Is Monster Squada cult movie?
I think a cult movie is a movie that...
is appreciated in a way that people don't necessarily predict.
But ultimately movies are good or bad
and they're accepted or they're not,
but I don't know What a cult movie is,
so I sure don't know if this is one.
So, I was at a sleepover party at a friend of mine's house,
uh, when I was probably 12 or 13 years old,
and we watched, uh, Raising Arizona
and it's... to this day,
one of the most influential films I ever saw.
It fundamentally changed what I thought movies could be
and got me hooked on the Coen brothers as filmmakers.
Probably the first movie that had a huge impact on me
was King Kong, the original.
It was the first movie that sort of, for me,
created a world within that
137 frame,
the whole world was in that frame
for an hour and a half or however long it was.
And that was-- that was magic to me.
In my teen years, it was probably, uh, Enter the Dragon.
- I told John Saxon of... - Oh, really?
...I-- I was so excited to work with John
because I saw Enter the Dragon and it blew my mind.
I think my favorite movie growing up was Wizard of Oz
because it was the only movie that played annually,
every year at Thanksgiving.
So I got to see it ten, 15 times.
James Bondand-- and Creature from the Black Lagoon.
You know, I would show up first in line,
sleeping bag, whatever. Anything with monsters.
I saw Chuck Russell's The Blob,
and I left going "I want to be a director."
I think my favorite movie of all time is Back to the Future,
and it's really the first time
that I went to the theater as a kid
and going "I'm watching, like, a masterpiece,
this thing is ripping my mind apart."
Well, Exorcistfor one because I'm Catholic.
For me, when I was in college, it was Suspiria.
It was, like, "Ever seen this movie?"
And people would watch it and their minds would be fucking blown.
Halloween, I would watch with my dad
on VHS, over and over again.
It would scare me to death.
Jawsis my favorite movie of all time.
It's, like, I just love following into that world
and Monster Squadwas one of those movies.
Top five, I would have to say our Monster Squad...
...Monster Squad...
...Monster Squad.
- We love The Monster Squad. - We love
- The Monster Squad. - We love it.
One of our all times favorite movies when we were kids.
If my four-year-old could be here,
he would, he just watched the movie Saturday.
He loved it, absolutely loved it.
I love it so much, it changed my life, it just--
I wanted to be part of that world, and I feel like I am now,
and, um, it is an absolute stone classic.
The Monster Squad is a 1987 film
about a group of kids
that have to fight the classic Universal monsters.
And the squad is really a, a group of misfits,
you know, led by Sean,
with Patrick, and Horace, and Eugene,
the cool kid Rudy, and the little sister, Phoebe.
And the squad has to fight Dracula,
Frankenstein's monster, the Mummy,
Gillman and the Wolfman.
Well, as the lead inThe Monster Squad, that experience
certainly changed my life, and over the years,
I became interested in telling the story
of how it impacted others.
How many here have seen The Monster Squad?
Yeah!
The films in the '80s were so special
because they were a reflection of what was going on in culture.
And it was one of the first times
that kids were really included
in everything that was going on.
And I think those really made a deep impact
on the kids that were coming up at that time.
And now those are the-- those are the creatives of today.
They inspired and led to so many other creative outlets.
An example of that is a 30 second animation
- with some bunnies explaining whatThe Monster Squad is. - Okay,
- second way to kill a vampire-- - Come on, let me in the club.
- Found it at a garage sale. - Van Helsing's diary.
- We got to find the amulet. - Now can I be in the club?
Wolfman's got nards!
The amulet!
- Suck on this. - Hey, asshole!
You're not a virgin.
Is she a virgin?
Thank you.
Hold us.
Don't go away!
Bye!
I don't know, to sum that whole movie up.
- In one s-- - Because it's kind of been my whole life.
This is our Rocky Horror.
Monster Squadis a classic.
I guess it is kind of a kid's film.
It was a gateway drug, so--
There's no movie better than this.
Everybody's seen Freddy, but not everyone is a member of The Monster Squad.
I saw the film at the premiere in 1987.
When did I first experience The Monster Squad?
That would be opening night
at the Core Multiplex, 720 show.
- My entire family went. - The first time I saw
Monster Squad, I was actually in the theater,
and then it was kind of the weird thing where I would note,
then I would talk to my friends at school
and be like, "Yeah, and Monster Squad,"
and they'd be like, "I don't know that one."
I've said this to many, many times before,
- I'm going to say it again. - Okay.
This is my favorite movie
to screen for University students.
So I meet people and I tell them,
"Yeah, I teach film studies at the University."
And they say, "Oh, you must teach
Citizen Kaneand Casablanca,
you know, Hitchcock."And I say,
"No, have you heard of Monster Squad?"
How many of you, again,
have never seen Monster Squadbefore tonight?
- Wow. - How many of you had never heard
of Monster Squadbefore tonight?
You are welcome.
On the whole, they-- they get it.
They understand that if they're taking this movie too seriously,
then you're not watching this movie correctly.
Where you do get some interesting push back
is there are sections of the film that remain very politically incorrect.
I want to talk about political correctness.
If we were to remake Monster Squad,
what would we have to change?
There's some slut shaming, uh, with the older
- sister who's-- - You're not a virgin, are you?
Automatically ineligible from saving
the world because she's had sex.
Well, Steve,
but he doesn't count!
Doesn't count?
Fat shaming.
Oh, man, fat kid farted. Oh, God!
Did not!
I think Horace gets called a faggot at some point.
What did you say, faggot? What did you say?
So, there are-- there are certain things in there
that you can feel the room quiet down a little bit.
I think if it would be made today,
the leader of the squad would probably be Phoebe,
that has to convince a bunch of weird boys to join her.
- And-- And there would... - It would be more multi-ethnic, probably.
...probably be a funny scene
to decide who's going to read the spell.
The Rudy character could be like, "I'm out."
They've had really good experiences.
They clap and they cheer, and--
Those are the ones who understand.
They come back and they say that was one of the best ones we did.
Here's how I know that their appreciation is genuine.
The real compliment is, "I can't wait
to introduce this to my friends."
Because their friends are as unlikely to have seen this film
as they were, walking into my class.
The Monster Squadwas a-- an original script in 1985.
I was really, really lucky. I went to UCLA,
wanted to be a film major.
They wouldn't take me,
but I thought the girls were cute
and I loved the campus, so I said,
"I'll be an English major.
I can do that."
And I fell in with this crowd,
and Shane was one of those people.
We were both young, I was 25, he was 26, something like that.
He wanted to be an actor. He was a Theater Arts major.
He was mostly into reading Pulp, uh, Fiction.
I started writing screenplays and he said, "What are you doing?"
I said "I'm writing screenplays." And he goes, "Oh,
was it-- what are y-- how's that?"
I said, "Well, it's easier than writing a novel
because it's shorter."
So he said, "Well, let me try."
And I said, "Listen,
I want to do The Little Rascals
meet the Universal monsters."
He goes, "Okay."
It was ignorance in a way
that led to, I think,
the enthusiasm of that first draft.
So we broke the story together.
Eventually we came up with sort of an outline.
I don't even think it was written, I think it was just in our heads.
It wasn't applying a screenwriters template
or, you know, going off of a book by Sid Fields.
It was just, "I'm going to do this pretty much the way
I've set out to and just see what happens,"
and the experiment was a very good one for me.
The seed for the movie, and I'm ashamed to say it,
was really spending too much time in my youth watching TV.
They would run the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
They would run Dracula, Frankenstein,
you know, all the old monsters.
As the Universal monster rallies went along,
they got cheaper and worse and worse.
And the genius to me was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
And what I think we liked about it the most was that
Abbott and Costello were funnier than they'd ever been.
To take those two guys
and then do the Universal monsters,
and play the monster straight,
even as a kid, I knew something very special was going on there,
because the monsters were actually scarier in that movie
than they are in the previous, like, three or four...
Universal monster movies.
So that was kind of our idea, that was the notion.
The basis for it was to create a story
that had Spielberg elements, but didn't scrimp on the idea
that what they're doing is real and, you know, he really stakes
a girl in the heart in The Monster Squad.
So he wrote the first draft
mostly by himself,
I think I may have written a couple scenes,
while I was shooting and in post-production on Night of the Creeps.
- Really? - We got a long draft,
had to cut it down a little bit for budget and things like that.
And it was, of course, a thousand pages long
and I had to cut it down to,
you know... a 102 or whatever it was.
But the first draft, I thought,
was one of the better things I'd done. It was pure enthusiasm.
And then he went off and wrote Lethal Weapon
and sold it immediately.
