For those of us ready for autumn, cool weather and Halloween, The Monster Squad, released by Tri Star Pictures in August of 1987, is for you.
It's less a Stephen King horror story, and more like Scooby Doo. With a splash of cult classic, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
A club of preteens, lead by Sean, meet in - what else? - a tree house in his back yard with Sean's five year old sister Pheobe tagging along. Sean's mother finds a book at an estate sale written in German and signed by Abraham Van Helsing (famous vampire hunter) and buys it for Sean. He and the group take it to the scary German guy down the street for help in reading it. He translates: if the Monster Squad can find an amulet mentioned in the book, and recite an incantation over it, they will send monsters into a limbo state and save the world.
In the meantime, Dracula is pulling together four famous monster buddies (Frankenstein, the Mummy, Wolfman, and the monster from the Black Lagoon) to help him find the amulet. It's representative of all good things. If Dracula and his minions destroy the amulet the world will be plunged into darkness. The monsters are searching. And the kids are searching. Right up until a violent confrontation!
So as you can see it is fun, although it does have a bit of bad language to watch for.
The Monster Squad scores 53 on rotten tomatoes. Not too bad! And I still remember watching the reruns with my kids in the 90’s. It's still very entertaining, even fifteen years later.
When I asked my adult children if they remember the movie they responded with quotes. It made quite an impression on them . . . and me.