Good old Stan Winston (the bastard who worked on TITANIC... sacriligous bastard!) brings us the special FX for is little 80's jem that was a staple of childhood for my friends and I. Written by Shane Black and Fred Dekker (Black & Dekker?! not just vacuums anymore!), this is the story of a group of kids who get the fantasy prize of killing their favorite movie monsters! Turns out that long ago (in a galaxy far, far away), say in the late 1800's, some crazy stuff goes down in Trannsylvania. Suddenly, we're Fast Forwarded to the "Present Day" (Gods I hate when they pull that), where some kids are being hassled by their school principal and a tough guy saves a fat kid from humiliation at the hands of the big brother from THE WONDER YEARS. The kids are a group of horror rejects (ala the H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S.) called the Monster Squad... they do nothing but debate horror movies and comicbooks. But, Dracula himself wakes up in the hold of a cargo plane one night, turns into a bat, then flies off, ready to raise some Hell in the "Present Day". Later we see him with a kick ass hearse, saying "it begins" to himself... weirdo. The Squad leader Shaun runs around in his homemade "Stephen King Rules" T-shirt as he and his friends stumble upon Abe VanHelsing's diary, and the prediction of a "monster apocalypse", while Drac summons up his buddies the Werewolf, the Mummy, a Swamp Creature, some she-vamps, and Frankenstein's monster (who later jumps sides)... it's fun to see the classic universal monsters together in one movie! Well, it's up to the squad to stop Drac and his evil minions, using some glowing amulet to send them all (including their new allie, Franky's monster) into Limbo. After unraveling the Mummy, blowing up and shooting the Wolfman, staking the vampettes, and filling the Swamp Creature with buckshot, Drac and Franky are sent into Limbo (which looks startlingly like the Evil Dead vortex). This was a fun movie, with humor like that seen in GOONIES. Also, it answers the eternal question: Do wolfmen have nards?

Sequels: None

If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: THE LOST BOYS or THE GOONIES