He sold it so fast that Lethal Weapon,
I think, came out before The Monster Squad.
It was a crazy time. Everything happened very fast.
I think Fred and Shane crossed the line.
Personally, I mean, I remember watching this as a kid.
Now, I'm in a dark movie theater,
I bring my brother Barry, he's like, "I don't want to see a kids movie,"
but my mom forces him to go with me,
and I haven't watched it in a while,
but, from what I remember,
it's burned into my brain,
it begins with a Batman ha--
webbed hand.
And then, uh, there's a--
a vampire eating a possum,
and there's blood dripping down,
and then, all of a sudden, Van Helsing burst in,
and there're skeletons ripping out of the floor,
and I'm 11, and I'm terrified.
And I look at my brother and, like, "Maybe we should go."
And he's like, "No, we should stay."
That's what makes this movie so awesome,
like, that's burned in my brain
almost as a traumatic experience.
And then, back here is...
the edit suite.
Which-- this is basically-- it's my high school bedroom.
I-- I just, like, saved it.
Do you remember these? These were from when we were, like,
seven, eight years old,
these Universal monsters.
Instead of storyboarding, I acted out
action sequences with action figures for my DP,
and you'd, like, put cameras on them and stuff,
and, like, that's how we figure
- stuff out. - Not a bad way to do it.
Brittany has died a lot.
I was 12 when I saw Monster Squad.
So I was one of those kids
and you had this incredible script
where-- where the kids actually spoke like kids.
And there were few movies that-- that did that back then,
where it didn't feel like adults
writing what they think kids would sound like.
In The Monster Squad, our dialogue and our exchanges
are there because that's how kids interacted with each other,
and they still do today.
Fred and Shane...
they were-- they were kids that
were saying and acting the way I did in the 1980s.
It sounds like these writers were like,
you know, spying on me and my friends
because this is how we talk. This is how we sound
and this is the kind of language that we use.
They weren't parodies of kids, and they weren't stupid,
and they-- they weren't dumbed down,
like, they were very smart.
It's everything. It's the kids, it's the neighborhood,
it's the creepy guy in the neighborhood
that everybody thinks is a bad guy and who turns out
to be the most sympathetic character who saves the day.
It's all of these effortless jokes
about growing up and sexuality and--
w-- without ever losing the innocence of being kids.
Like, it's such a good movie, man.
Th-- the characters were the consistency
throughout the movie. If you have these characters
that you can put them in a drama,
you put them in a comedy, it just so happens
that they happen to be in a horror movie
or a sci-fi movie or maybe a mash-up of the two,
if those characters are compelling in any genre,
you can put them through anything you want, and we will care.
But you could tell that they sort of had that voice
of the generation in their minds.
They sort of knew, like,
"These kids are real kids, you know,
and we're going to take these real kids
that are maybe a little too real,
and put them in this, like,
crazy situation."
It's the kind of thing
that Hollywood today dies for,
you know, this high concept idea.
Anybody who does these things
is-- is operating partially subconsciously.
But there was a mythic cord, apparently,
in The Monster Squad,
that we may have tried for,
but didn't realize would resonate.
Taking the monster seriously
applies to our approach to the whole movie.
I mean, when we were casting, for instance,
if they had that kind of John Waters winky, Rocky Horrorapproach,
I just said, "Nice to meet you."
Duncan Regehr came in
and scared the shit out of us,
and I went, "Okay, that's the guy."
I knew that I had to fill some pretty big shoes.
I mean th-- this character
has been played by some pretty wonderful actors,
but I wanted it to be
a character that was more sociopathic in nature.
So, less bestial.
I had the availability to approach this one
with some psychology to it.
And that was certainly part of the discussions that I had with Fred,
who was, at that time, more into the bestial side of it.
And I said, "We've got to find this other level
in order for it to work, in order to take this character
in another direction, retain the histrionics."
So he is arch,
but he's malevolent.
It was a question of finding some compromises
and there were certainly a lot of differences of opinion
about how things should be done.
But those things always work
towards making a better creative product in the end.
And that's what we did.
We also had Peter Hyams,
who was a, you know, a veteran and he was definitely
a-- a wonderful guy to bounce ideas off of,
and it was very, very helpful to both of us to have him there.
The biggest drama on The Monster Squad
was that Peter wanted to fire me the first week.
And the reason was that, uh,
I wasn't shooting the movie
kind of in the way that he would have shot it.
He taught me some valuable lessons.
In my head, I see the movie and it may cut together,
but, if it doesn't,
I'm screwed because I haven't done enough coverage, A,
and B, and this is the important thing,
is that the entire crew understands
what the whole scene is.
And what Peter taught me was basically directing 101,
which is always start with a master shot,
so that the crew knows exactly what's happening
from the beginning of the scene to the end of the scene.
And once I got the lessons
on week two and he didn't fire me,
every scene in the movie I shot a wide master shot
and they're wide and they're beautiful and they look good,
but they're all big wide master shots and,
uh, you know, I think that set his mind at ease.
Take a drink for every master shot,
let's-- but let's make it a drinking game.
Well, everybody always asks us what our favorite part of this movie is.
It's the final action sequence where we're doing the final battle.
We're on the back lot of Warner Brothers.
Uh, it felt like we lived in that town,
it was like, "This is epic, this is huge.
Like, this is-- this is probably the biggest thing
I'm ever going to do."
Even Fred to this day
says the last 20 minutes of this movie
are his favorite.
Peter left me alone for the--
more than the second half of the shoot.
The whole town square sequence, the finale of the movie,
uh, he completely left me alone.
That's my favorite part of the movie,
not because he wasn't there.
I'm just saying he-- he gave me the keys to the car,
and I drove the car and I think I drove it pretty well.
The last reel in that movie is still my favorite thing I've ever done.
...eyes real big because you're scared that you're going to lose him.
- No, no, no, you're sad, you're sad... - No.
...No, no. No-- and he's trying to go,
no, no-- and you can say that.
- No, no-- Be more sad... - No, no.
- ...be more sad-- - No, no, no,
- no. - And then he goes.
And then you're real sad because he's gone.
But you still look at him b-- up at him
because you see him going in.
No...
- Good. - It was really just a lot of fun for me.
And because I brought my four-year-old there,
there were scenes where, you know,
where Wolfman beat the shit out of me in one scene,
and to see little Jesse look at me
with eyes like, "Oh, my God,
they're doing this to my father."
I think we went outside,
and Wolfman's parts started to come back together again,
and when I had my little kid
there looking at that
and seeing Wolfman's arm come and attach to his body.
He looked at me and he said, "Daddy, how do they do that?"
Most of the monsters were very cognizant of being human.
However, I was petrified of Duncan.
Because Duncan was just a man, and he had red eyeballs
because he wore red contact lenses,
and fangs, and that wasn't fucking normal.
And poor Ashley Bank,
when Dracula lifted her up,
I don't think anyone bothered to tell her that he was going to go,
"You bitch," and, like...
A lot of the movie was prepared
with those kids not knowing what was going to happen next,
so that they had a better sense of the reality it-- of it as being reality.
And Fred pulled me over and he said, "All right, you're going to go on that wooden plank,
then, you know, it's going to rise up,
and he's going to say something to you,
and at some point in the scene, you're going to scream."
And being the actor that I am, I said, "When?
When am I supposed to scream? I follow directions, when am I supposed to do it?"
And Fred looked at me and he said, "You'll know."
You know, you get wrapped up into the--
the whole magic of, um,
the lights and the atmosphere,
the smoke,
the coolness of the evening.
And...
it sweeps you up and takes you with it really.
And that-- th-- that feeds you and forces it further.
Um...
And she was there for it,
you know, I didn't have a lot of work to do
because she was actually terrified.
His eyes were closed and his mouth was shut.
And they said action,
and he opened his eyes,
he opened his mouth, and he hissed at me.
That girl can scream.
She scared me, actually, it was, um, it's the truth of it.
My first scream was so intensely afraid
that I don't think it was long enough.
Because the first time...
...she screamed and it scared the crap out of her
so bad that it took her breath out and she went, "Ye--"
And there was no scream...
...so they had to do it again.
They said, "You need to scream longer."
And so, that second scream was the second take.
Phoebe! That's my daughter!
Now, I think she turned out okay.
I don't think we, uh, we did any permanent damage,
but scaring the hell out of kids was-- seemed like a great idea.
And then the laughs played against that in a wonderful way.
Welcome to the mad-- mad house and the mess.
But this is-- this is the fun part
- because this is where everything happens. - Mm-hm.
