One hundred years ago, Dracula and other monsters survive to the attack of Dr. Van Helsing and his men to his castle with a magical amulet. In the present days, Dracula travels to the United States and arrives in a small town. He summons the Werewolf, the Mummy, the Swamp Thing and Frankenstein's creature to help him to retrieve the amulet.

In the town, a man claims that he is the werewolf and goes to the police station to ask to be locked up in a cell. Meanwhile a mummy vanishes from the local museum and police detective Del (Stephen Macht) is assigned to investigate the case. When his son Sean (Andre Gower),who is a monster fan, learns the news, he joins his friends Patrick (Robby Kiger),Horace (Brent Chalem) and Rudy (Ryan Lambert) in his monster club to read a Van Helsing's journal that was given by his mother. However the book is written in German and they are not able to translate it. So they asks for help from their weird neighbor that they call Scary German Guy (Leonardo Cimino) and they discover that they need to recover the amulet and a virgin to get rid off Dracula and the monsters. Meanwhile Sean's little sister Phoebe (Ashley Bank),who is unsuccessfully trying to join the club, befriends Frankenstein's creature. The unlike group brings Patrick's sister (Lisa Fuller),who claims that is virgin, to read the passage that sends the monsters to the limbo. Will they be successful in their intent?

"The Monster Squad" is a highly entertaining cult movie with a funny story that entwines adventure, dark comedy and horror. This film is also a tribute to the Universal Monsters. There is a touching moment when the Scary German Guy tells to the kids that he has experience with monsters and we see a concentration camp number on his arm. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Deu a Louca nos Monstros" ("The Monsters Have Gone Crazy")

Note: On 24 July 2016, I saw this film again.

Note: On 09 Sep 2018, I saw this film again.

Some kids who are really into those old Universal horror flicks have this club they call The Monster Squad. But soon enough their knowledge about how to kill some of these legendary creatures comes in mighty handy in their small town.

Andre Gower and Robby Kiger head the group and it's a good thing their services were needed right at this point in time. By the look of them in another year these kids would be hitting puberty full stride, one of them Ryan Lambert is already showing inclination of interest in the opposite sex.

Best scene in the film is during the climax when a virgin is needed to read an incantation and when it doesn't quite work because the virgin's not quite a virgin Gower's little sister is brought in as a pinch hitter.

Duncan Regehr makes a fine, menacing Dracula topping the cast performance list. Regehr plays it absolutely straight for the young audience this film was aimed at.

With an original premise based on how Bud&Lou got tangled up with all their monsters in Abbott&Costello Meet Frankenstein and a climax which liberally borrowed from the Back To The Future films, The Monster Squad is still an enjoyable film for young audiences.

THE MONSTER SQUAD is one of those '80s nostalgia films that can happily sit in the same company as THE LOST BOYS, GHOSTBUSTERS, and THE GOONIES. Essentially, it's the story of how a band of monster-mad kids manage to defeat a band of genuine movie monsters, and with a running time that barely reaches 80 minutes there's not a great deal of time for anything else other than the set up and the pay off. On the minus side, the film is light hearted and corny throughout, full of predictable clichés involving the monsters and lacking the smallest bit of characterisation.

On the plus side, it has genuine warmth, a good child cast for a change (the late Brent Chalem as Horace or 'Fat Kid' is the best),pretty decent-looking monsters and plenty of cheesy action to recommend it. Of the monsters, my favourite is the Creature from the Black Lagoon, a great guy-in-a-suit effect; Dracula has a little too much goth make-up while Tom Noonan's Frankenstein (sic) looks the part but is too much of a softy. The werewolf is the second best effect and recalls Oliver Reed in The Curse of the Werewolf.

Pacing is spot-on and there are some catchy '80s tunes to enjoy, as well as plenty of references to films, Universal classics and otherwise; the bit where Frankenstein's Monster approaches the little girl by the river bank is my favourite reference and a very clever one it is too. Leonard Cimino has a perfect role as a concentration-camp survivor. The ending of the film features a vortex in time that appears to have been "inspired" by the one at the end of EVIL DEAD II, which coincidentally was released a few months before this movie. Some scenes are hilarious, like the unravelling of the Mummy on the back of the car. The tone of the film veers wildly from kiddie (anything with the cute little girl) to teen-style bad language and bad taste to adult (guns, the black cop getting blown to pieces in the car, the werewolf exploding in a shower of guts and limbs) but it remains entertaining throughout, and that's what counts. Director Fred Dekker clearly loves his material, and it's this love that makes this film touching.