37 years ago, this movie wanted to compete with The Goonies, but it didn’t work out!

In 1985, producer Steven Spielberg released The Goonies, an archetypal movie for teenagers, directed by Richard Donner, with a team of youngsters who lead them on an adventure that leads them to the treasure of the great pirate Willy the One-Eyed. It was a success that led to the release of many “Goon-like” films in the late 80s, but none quite as successful as The Monster Squad (1987).

Goons vs. Dracula

This is Fred Dekker’s second directorial effort before RoboCop 3 and he co-wrote the film with his pal Shane Black. There, too, we meet the same stereotypical young people: a little taller than others, overweight, a little clumsy, etc. The film’s originality lies in the fact that they are all fans of horror films from the 1930s to the 1950s, a period during which Universal Studios produced (and several versions of) Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Strange Creature from Lake Noir and The Werewolf.

The kids come across the journal of Van Helsing, a famous monster hunter, and discover that in order to return these apparently very real creatures to limbo, they must get their hands on an amulet and perform a ritual. But in the meantime, Dracula and the others are searching for a precious artifact…

You have to admit that Monster Squad is quite entertaining, offering a kind of remake of Frankenstein’s house, a family version. The kids are cute and the scary subject matter is well explored and balanced for a younger audience. However, the film did not escape the PG-13 rating, as did The Goonies before it.

A colossal flop

When it came out, the poster for Monster Squad echoed Ghostbusters: “You know who to call for ghosts, but who to call for monsters?”, except that the movie came out 15 days later, which also attracted people. Adolescent Audience: Joel Schumacher’s Lost Generation. Less childish, more ‘punk’, it’s the one that gets the support, to the detriment of The Monster Squad, which flops badly on American soil for $3.8 million on a $14 million budget!

Interestingly enough, the movies today are all mixed up in their AlloCiné ratings: 3.0 out of 5 for The Monster Squad and 3.2 for Lost Generation , and so is IMDB, which shows Monster Squad at 6.9/10 and The Lost Generation at 7.2/10.

Because The Monster Squad was released first on VHS, then on DVD, and became something of a cult in the US, not least because of its rather unjustified flop. It is time to rehabilitate him.