We us-- everybody is so used to seeing it,
- like, the finished product. - Yes.
I-- I think I was 17 when Monster Squadcame out.
I already knew I would dig it
because it's the monsters-- it's the classic monsters,
but the local cinema had called me and had said,
"We're doing - Dream Warriors.
Would you dress up as Freddy Krueger and,
you know, come in and scare the audience?"
It went down really well.
They used to call me and said, "Hey,
The Monster Squad it's coming in.
Will you do something for that?"
And I said, "Hell, yes.
No, I'd love to do that."
I played The Mummy,
I was a lot skinnier then.
And my other three friends were
Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman.
It was a really good big deal within
all the local press, it was fun.
Oh, these were my kits for, um,
a movie called The Shape of Water.
Oh, I've hear-- I've heard of it.
After I did that and the pictures were paid
in the local paper, a company in London,
Weekend Television, contacted me
to do some makeup to one of their TV shows.
So, we're The Monster Squad is what this particular producer
saw when he brought me in,
ironically not to do monsters,
it was to do old age makeups.
So that f-- pushed my career even further.
Yeah, this is a-- well, you can see it's,
it's some applying thi-- it's actually the very first applyings
that Doug Jones wore in The Shape of Water.
So these weren't just mock-ups,
- these were actual-- - No, these are the actual very first,
first day of shooting ones. And I know exactly
because Guillermo told me exactly where he wanted the spots.
Yeah, because when he put that whole suit on,
- he's in the suit all day long. - Yep.
- And takes one hand off so he can have... - At lunchtime,
- so he can uses a bathroom. - ...some salad.
Actually, this is great stuff--
What's interesting about
creature making is everybody in the modern era
of special effects and creature design,
we're all kids at one time and they saw these classic monsters.
And so, they really put that enthusiasm
into making their iteration of these classic monsters.
I'm Tom Woodruff Jr., I'm the co-owner and co-founder of a ADI.
I'm John Rosengrant and I'm one of the owners of Legacy Effects.
I'm Shane Mahan, another co-owner of Legacy Effects.
I'm Steve Wang.
I was hired by Stan Winston
back in 1986
to be the art director slash,
uh, builder of the Gillman creature
along with this gentleman here, Matt Rose.
Alec Gillis was my business partner here
and I actually worked for Stan Winston
for several years during which we did Monster Squad.
On Monster Squad, I headed up the team to create the Wolfman.
My responsibility was the Mummy.
When Stan told us about the show,
"Monster Squad, it's got all these monsters."
And the first thing we heard was,
"And Universal said we can redo the monsters."
And those early monster movies
were really targeted for adults.
And they wer-- came out during the Great Depression.
And they came out of a period of enormous economic anxiety,
a sense of fear, whether you were goin-- you know,
whether your parents are going to put food on the table the next day.
We'r-- we're both 20 years old. I'm standing there, like,
kind of, you know, like excited,
thinking, "Oh, my God, we're getting to build
the Creature from the Black Lagoon."
That was totally cool.
Stan then said, "No, Universal said no."
They put the hammer down fast on because they trademark those looks.
We could use the characters.
We just had to be careful not to recreate
the exact look of the old, uh, Jack Pierce makeups
because even then, they were using those at the theme park.
We were a little, you know,
crestfallen for a couple of days,
but then everyone rose to the occasion.
And so, what we had to do is adjust,
you know, make minor adjustments.
Okay, fine. You can't beat the cool out of this project.
Stan actually drew and sketched by pencil
the characters themselves, so we sort of watched him develop these looks.
When we were doing the creature builds,
Stan was always good about splitting up the work.
The great thing about Stan was
that he was incredibly supportive of these people
that he had hired because he trusted them.
And so, he gave them projects, in this case,
specific monsters that they had never done before and didn't even know if they could do.
"Alec, you're going to do the bat transformation.
John, well, you'll do the Wolfman.
Shane will do the Mummy, and Matt and Steve,
you guys will do the Gillman."
This was one of those jobs
where it really didn't matter which one.
It's like, "Oh, shoot, I got stuck with Wolfman."
I remember kind of looking to everybody and saying,
"Oh, so, how do y--
how do you guys make monster suits?"
And it was just silence.
And then it kind of dawned on me.
"Oh, let the newbies figure it out."
We got to present a lot of Wolfmans
to end up with the final one.
We got to do the Werewolf of London,
and the whole transitions in the phone booth
were, you know, doing some old-school laying hair on
an-- and uti-- utilizing some prosthetics and teeth
I'd made, and contacts.
In the final one, y-- you know,
I kept saying, "Stan, let's get some
of the Oliver Reed the Hammer look into it, too."
That's kind of the lighter brown fur with the different patterns.
- Torn shirt. - The torn shirt.
The white-- whitish kind of torn shirt.
Our Mummy is completely different,
that was a choice of mine because I th--
I thought we already had a big lumbering monster,
so let's make the Mummy little.
The real mummies,
if you go to a museum,
they're very diminutive,
they-- they're very small, thin people,
and maybe that'd be a good contrast to Tom Noonan and-- and it sort of worked out.
And Tom Woodruff, who I just worked with on the Predator,
always wanted to play the monster as well as make them.
He's creating and making the Frankenstein's monster's applications
for Tom to wear on his face and head,
and he gets to be in the Gillman suit.
Playing Gillman was a--
It had its own challenges, a little bit different from the makeup.
Once he was in that suit, he couldn't really get out.
That Gillman suit is really a one-piece,
full-length bodysuit that you get glued into,
and he's in there for 12, 15 hours a day.
To the very first day that I was glued into the suit,
we did the work in the lagoon,
and it was a cold night.
During lunch, I remember,
I just went to the dressing room.
I laid down and actually fell asleep.
You're not eating, and you're not drinking anything.
I remember waking up during that lunch break
and nobody was with me.
I think you only had two little peepholes
to actually see out of in that-- in that helmet part.
I didn't know where I was, I just felt like my body was completely locked,
and I could feel my heart rate going up
and my breathing was getting shallow.
I can't imagine the claustrophobic feel
that you'd be glued into this foam,
latex suit that's soaked with water
in this giant creature head that you can't see out of.
And I had-- I just kind of talk myself down
an-- and remember that I'm in the suit, and I--
Still, it wa-- it was frantic, just a frantic few seconds.
I don't think everybody can do stuff like that.
The fact that he played the creature
and that he continued after that to continue to play monsters is,
uh, shows how-- how devoted he is.
What we do,
no matter how well we make it, is...
really a piece of plastic,
you know, it could be a beautiful model
or whatever, but it's the action that brings it to life.
That's really the final thing
because, if it's just sitting there as a--
as a display, that can be great and dynamic,
but in film, you need the actor to bring it up.
Steve Wang and Matt Rose did a great job on the Gillman.
For its day, set the tone for so many things.
I will go on record
and say I think our creatures is one of the best monster costumes ever filmed.
Having been involved in other suits in the past,
and also having studied a lot
how monsters-- monster suits were made back in the old days,
they usually made it in sections and parts and they just kind of like
put it-- put it on, they'd do zippers and do--
and sometimes you'd just see where all the seams are.
So the way that Matt and I did it
is, you know, we still did our body cast
and we sculpted the whole suit,
but instead of making it in sections,
the main body was all molded just as one.
And-- and, was it the first shot he went right into the lagoon?
- Yeah. - We're seeing you do the suit,
this perfect suit, they say, "Put it in the water." "What?"
Remember how nervously we were because it's, like,
we're-- we're gluing the hands on, we were, like...
"Okay, I think it's working."
And then we were-- we're putting the feet on, you know,
"All right, that seam went away."
And following, we're gluing th-- the head,
his big giant seam, I would put it on.
And we're starting to glue, and Matt was in the front and I'm in the back,
and we're, like, gluing it on, and then looked at him,
Matt looked at me, and we're just, like,
"It works."
I mean, it fit like a tailored suit,
- it really did-- - Stan got so many compliments when he walked out,
all the people are like, "I was in business 30 years,
I've never seen anything like this before," you know,
and Stan is like, "Thank you. Thank you.
I did it all, me, me! And the-- these two helped."
Stan was always a jokester, you know.
The question is how do you create
a new Creature in Black Lagoon? Well,
you just have Stan Winston's guys design it
and build it, and-- and sculpt it.
We wrapped the movie and you've got six,
eight months before it comes out and--
It felt...
like, all of a sudden, like,
your life was going to change...
drastically.
Fred and Shane and the guys,
they all got together in a limo on our opening night,
and we drove around Los Angeles
and went to all the theaters that it was playing it.
