refers to as the “Fat Kid.”  I will not be doing so.  They call themselves the titular group, but they are about to add another to their ranks.  Horace is being bullied in the school yard when up pedals what I think is meant to be the baddest kid in town, Rudy Holloran (Ryan Lambert).  You can tell he is cool because he is wearing a leather jacket and smoking a cigarette . . . but still riding a bike. . . .  Anyway, for services rendered, and passing a test administered by Sean as to Rudy’s monster knowledge, he is allowed to join their team.  Meanwhile, flying somewhere overhead in a modified B-24 (for some reason), are Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster (Tom Noonan), and the Gill-Man (Tom Woodruff Jr.).  The pilots think they are transporting “dead bodies,” which is sort of true, but end up releasing them into the world when they hear bumps in the back.  Guess whose town they land in, surviving a drop of a few thousand feet in the process?  Back on the ground, Emily Crenshaw (Mary Ellen Trainor), Sean’s mother, has a book for her son that happens to be Dr. Van Helsing’s diary.  The problem is that it is written in German.  Luckily, there is a creepy German guy (Leonardo Cimino) that lives down the street that is actually not so creepy because he is a Holocaust survivor.  Horace, Patrick, and Sean go to the German guy’s (this is almost literally how he is billed) house and are given pie and a translation.  This is how they learn of the amulet.  Apparently, it is a gem of concentrated good, but every 100 years it can be used by the forces of evil to tip the balance in their favor.  It must be used as previously seen, or darkness will rule.  Count Dracula is aware of this, too, and conveniently sets up a base of operations, so to speak, in the very house in which the amulet is located . . . somehow.  It is in a secret chamber in the basement surround by Crucifixes and garlic.  Count Dracula is also aware of the diary, and sends Frankenstein’s monster out to get it.  Once more, through some kind of magic he knows that Sean has it, and commands Frankenstein’s monster to kill the kids and get the diary.  Instead, Frankenstein’s monster meets the precocious Phoebe Crenshaw (Ashley Bank), Sean’s little sister.  He is charmed by the little girl and accepted as one of the team.  With the translation of the diary and a newly added monster, Sean feels it is up to him and his friends to take on the forces of evil.  Rudy is charged with the task of weapon collecting, making wooden stakes and silver bullets in shop class because this is the 1980s and few people batted an eye at such things at that time, apparently.  Rudy takes part in obtaining a virgin, with he and Patrick asking Patrick’s older sister Lisa (Lisa Fuller).  Somehow, they get past that awkwardness, though she turns out to have lied about this, again for some reason.  As for Sean and the others, they invade Dracula’s suburban abode and manage to obtain the amulet.  Everyone converges on the town square, including Sean’s cop dad Del (Stephen Macht).  There is also a lot of use of dynamite in these scenes, including by Count Dracula, which should never be a thing.  Anyway, when Lisa turns out to be no good, as a virgin that is, they turn to Phoebe.  This moment is ridiculous, but the long and short of it is that they are able to open up the portal and send the monsters packing.  After this, the national guard arrives wanting to know where are the monsters, to which Sean replies by saying they have already been taken care of by his squad.  Roll credits.

As silly is The Monster Squad, I can at least appreciate its delineation between good and evil.  It pertains to something I have spoken about in other films dealing with monsters, especially as it relates to vampires.  Before continuing, I should pointt out the nonsense of the amulet.  As mentioned above, it is described as a stone of “concentrated good.”  Given that there are Crucifixes in this world and churches, I do not see why this is needed.  Those are the real sources of ultimate good.  This becomes all the more relevant when you see Sean stab Count Dracula in the heart with a wooden steak in the climactic moment.  Further, they decide that the place to make their stand is inside the church on the town square.  Horace specifically thinks of this because monsters do not like “religious things.”  While it is a little frustrating that he talks about it such general terms, it nonetheless demonstrates a truth that most movies of this kind seem to take for granted: that God, who is the ultimate good greater than any amulet, is more powerful than these creatures.  These sorts of things give me a tiny bit of comfort during a film that is about as crazy as I have seen.

Arguably, The Monster Squad is at its craziest when Count Dracula calls Phoebe a word for women that I would rather no repeat.  There is also the problematic voyeurism on Rudy’s part as he photographs Lisa while she is changing in her room.  It all adds up to a PG-13 rating, and not a film that I would recommend.  Still, it does push up against being so bad it is good, without ever getting to that point.