My Childhood Has Nards!

By Rick Hipson, Rue Morgue

When Rue Morgue asked if I might be interested in writing a piece on The Monster Squad (directed by Fred Dekker, written by Dekker and Shane Black) to help promote the titular collection of my favorite clothing line, I immediately thought, “Does Wolfman have nards?” You're damn right he does! I was so in that it would have taken a bolt of lightening through the temples to get me back out.

Never afraid about shying away from some good old-fashioned homework, I gathered a monster-sized bowl of popcorn and a few crisp beverages and time-warped back to 1987 thanks to the modern magic of streaming services.

While it’s been more years than you can make me admit since I first watched this campy flick, the opening scene transported me back to when my blossoming love of monsters was outweighed only by my need to learn as much about them as I could. Any way I could, I soaked up as much monster knowledge as possible: from movies, comics and those well-hidden books at the back of the local library suspiciously nestled in the non-fiction section. I was convinced that all that info would some day save my ass from the vicious monstrosities I kept studying even if I had to do it alone. Surely there were others who felt the same, but where were they?

For many of us who strayed outside the fringes of relative normalcy, The Monster Squad was a love letter to those of us relegated to always looking from the outside in to observe and understand what our woefully oblivious authoritarians evidently could not. The young and mostly unknown cast represented an imperfectly flawless fusion of adventure, mayhem and childhood glee not easily found outside whichever odd squad we were lucky enough to exist in. There's a reason its plethora of zany one-liners are uttered like verbal badges of honor almost four decades later. There's a reason we leaned forward in our seats as the onscreen kids chased monsters through the woods on their BMX bikes. And there's a reason we cheered when Count Dracula got his due, Wolfman got the dynamite, the Mummy got unraveled into dust and Frankenstein’s monster rued the day. When our young heroes defied all odds by rising up against the evil horde, most of the adults in town had no clue about their pending doom nor had any chance to stop it. Yet, we watched with unbridled excitement while those glorious misfits did what we knew in our little dark hearts we would do, too, if given the chance. 

We knew this because those monster kids were us.

Sure, we might not have fully understood all the scary stuff within our own confined world, but that hardly meant we weren’t painfully aware it was there all the same. Our imaginations revealed how shadows which only came out at night hid vile things that would reach out to grab us if we stared long enough. We knew by intuition alone that the creepy old guy in the dilapidated house down the street kept things in his basement that weren’t supposed to be kept by anyone. We knew bad things happened to good people, according to our parents and the six o’clock news. Through it all, we couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling of helpless vulnerability, yet we couldn’t help but stare just a little bit longer into those shadows or through those dank windows of that strange house because we somehow knew it was better to know what was lurking for us under our beds, in our closet or anywhere else than to share our parent’s ignorant disregard of them because we knew they were all as real as Saturday morning cartoons.

Thanks to the talented magic of iconic creature designer Stan Winston and the rebellious actions of the ultimate loser’s club, there was hardly a better time for our parents to step aside and let us shine a light on the monsters who made us. Of course, our parents needn’t have worried because our universal icons (slightly modified to avoid copy infringement) had plenty to teach us. Frankenstein’s monster (Tom Noonan) showed us that patience and compassion can go a long way toward guiding even the most terrifying of undead monsters over to the good side. Count Dracula (Duncan Regehr) taught us that some folks are just plain evil to the core and must be overcome with the collective pursuit of good, lest they spread their plague of domineering hate. Wolfman (Carl Thibault) proved that every monster has a weak spot no matter how ferociously they may bark or snarl at us. As for Gillman (Tom Woodruff Jr.), I suppose he taught us that as buff as a monster may appear, taking up with the bad guys is never going to end well when pitted against friends who will always ride or die by your side. And if we can find a few good laughs along the way while ageless nasties dare to threaten our way of existence? Well, that’s when we know we have found the right place to do the right thing with the right squad.

Suffice to say, this monster kid was very pleased to see the printed designs of one of my most revered films from my youth being next in line to get the coveted Fright Rags treatment. Unlike the legacy of this film, these collectable threads are only available for a short time. Don't be the kid left feeling like the creature stole your twinkie and grab yourself a shirt before the midnight bell summons the portal back to darkness and swallows them up for another 100 years. 

Post created and provided by Rue Morgue