And we went to probably five or six theaters.
I will not forget that.
We went to one actually in the valley.
There was seven or eight people in the theater, I think.
Seven or eight people in the theater
which seats 300 people.
It was crushing.
I walked out of that movie thinking,
"I can't wait until the newspaper
comes out on Monday morning," because that's when they would a--
they would have the top ten movies for the weekend.
I hoped it was Monster Squad and unfortunately,
it wasn't. And I was really bummed.
Well, listen, it was a huge hit.
And by it, I mean The Lost Boys.
The Lost Boys came out two weeks
before The Monster Squad.
Two weeks later, we come out and we tank.
And it was incredibly disappointing.
My review of Monsters Squad appeared in the LA Times
on August 14th 1987.
"The Monster Squadis such fun.
It makes you wish you were a kid again.
Although you can never regain childhood innocence,
you can find compensation in being able to appreciate
the artistry with which director Fred Dekker
and co-writer Shane Black, have brought
to this horror comedy-adventure aimed at youngsters."
Yeah, and not all the critics were so generous.
Vincent Canby of the New York Timeswrote,
a mildly scathing review
of The Monster Squad which I think makes it plain
that this is never going to be a movie for him
because the last line of his review says,
"The Monster Squad includes vulgar language
and some sequences that could scare already emotionally troubled four-year-olds."
- Well... - As a kid, you're relegated
to whoever was in your local newspaper
or maybe Siskel and Ebert.
I would say a good majority
of the people writing the print reviews
for newspapers weren't film lovers themselves so much.
They-- they were assigned that duty.
You think about the impact
that it had at the time,
when newspaper reviews could make or break
a movie that might need critical support
to find its audience, in a time when audiences
largely depended on critics
to tell them what is worth seeing and what is not.
Let's not tiptoe around it, the movie bombed,
the movie bombed.
"Guys, uh, better luck next time.
This movie just, no one's seeing it,
no one knows about it. No one cares."
I mean, I don't even know if I remember
that I knew when the release date was.
I just remember thinking that people should've been talking about it more.
That's all.
But I remember the profound disappointment,
because you spent two years on these things
and you know in an afternoon
whether it's gone or it's going to stay.
By Friday night, latest Saturday morning, it's like,
"Well, you're movie is a hit," or, "Yeah, next time."
I'd-- I didn-- I wanted it to all go away.
I said, "No more acting.
I don't want anyone t-- to know that that happened."
And so, I would never talk about it.
I wouldn't let anyone know.
I wouldn't let girlfriends know.
When movies come out,
they get a-- a limited time to perform.
They get all kinds of conditions and circumstances
that have nothing to do with the quality of the movie,
where it's released, the date it's released.
How many screens,
what's going on that week.
I saw that it was a PG-13 rating.
And I thought...
"No." At that time,
I-- I said to my wife, I said,
"I don't think that mothers are going to schlep their kids
to this movie, to get them in, to watch it with them."
True is the fact it didn't last,
and I think it had to do a lot with that rating.
When this film was released, it was rated at 15,
which means that anybody under the age of 15
wasn't able to see this film theatrically
and wasn't able to rent the VHS tape.
You had to be 15 or older to see this film.
So, when it was released, it was clearly marketed
towards that Goonies-y sort of, you know,
teen adventure film audience
whose films typically were rated PG.
No one who wanted to see it could see it, I couldn't see it.
I think it's also a testament
to the fact that the movie was maybe not properly
marketed or marketed enough
back then and it's crazy to think of what a year would have made,
if they just sat on it for a few more months
and then released it with, "From the writer of Lethal Weapon."
I thought we had an ability to appeal
to some people on a,
a more nostalgic emotional level
than just simply the cartoon version
that I think the ads would-- suggested the movie to be.
Because we just had these "wanted" posters
all over around billboards and it just-- it was like mug shots of the monsters
with, like, a call to action, but nowhere to go.
It's really hard to find stuff from The Monster Squad,
but then I joined eBay in 2005 and I was like,
"Oh, my God, look at all this great stuff."
Right? So I'll-- I'll check in every couple days
- and... - Not too many people have that.
Probably a good reason for it.
You know, I-- got it and then I was like,
"Well, that's not even Duncan.
That looks like a Halloween mask costume
- in a, like, a Kmart or something. - Yeah, I don't know--
Wanted poster, like an Old West,
- but new mug shot type thing. - Right.
"For felony neck biting, unlawful blood-sucking,
and assault and bat-tery."
- Yeah. - Mummy.
"Armed bandage and statutory wrap."
Today I think if you even brought that idea
to the conference room table in an ad pitch,
you might be cleaning out your desk.
Like, so-- that got-- that got greenlit,
that got greenlit, right?
That was on billboards,
like, giant billboards in LA and across the country.
- It's probably why the movie didn't do well. - Oh--
And the next weekend,
it didn't get any better.
I never, ever, ever got the sense
that this movie was finding a new audience
or that its original audience were enjoying it again.
None whatsoever.
I was still licking my wounds.
Until 2006.
Which is-- so that's roughly 16 years,
before I had a clue that people liked this movie.
That's the God's truth.
The Monster Squad!
- Oh, my God! Hi! - How are you?
How you doing?
Welcome!
We're doing 17 Alamos in 17 days.
Only because of you guys that keep filling up
- these damn theaters. - Yes.
Monster Squadfans are very special and th-- they're a little bit
tighter connected to this movie than most genres fans.
I don't think anybody in here doesn't have
a special connection with this movie for some reason, right?
Uh, it hit and connected somewhere that stayed with you.
And after five or six years...
it just got to be overwhelming
how interesting this fan dynamic is with this movie.
Dance to this for the, uh, Horrorhound of Cincinnati.
It is probably one of my favorite pieces, uh,
if someone ends up making a t-shirt,
let me know because I'll gladly buy at least like
seven of them so I can wear them every single day of the week.
I decorated my garage in the way that I imagined.
Rudy and Sean and Patrick decorating their tree house
with all the monster stuff.
I saw that and instantly I was like,
"Man, I would want to emulate something like that."
You can step into a room in your--
you can look at someone's tattoos now
because those are collections too.
And you could understand and not have to ask, like,
"W-- what movies do you like?" It's like, well,
they could possibly be tattooed on someone's arms
or, if you look around a room,
you could pick up on it pretty quick.
My first experience with The Monster Squad
was, uh, spending the night over at a buddy's house.
So we, uh, turned it on, I was probably seven or eight.
And it was on HBO or something like that.
And we sat there and, uh, wolfed down popcorn
and watched the most amazing movie of our lives.
Everything we had seen up till then, it all had been kid's stuff,
and this was the first-- the first taste of something dangerous.
Back in the '70s, cable was what you did to get television
if you were in the mountains. By the time that had been exploited
to the point where it's economically feasible,
then they went into the cities.
The growth kept going and going and going.
I was at HBO when The Monster Squadfirst aired.
We knew that, by the time a film came out of the theaters
and maybe went to VHS, 95 % of people had not seen it.
We put it in front of a network of 20 or 25 million households,
somebody would watch Monster Squadin HBO,
tell his next door neighbor, the word got out.
Monster Squad developed a word of mouth.
I think it was either HBO or-- or The Preview Channel,
I think that's what it was called before HBO.
Monster Squadwas on a lot, um,
Beastmasterwas always on, Dragonslayer.
And those were the movies that really shaped my youth.
Pretty much the early days of HBO were pretty gold in the sense that,
if you missed an '80s movie,
it would play a hundred times
in a row over and over again.
If you grew up in the 80s,
you knew, when you watched HBO
or any of those cable channels back then,
that eight o'clock was this, like,
magical time where, like, the world changed.
I think that was even before we owned a VCR.
I think we rented our first VCR.
And then, eventually I would go
and rent it when it wasn't on cable.
The first time I ever saw Monster Squad,
my mom had taken me to the video store,
and I was maybe seven or eight years old,
and I was a die-hard horror fan and my mom let me watch
pretty much whatever I wanted.
And I was having a slumber party that night,
and I wanted a horror film, but mom was scared to death
that all the other parents were going to freak out
if she brought home, like, Nightmare on Elm Street,
and I got to watch it with all the other girls.
So she was looking for something
that was a little bit more kid-friendly.
And she handed me The Monster Squad
while we were standing in the middle of the video store
and she said, "How about this?"
And I said, "Oh, this looks perfect!"
And I took it home and we watched it during the slumber party that night,
and half the girls got scared and half of them loved it,
and it became one of my favorite movies
throughout my entire adolescence.
I couldn't tell you when I first saw it.
I can't ever remember a time
when I didn't have a reliable VHS copy.
I can't remember a time when there wasn't
a Monster Squad, kind of, in my life.
The sad fact at the time was, there were certain movies
that were being sold to the public and certain ones
that were just being shipped off to video stores.
And if you wanted to buy a movie, you basically had to buy it with,
uh, distribution license locked into the tape.
So the tapes cost like 100 dollars.
So it built up an obsession
where every time we'd go to the video store,
that's what I'd rent because I couldn't own it.
And then, it disappeared for 19 years.
It wasn't on anybody's mind for a very long time.
Sure.
Right off the bat, there you go.
Right off the bat.
Oh, man, the whole squad all together.
Yeah, obviously, I love there is like a unique style on it, you know.
My entire apartment is covered in posters, some of The Monster Squad.
And, uh, a lot of it is that now when I walk
by that Monster Squadposter, that Lost Boysposter or something,
I immediately sort of have a flash to the entire movie in my head.
Oh, my God, look at this.
Just so cool.
- Just so cool. - And that's the same guy that's over there.
The same guy, Geoff Trapp, yeah, this guy is
- a Monster Squadfan. - It's got a little, uh, dynamite.
In The Monster Squad they made those business cards
and i-- it inspired me to make my own business card.
"We kill monsters for pleasure. No job too weird."
Uh, and we never actually did or performed any jobs.
We just like to have the cards.
- Holy crap. - Okay. Now this--
What the hell is this? This is crazy.
It's something you love seen through the eyes of somebody else.
And you just totally, instantly connect to it.
I don't know if I'll ever stop collecting, uh,
if I ever see any cool Monster Squadstuff.
I'm always going to think about buying it
because it's just, you know, it reminds me
of the-- th-- some of the best times.
Is Monster Squada cult movie?
I don't know what a cult movie is.
I mean, it's either a weird movie that people like...
or...
I struggle with the word "cult"
with films sometimes because, to me,
a cult film is something like
Rocky Horroror even The Room, for better or for worse.
But they're movies that kind of just missed,
yet, for some reason, people still love them.
That's what it is. That's what a cult movie is.
It's a weird movie that people like.
I think that cult films
emerge from exploitation genres.
Cult, over time,
I don't think means the same thing that it used to.
Because cult meant something that nobody knew about
except, like, a very small cult of people.
Over time, I think it doesn't mean that same thing.
I think it now means something that was wildly popular
but not financially successful.
I don't think a movie that doesn't do well
but then finds its audience later.
Because It's a Wonderful Life did that,
The Wizard of Ozdid that,
a lot of movies did that.
If you ask five different people what a cult film is,
you will get five different answers.
Even if you ask five different expert film academics
what a cult film is, you will get five completely different answers.
Well, I mean, a cult film is often a film
that didn't fully find its audience when it first came out.
That people discover on their own
and feel like it's a kind of private fantasy universe
that they can feel a particular connection with.
All of a sudden, it's like you find lifelong friends
because you have this one weird thing in common
- that nobody else knows about. - They clearly had the same thing,
where "I love this, no one else loves it."
Kind of a, uh, members-only
kind of mentality to it, like a secret club.
Probably not the crowd that's going to seeTransformers.
But it's like what real film lovers watch.
When you first see it, it seems very kind of,
like, uh, out of the mainstream.
And it seems oftentimes very odd and bizarre.
And yet, at its core, the theme is something
that really resonates in kind of a universal way.
When I think of a cult film, I think of my smaller films,
uh, that have reached a certain audience
and usually at a certain time in their lives.
Usually when they're young. It's like hearing that great rock song
when you get your first kiss or something, you always are going to remember it.
So the Monster Squad fits into that
because it was a movie that didn't do too well
at the box office, and then came out on VHS
and cable and it just sort of existed.
So people had to find it on their own.
I don't think
of Monster Squadas a--
as a cult film, I just don't.
Oh, a 1000 % Monster Squad is a cult film.
What makes it cult, what earns it that right,
is that it's something that wasn't financially successful,
but has fans and those fans are rabid and loyal.
It's always been huge.
And, if anything, I would call it a classic
more than a cult film.
I mean, for me, it-- very definition of a cult movie,
because when I saw it as a kid,
in my mind, it was as big as all the other movies
I loved. But I noticed no one else seemed
to have either seen it or even heard of it.
So what if it wasn't, you know,
number one at the box office for a year straight
or something like that, none of that matters.
It's nothing other than time that allows a movie to resonate more,
it's like, it's like marination.
I just think it's a word though, it's like, there's a whole bunch of words
that are really helpful in-- in conversations.
And I just don't know that that one is.
But ultimately movies are good or bad,
and they're accepted or they're not.
But I don't know what a cult movie is.
So I sure don't know if this is one.
Where's the 35mm projector? Can I see it?
Oh, yeah, that's the stuff.
This is a film. It's going through the thing.
It's, you know, then it comes out and it's...
This is the part that people don't know
- when they're watching a movie. What's happening? - We-- Yeah.
Not just behind the scenes of making the film,
but actually showing the film.
My inspirational section of my life,
which was basically the '70s and '80s
of film-- uh, this is what it was.
- Yeah. - This is how it was shown to me.
So this is how I want to see it for the rest of my life.
You know, it's just awesome to watch it go by.
- It's definitely arou-- - No, is like my heart's like fluttery.
With the motor, right?
It starts... you know, like I just felt like that, like, "Here we go!"
It's now 11 years since Tim League and Eric Vespe
from Ain't It Cool News put together the first cast union screening
at the old original Alamo here in Austin in 2006.
That all started with one man, Eric Vespe.
I don't think, at that time, I'd ever seen it projected.
I was familiar with it. I'd seen it, it-- honestly,
uh, didn't make that much of an impression on me, I guess,
because I think I was into different things.
I just wanted to watch the movie.
Eric's enthusiasm for the film,
it was undeniable.
And, uh, he made a really strong case.
And, you know, frankly, it doesn't really take much
for me to say yes to projects.
He said, "If, like, maybe if you can find some people,
some of the cast and if they're willing to come out,
you know, for a coach ticket, maybe we--
we'll set up one screening, you know, on one weekend."
This could either suck and there was, like, five people there,
and we'll just go to Austin and have fun.
And so I really have the easy part.
I just have to open up the doors, uh,
find a film print and, uh, and go.
Hi, I'm Matt Pennachi.
- Normally a 35mm film collector. - Adam Hulin.
And we had many, many adventures
going to a lot of run-down, burned-out,
closed down, dangerous locations,
searching for 35mm prints over the years.
And, uh, one of the best ones we ever found
was a print of The Monster Squad.
At the time we acquired that print,
we had bought it from a collector in New Zealand.
That's one of the last places in the world that prints go to die,
- South Africa and New Zealand... - The last stops
- on the world tour. - ...because nobody wants to pay the postage
- To get them back. - Once they get that far away, they don't want them back.
And we started getting bombarded with requests for it.
And then, it came to our attention that
there were no known prints of this film left in North America.
- Which we're not aware of that. - We weren't aware of that at all.
Amongst the myriad of other prints we had,
a lot of them were sold to the Drafthouse.
But even at that point, we didn't realize how--
how much of a unicorn this print was.
So we picked Easter Sunday,
they put up the tickets online saying,
"Monster Squad reunion screening,"
you know, director, the cast.
And Eric Vespe and I got in touch.
My head spun for a second. I'm like,
"Wait, you know this movie?"
And they ended up putting together
what became the-- kind of the seminal event of Monster Squad.
Was not expecting...
...even remotely what actually occurred.
- And it sold out. - Uh, it sold out real fast.
I-- I think at the time, faster than anything I've ever sold out
at the Alamo before, and they added a second screening.
- Oh, my God, what is happening? - And e-- and everybody was like, "I love this movie!"
And I was like, "You've seen this movie? Okay."
It just...
I-- I, I couldn't believe... the attention
that this thing was getting.
That first screening at the Alamo,
was a real eye-opener.
And then, to show up at the Drafthouse
and see the line of people
going around the block waiting to get in
was astounding to me.
And it was like this amazing,
retro, nostalgic party jam.
You know, the floodgates just opened,
that film played somewhere
every single weekend in the month of October.
Half the questions were like,
"When is this movie coming out on DVD?"
And we were all like, "Never.
I don't think, like, I don't think anyone is releasing it."
You know, the question got asked, "Where is our DVD?"
But Fred, you know, said,
"Hey, you guys are the ones that would make this happen.
Write letters, write emails, make posts."
I remember being on DVD forums
in 2005-2006, when I was seventeen, eighteen.
People being like, "Can we get Monster Squadon DVD?"
I was alone in my office at work and I was like,
"Okay, I'm going to leave the charge on this,
this is something that I feel like
needs to happen."
So one of my ideas was when--
when I heard there was a letter writing campaign again,
I wanted this to get seen, not just throw it into a pile.
So I got a bunch of index cards
and crayons and magic markers and stuff like that,
and, basically, I would either write in
some of the characters from the movie, like Eugene,
like desperately wanting this on DVD.
I think I wrote like 60 letters into the company,
just to try to get their attention because I was afraid that--
that this jam wouldn't make it to DVD.
I'd like to think that it wasn't obsessive,
but, um, I think that, all total, it was like 60 note cards
or something like that, that I sent.
So I actually had a bootleg DVD I bought off eBay.
I even had a bootleg DVD.
So I had to go onto eBay and get the, uh,
bootleg DVD that was ripped from the Japanese LaserDisc.
Nowadays, everything comes out.
Some specialty labels putting out every movie,
but there was a time, especially when DVD was a new format,
that that wasn't the case.
And, in particular, Fred Dekker's movies were the ones
that everyone talked about saying, "When is Monster Squad
and Night of the Creeps coming out on DVD?"
The fan base was letting people know,
"Hey, we really want to re-embrace this movie. Can we own it?"
And Lionsgate, they were very smart and very, very attuned
to what was going on out there, and they threw it out there and they did it right.
I realized that Monster Squad had made a big impact
about the time it was coming out on DVD.
No one was prepared
for how successful it would end up being.
It was their highest selling catalog title that they had that year.
And even I was kind of taken aback by that. Because I was like,
"Wow, I knew that there were a lot of fans out there,
but that can't just be
people my age buying this.
This is their kids going for this.
This is a whole other generation, you know,
picking up the cover and going. "Hey, what is this?"
Because of Monster Squadsuccess,
it ended up winning a Saturn Award for best, uh,
special edition DVD that year.
It brought me a lot of attention.
It was a big calling card for me for a lot of years.
Probably the first time I saw Brent
was in the grocery store with his mother.
I had my daughter Rachel with me.
And he kind of had a little crush on her.
So every time he saw her,
he would hide behind the produce
and then pop up and I thought it was really cute.
We were out on the beach and we were on the swings
and he's like, "Hey, you want to be my girlfriend?"
And I said, "Okay, but what does that mean?"
And he said, "I think it means we walk around holding hands."
And I said, "Okay, we could try that."
Brent asked me to go to a wrestling match.
He's like, "Don't worry. I'm going to take you to a nice dinner before."
He wanted it to be really special.
One of my friends had made fun of him,
calling him fat.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our show.
Tonight's question, what makes Fat Kid fat?
- Fat Kid? - Get out of here, EJ.
And it made him so sad.
And I remember he just ran out crying.
His defining moment, when he levels up in this movie,
I mean, that's--
that's really that-- the nerd justice.
"My name is Horace."
Hey, Fat Kid, good job.
My name is Horace.
Having him go through that experience in real life,
and then having to get do-- to do that in the movie was pretty cool to see.
Brent Chalem passed away in 1997.
It's a big hole that he can't experience it himself
and or have great crowds like Alamo crowds
show him that, like, Ashley said it the other day,
it's like he's got the best arch in the movie.
Oh. Um, can you go really quick?
I'm still, like, freaking out about--
about Brent--
When I was growing up, I was Horace.
I was a fat kid in Town & Country surf and skate shirts.
I didn't find out the Brent passed away
until the-- the DVD push.
I think mainly because I felt so connected to him
that now that the DVD was coming out and people were, like,
loving this and it was on huge news sites and everything,
it's like, you know, this is where it would pay off.
And I thought, "Man, I'm never going to get to meet that guy."
And, um, you know, it's-- it's really sad and upsetting
that he couldn't be here for this.
It was wintertime and...
we got a call.
He got pneumonia.
He went to a local hospital and after two or three days,
instead of waiting till he was completely healed,
they sent him home with oxygen in his nose,
and it became dislodged that night.
He couldn't breathe, so they took him back to the hospital
in the emergency room.
And, unfortunately, they did something in the emergency room
that caused his death.
They gave him the wrong... medication
for an asthmatic and he went into a coma.
We, um, packed up right away.
I didn't realize how-- how serious it was.
We all sat with him. We sat with him in the intensive care.
I do remember, though, the doctors giving us a time period.
It was like, "He's got about three or four hours
and he's going to pass, so you need to go in there
and you need to say goodbye."
Then he-- he passed and we were all so upset.
I kind of went into a-- a crazy time after that.
I got panic attacks and just-- it was not a good time
and just-- that really affected me,
um, knowing that he wasn't there anymore.
- I look the same. This is me. - That's after hair.
- That's after the hair? Yes. Yeah? - Yes. About a year after.
And this, that's a picture of Betty Ann, his mom,
and Brent and always the dog and this-- it was an article
that they posted about all his commercial time,
and the commercials that he was in.
When he went to the first interview,
it was because his parents said no.
A lot of his friends were extras in film.
He called up.
He looked up the number and called up
to get himself an interview.
And they wrote him back.
He filled out the form himself,
he was seven years old.
And when I got the call
that they were going to be doing this documentary
on Monster Squad,
I went, "Wow.
Thirty years later and then I found out
what a following it has.
And one of the biggest people that they remember
is the lines that Brent said."
I think I'm more sad now than I was then.
It was so rad for him to go on these things, you know.
I'm sad that he's missed out on all of this
because I think that he would've really enjoyed this
and it-- and people would've loved him.
There's a big piece missing.
You know, one of the characters that really connected and resonates
with the majority of the fans is not around...
to experience that.
That really is the most unfortunate...
thing that we could possibly have
in this amazing resurgence of this movie.
One, they can't see him,
and two, he can't be a part of that.
"My name is Horace."
Awesome.
And everybody that related to Horace, right?
Everybody that related to getting their ass kicked
loved the moment where he pumps the shotgun
and proves he's the only one of these kids with any fucking balls.
Like, that's incredible wish fulfillment as a kid,
it's why I wanted to be a part of that movie so hard.
That is so iconic,
seeing a kid cock a shotgun
and blow away Gillman.
It cuts from the wide shot to the close shot,
where he goes, "My name... is Horace."
And the crowd went fucking apeshit.
I aspire to do something that good in a movie someday
because I just think that that's pure cinema.
You just don't get better than that.
That was one of those moments that made me think,
like, "I want to be able to do that to an audience."
People are going to be saying that
for thousands of years.
And it's such a fucking travesty
that Brent doesn't get to see that.
He definitely knows, like, he's definitely watching all this
and, um, he-- he's there.
Brent is living on through this legacy.
He did it with his whole heart,
and he brought life even to a monster movie.
The Alamo called me and said, would I be interested in doing
a 30th anniversary tour.
We got Ryan and Ashley, and Ashley's baby.
We ended up doing 17 cities in 17 days.
And half of those had dual screenings in the same night.
I knew what to expect with the screenings.
We-- we knew there was going to be Q&A
and questions, we're going to meet people.
The traveling part...
...of the tour was a whirlwind.
We know what town we're in?
- Where are we? - Yeah.
Let's look at-- We could look on the--
There is a flip-flop festival around here.
That's a....
- Cool! - See it?
- No. - Hang-- Okay, now look.
- Now look at the sun. - Wha--
Wait until that cloud gets back.
I'm blind.
Coming out to test for Monster Squad,
it was probably like the third time I've been in California,
but it really cemented that idea that, if you want to act,
LA is the place to be.
You know, about a year or two after that,
he ended up moving to LA,
he's had great success
because he's an intelligent,
very talented individual.
You know, The Monster Squad, you know,
it's really come full circle for me.
You know, I get to work
with Shane Mahan and John Rosengrant
on a-- on a beautiful movie, The Shape of Water.
Only seeing him now is making me realize that,
"Yeah, I know all those guys,"
and I got André Gower right here, so.
He designed and fabricated
the amphibian man for The Shape of Water.
And Mike Hill to create that aesthetic
is just a fascinating story with someone who, as a kid,
saw The Monster Squad in the theaters.
This is a zine I did, it's called I heart Rudy,
it's about Rudy and also about the Squad.
You can say that
the movie Monster Squad and the horror genre in general
is a boys club and I wanted to get that girl's perspective.
And I also modeled it after the '80s teeny bopper magazines of the day,
like Bop, TeenBeat, Big Bopper.
It was almost like I had stumbled upon Monster Squad,
like I found a bag of cash in the street or something,
and no one else seemed to know about it.
That's definitely why I started Friday Night Frights.
I kind of just wanted to be like a Johnny Appleseed of horror movies.
In some ways, it was fun to come full circle
and show Monster Squad to a sold-out crowd
here at Friday Night Frights with Fred Dekker there
to be able to appreciate the fact that all these years later,
people still love his movie.
Run!
- Kick him in the nards! - Run!
- Kick him in the nards! - He doesn't have nards!
You know, The Goldbergsis a comedy,
essentially, the way I pitched it was
a movie geek growing up in the '80s.
When I saw Monster Squad, I think--
outside of some Mel Brooks jokes,
the idea that Wolfman has nards
was so crazy-funny to me.
And it's just one of those jokes that kind of defined my sense of humor.
Do it, do it!
Wolfman's got nards!
Come on! Come on!
Every character on my show
is constantly going nards in some sort
because I taught it to everyone through The Monster Squad.
What was that? Punch your brother in the nards?
Good luck and cover your nards.
Nards, definitely the nards.
Oh, nards.
All you did was keep us in line
and let us get hit in the nose,
head, face and nards.
In the nards!
Everybody's just standing around
scratching their nards.
How many words for nards do you people know?
And people recognize, "Oh, that's The Monster Squad."
So this show was about giving a shout out to the movies that-- that shaped us.
Right now, every day I wake up
and I go and make a show
called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
And for me, the biggest thing it does is
it allows me to have...
kind of a squad of four heroes
just beat up and kill monsters every week.
It's pretty simple.
Oh, that love of genre and movies
led me to work at a video store.
And then, working at the video store,
it was cool because I got to talk about movies.
And then, one day, you're in high school
and they say, "What do you want to do with your life?"
And you've been watching The Monster Squad and these movies,
you know, "I want to get paid to watch movies."
"How do you get paid to watch movies?"
"Uh, well, you become a film critic."
Certainly Monster Squadwa--
was a pretty big influence on Beyond The Gates,
like, kind of the three touchstones for it to pour.
Phantasm, The Gateand Monster Squad.
Knights of Badassdom is definitely
one of the influences that was derived from Monster Squad
for better for worse, depending on if you've seen the movie.
I wanted to make the sequel
to The Monster Squad or the sequel to The Goonies
where we've all seen them now grown up 20, 30 years later.
I wanted to see what-- what all these kids did.
I had a movie night with my cast
and we watched An American Werewolf in London,
Goonies, Monster Squad.
Sitting down with Steve Zahn and Peter Dinklage
watching The Monster Squad-- Yeah, picture that one.
I had a VHS recording of Monster Squadfrom HBO growing up
and I used to watch it every day.
And, um, that sparked my interest
in the classic monsters,
and introduced me to practical effects
and creature effects and-- and Stan Winston.
And I started professionally sculpting toys,
the Creature From The Black Lagoonspecifically,
um, when I was 15.
And from that, it just led me to a career
of creating monsters for movies for 15 years now.
When I think about the just--
just how important the Gillman was to me,
my career was always about the monster,
and I didn't know that this would be such a--
a formative beginning because, uh,
it showed a-- it showed that I could do it.
It showed tha-- that I was respected for what I did
which meant I could continue to do more of it and be in other suits.
I wonder, had I not done that, had I not gotten over that,
that, that feeling of, "Am I good enough to do this?"
Had I not done it early enough, I would still be making monsters,
bu-- but it wouldn't feel as complete to me as it is,
being able to-- to be the monster at the other end of the schedule.
I think I try to put as much of myself
into the characters that I write.
And it all goes back to the movies I saw
when I was eight, nine, ten, 11, 12,
uh, an-- and thinking, "I know these kids, I'm one of these kids."
And, uh, that's-- that's how those movies spoke to me.
I mean, I-- I think I-- I probably did try to start
my own Monster Squad at one point.
What I do now is, every Wednesday night, no matter what,
we come here into this, you know, sanctuary.
And, you know, we are surrounded by monsters and some robots.
We'll build model kits, we'll draw.
And I think it's important because it's--
it's a chance for us to kind of creatively take a breath
away from the things
that we do on a daily basis.
And for me, it's tricky because I have a creative job,
but I-- I have to understand not to take that for granted,
and I think this is kind of a nice counterbalance.
- Like, in 1990, it was the first time I saw... - Yeah.
...Monster Squad,I'd just drawn an invite, you go,
- "What is this? What am I even watching?" It was so good. - Yeah.
Like, me coming here and doing something that's almost,
in a way, creatively selfish,
allows me to go back to work, and it fuels that work.
An-- and I'm with a bunch of goofy guys in here, and we-- and, you know,
we're laughing and stuff like that about off things here and there,
but, at the same time, it's like we are very fueled visually
as-- as artists. This place almost is purposefully saturating me
with that stuff and reminding me visually.
I think the dream was always to, you know,
"Hey, let's have a-- let's have a monster club.
Like, no one else can come to this."
But that's what you do when you're in your 40's.
You can't do that in your 30's.
- No? - Not really.
All right. So we're waiting for the administrator
who we just spoke to to see if, um,
we can get permission to take the crew in
and bring us in there to go surprise Douglas and say hi.
That's the kid for the-- that didn't come
yesterday to the screening.
Hopefully we can get in there and give him
- a little... - Surprise!
...A little surprise.
You mind if we come in and hang out for a little bit?
You sure? We got a crew with us, you're fine with that?
How you doing? I'm going to give you that.
- How you feeling? So, this is Douglas. - Hey, buddy.
- Nice to see, I'm Ryan. Here. - Douglas.
Oh, we taught you could make it last night, man.
Oh, I'm-- I'm sorry too, I wanted to, but--
I'd rather you be with us than-- I'd rather you be with us than in here, yeah.
You feeling better, though, a little bit or...
- Uh, getting there. - Okay, good.
He was so upset when he heard he wouldn't get--
I know, that's why we had to come say hi.
Yeah, we came to, uh, represent a little bit.
For me, it's beyond words. I mean, it's--
The movie's been a part-- a huge part of my life. Uh--
And you all are standing right in front of me. I don't know.
I don't really know what to say about that. Yeah.
How old were you when you first saw it, you remember?
Oh, man, probably, probably five,
- maybe. - Wow, you started early.
- Yeah, very early. - All right, I like that.
Yeah, me and Louise sat in boxes
and watch it in front of the TV.
You used to sit up late and watch it,
- together, you used to watch it together. - Oh, yeah.
I think Monster Squadis a movie about outcasts
and y-- if you identified with that movie,
you're an outcast.
It's so sweet. It's just so sweet.
Phoebe really wanting Frankenstein's monster to stay,
and like, "Don't go!" And she gives him her, like,
stuffed animal, her little dog, that, like,
she has with her the entire time.
It's on her belt, it's always with her, keeping her safe.
And so, she throws out to him so he's safe and limbo like--
Oh, I'm going to cry, I am crying. It's-- it's the best.
I want to call it, you know, th-- the--
I don't even know, I don't have a word to describe
what it means to our family.
How the movie plays into my life?
I was 12. My name is Shawn.
I got in trouble for drawing in class, but also,
five months before the movie opens,
um, I'd been diagnosed with HIV.
And it was devastating for me and my family.
I was kicked out of school.
You know.
Leaving Ecuador at 13 years old was really tough
because it was like going from one planet to another.
I know for me, personally, having a physical disability,
childhood wasn't always the easiest.
I never really felt like I fit in anywhere.
For my situation as an only child and being more of an introvert,
I would usually latch on to one or two people,
and so I'd have one or two close friends.
I remember that night, hearing about this monster movie,
small town in Waynesboro, Virginia.
And me being able to go with my friends and sit there,
and get lost in the movie,
and forget about some of the things that, you know, where happening.
Monster Squad, for me, was just kind of sort of, like,
it was that group of friends that I needed
when I kind of sort of didn't have friends at the time.
There's a comfort to it. And so, that emotional comfort of coming home.
It just sort of gives you a refresher.
Monster Squad definitely helped me at a time when I needed it.
I blocked out a lot of that time period, but I remember,
I remember going to that movie and sitting there.
I felt normal again, you know, I didn't feel like a monster.
And I like that I have that memory.
Movies like Monster Squad, um,
in a-- in a weird way kind of gave me that,
um, safe net when I didn't feel safe.
It's just so emotional, like,
this movie has been with me forever.
So, it's just something that I've always known,
I could always go back to it.
It's helped me through some really hard times,
just being able to, like,
take a break and just smile and, like,
feel accepted.
So...
How did Monster Squad affect my life personally?
Um, I think it's my best movie.
I think it's reached the widest audience of anything, uh,
that I've done as a director.
And it's sort of killed my career for a period of time.
I think it's probably my epithet--
it's probably going to be on my...
gravestone, and I'm...
ambivalent about that.
The analogy I make is, you do a piano concerto
in front of an audience,
and a couple people applaud and then they leave.
And then, 20 years later,
somebody comes up to you in the street and goes,
"I saw that piano concerto you did. That was incredible."
There's such a disconnect
from what you did to the response
that it's really hard to codify emotionally.
It's like shooting a basket in 1987
and then it doesn't go in until 2006.
That's-- that's weird.
That's really hard for me to kind of make sense of.
It's not-- it's not the sexy answer.
It's not the answer you want and it doesn't,
you know, sort of wrap things up with a bow.
I mean, I-- I don't-- I don't mean to downplay it.
I just have a very personal relationship with it
because I put my heart and soul int-- into it
and nobody noticed for 20 years.
London was a total dream.
I was like that's definitely not happening.
It's just something that, when you try to explain it to people,
there's a-- th-- they just-- it-- they can't get a grasp on it.
They're like, "What did you do in 2017?"
You're like,
"I went out and met a bunch of people
that feel very strongly about something that I did when I was 15."
And, uh, you got to love them.
I got a dog called Rudy as well.
You have a dog-- your dog's name is Rudy?
- I gave it when I was five years old. Thank you, sir. - That's awesome.
So we set up a screening
in London, at the Prince Charles Cinema,
which is something I've always wanted to attend.
We get there and we have a mom and her daughter,
and we learned that even 30 years later,
the 15 rating still holds effect in the UK.
And she's not allowed to come into the theater.
They bought their tickets, they waited in line,
and they can't come in.
"You're going to meet Sean and Rudy."
And I'm like, "Wow!"
And I just started jumping around and, you know, saying,
"What am I going to wear? What am I going to do?" And, you know--
We made sure that she was allowed to at least come in
- for the Q&A. - Allegra is in here. Yes?
- Allegra? Hi. - She in the back? Where's she at? There she is.
She was a trooper. She understood, she knows the thing.
Her mom was great, and we got to hang out afterwards.
I'm more of an '80s girl than more of, like, a now modern one.
Because my mom always says,
"Be a modern girl!" And I'm like,
"No, I want to be an '80s star, you know."
Just like it.
Here we are, 30 years later.
And, in the last ten years, what we've seen is this movie
attain this almost unprecedented cult popularity.
I think it's the love of kids and monsters
and just the tone of the movie
that sustained it.
This growth in the love
and the attachment to The Monster Squad
has not died down.
There's more fans today than there were in 2006.
And there's new fans today.
We have a whole second generation
of Monster Squadfans.
It is fantastic
to be here in the Warner Brothers lot
whereMonster Squad was originally filmed.
We got all these amazing sights right here.
And you've got your family here with you today.
So what's it like sharing something likeMonster Squad,
that meant so much to you with your own kids?
As-- as it being one of my favorite movies,
it just-- they were-- they grew up with it,
and they loved it from-- from the beginning.
It has so many aspects to it that attracted me
and-- and them that it's just part of us.
But what a surprise, what a-- what a really odd but pleasant surprise
that this thing that we planted
then it grew into something
and we come around 20 years later
and there's a freaking tree there where there was a seed before.
- You got to have the dead media. - Have all the media, right?
Okay. So let's go through the countries.
So, Mexico, Poland, France.
At one point, someone asked me, "I need to meet you in real life at some point
because I can't wait to look at your Monster Squadcollection."
And all the sudden it dawned on me that I didn't really have
a lot of Monster Squadstuff.
I remember, like, uh, going on eBay and looking
and seeing that there were some, like, copies from the UK
kind of circling around and I thought, "You know what would be really cool?
It's buying some of those, something that I could display,
but also knowing that each tape has a heritage
of being an ex-rental that-- that there's a-- there's a life
in each one of these tapes, even if I don't watch them."
I would just love the idea of having a bit of Monster Squad
that touched every continent on the planet.
And I'm pretty close.
Wasn't it interesting...
that a movie that is...
basically a pastiche about nostalgia for childhood
now lets you, the actor in the movie,
relive the nostalgia for your childhood?
You know, in essence you were a monster fighter when you were a kid
and now you get to go back and relive that.
As an adult, you develop this kind of distance.
It becomes about ideas and aesthetics and you lose the kid.
Kids who have this peculiar belief in imagination
that's died within the cynical adults,
and they say, "We believe that this is the key to life,
not growing up."
I always have to see through the eyes of the kid.
That's what people are responding to in Monster Squad.
Monster Squadwas something that I, whenever I saw it,
I related to it, but I didn't know why I related to it.
We know these characters,
we went to school with them and we are them.
I wish I had that experience.
And I think the idea of kids preserving that is important.
And I think that's whatThe Monster Squad appeals to as well.
I mean, we are a family, that's how, you know, that-- that's how it is.
We were a part of the squad. Someone in school was just like Sean.
Who isn't that young kid?
Whether it's fighting the Wolfman
or just having to get through really sucky sixth grade.
Every time I watch The Monster Squad,
it takes me back to my childhood,
every single time.
Whether they're 40 or-- or 12,
they're seeing it through the eyes of a kid because it was told through the eyes of a kid.
In essence, we made the movie for you,
and you just had to grow up in time to really appreciate it,
you know.
I have memories of driving my parents crazy
with repeat viewings and repeating certain phrases
that-- that just caught on with me.
I'd just always get chills every time
Rudy says, "I'm in a goddamn club, aren't I?"
"Give me the amulet, you bitch."
"Kick him in the nards," right? It's the most, uh, iconic scene from the movie.
- Or your dad's fighting off Wolfman. - Yeah.
"Stick it down right in his pants."
She was Phoebe.
I had a deal with an older sis--
two older sisters that would bully me and everything.
- Oh, my God! - They were--
We beat people's asses for you...
...in Staten Island. Holy shit!
- You did! - I did!
Dracula was always really sexy to me.
- I'm like, "Restrain yourself, girl." - I forgot,
- I just forgot. - Right?
Showed it to friends in Saudi Arabia,
and then kind of formed a little Monster SquadSaudi Arabia.
Never found any monsters.
We've raided our mom's pantries
to get garlic salt and garlic powder.
I used to imagine, before going to bed at night,
that Dracula would visit me and turn me into his apprentice.
I could, um, I could bring up The Goonies
- first-- - Cut. Cut, no. Yeah, no. We're out.
We're done, we're done. Let's--
"Wolfman's got nards!"
♪ So let's keep it underground
♪ Conversation down
♪ Yeah, so love it till it drowns ♪
♪ So let's keep dry
♪ Keep me under
Since you're a fan, I was going to share,
you're one of the first people that has been out of the box,
- but... - Is that a--
This is the original
hero wardrobe Stephen King Rules shirt.
Holy shit!
It's the actual Stephen King Rules shirt.
- Oh! Oh, my God! - The actual Stephen King Rules shirt.
But I have the original--
- Oh! - This has become a thing.
- Wow. - That's amazing.
Wow!
Oh, nice!
Are you kidding me?
- ...the original. - Oh, my goodness.
- This is it. - Oh!
It's, uh--
That's incredible.
You were so tiny.
Oh, so tiny. So tiny.
- You were so tiny! - I will let you-- we'll let you--
- You were such a little guy. - I know, right?
It's what everybody says.
It does look tiny.
- You wore this? - That was it.
Did you wash it?
Smells like movie magic.
When I designed this clubhouse,
I just thought, "Wow, wouldn't it be cool
to try to make the Monster Squadclubhouse?"
And just make it as screen accurate as I possibly could.
My friends that are Monster Squadfans always see it and go,
"Oh, man, this is incredible."
We are on people's bodies.
We were at Spooky Empire and a gal came up
who is a big Monster Squadfan, and she said,
"I figured out what I want for my birthday.
I'm going to come back tomorrow and you and Ryan are going to sign my leg
and I'm going to go next door to the hall
at the convention room where all the tattoo artists work."
But tell them about Danny.
He'd had-- he already had all the monsters,
except Gillman.
Putting Gillman on my arm today,
especially with you guys around, is a no-brainer.
Turns out that André and I got to actually grab the gun and ink him.
So, forever, uh, his Gillman will be totally fucked up.