Dracula 1987
Luciana
Watching the movie in 43 with audio distortion and severe grain may sound a bit stupid in the Blu-ray age, but nope, it was straight-up awesome. It shot me right back into the soul of Me-In-1987. I pictured myself on our old ratty couch, watching Han snark while a jade green desk lamp did its best to keep things bright.
Of course, this was long before the Special Edition trilogy came out, so I was also watching The Empire Strikes Back in its original form. Seeing the chimp-faced Emperor again made my heart grow three sizes.
As a word of note, all four of these turts are the early reissues that occurred at the very end of the original Playmates toyline, when they reissued most of the first wave of toys. They have some small differences with the 1987 originals, but are otherwise similar enough to count as original in my mind.
Raph is the only turtle to have his weapon storage on the front of his belt rather than the back. In most media depictions, he simply tucks his sai under the belt, but the toy features sculpted sheathes to better secure them onto the figure. It works well.
What all of those variants had in common was that same wacky energy that started right here in the first wave of turtles toys. These dudes are more subdued than the sculpts we saw later in TMNT, but the aesthetic is already present in the asymmetrical sculpts, grimaces, and poses.
The enduring popularity of Bram Stoker's Dracula is undeniable; traveling from generation to generation with slight revisions along the way, Dracula remains a haunting mythological figure shrouded in mystery. Warhol's print captures Dracula in a more menacing pose, as he faces the viewer head-on, fangs bared as if ready to feed his hunger. Warhol's use of dark hues of black and grey are appropriate for his subject, as Dracula cannot reveal himself in light but only in the shroud of darkness. Only a few lines of neon pink delineate Dracula's form, which is clearly apparent to the viewer despite the dark nature of the print. While clearly fascinated with every aspect of popular culture, Warhol appears to have a special fascination for the character of Dracula to the extent that he created a film Blood for Dracula (1974) prior to his Myths series of prints.
Created in 1981, this original screenprint is numbered from the edition of 200; aside from 30 Artist's Proofs, 5 Printer's Proofs, 5 Exhibition Proofs. This work is also hand signed by Andy Warhol (Pennsylvania, 1928 - New York, 1987) in pencil in the lower right. Printed on Lenox Museum Board by Rupert Jasen Smith, New York and published by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts Inc, New York.
Andy Warhol's Pop Art legacy continues to inspire various forms of contemporary aesthetic expression. Our collection of hand-signed Warhol screen prints includes pop art subjects of Mick Jagger, Mickey Mouse, Superman, Moonwalk, Flowers, Marilyn Monroe, Mao, Cow, and Campbell's Soup, and are of higher collectible value due to their distinct color variations and one-of-a-kind nature.
As a smooth-brained child, however, these questions would have been nonexistent. All that would matter would be that Dracula and the Wolfman and the Mummy were teaming up, and that a band of spirited adolescents were there to save the day. Ah, youth.*
During my first watch of The Monster Squad, I started looking at my phone. Deepest apologies about this, for those of you who were antsy for a thoughtful, deep-dive Brianna Zigler Take on the 1987 fantasy/horror family film co-penned by Iron Man 3\u2019s own Shane Black, and directed by the guy who helped Black scribe the 2018 Predator remake. A few months ago, I received an email with a body consisting only of the words \u201CThe Monster Squad (1987).\u201D It was a to-the-point response to a call I\u2019d posted on Twitter over the summer, where I had encouraged subscribers of this newsletter to offer up suggestions on what they\u2019d want to see me write on eventually. Related: rest assured, all other people who have sent me suggestions. I have read them and have included most of them on my list of pending newsletter topics.
But with Halloween approaching, and a desire to do a string of horror film reviews in celebration of my favorite holiday, I figured now would be as good a time as ever to finally conjure up that brief email suggestion of The Monster Squad \u2014 a film that was a box office and critical flop upon release, but has since garnered a passionate cult fanbase among horror fans after it ran on cable and was subsequently released on VHS. I deleted the email already, so I don\u2019t remember which of you sent it to me. Sorry about that, too.
Anyway, I had arrived at around the halfway mark when I felt subconsciously compelled to start googling information about Stranger Things. I looked up whether we\u2019re getting a new season (we are, insanely), when that new season is going to premiere (sometime next year), and the ages that the child actors are now (I thought for sure they were all in their twenties by this point). Then, post-movie, I hopped on Letterboxd to peruse the thoughts of my peers on the inimitable The Monster Squad.
It was there that I stumbled upon a terse review from my good friend and fellow film writer, Isaac Feldberg. He described the aforementioned nostalgia-suckling Netflix series as \u201Criffing on [The Monster Squad] to a near-legally indefensible degree.\u201D For some reason, the connection between the \u201880s-inspired show that arguably catalyzed the entire entertainment industry\u2019s fixation on mining money out of an empty fondness for the past, and this particular film about a group of monster-loving kids who have to save the world from classic Universal horror icons, was only in the back of my mind. It manifested passively, out of the malaise I felt during a montage where the children do wacky things with their new friend, Frankenstein\u2019s monster (Tom Noonan), set to an indistinguishable \u201880s pop song that even stumped my Shazam app.
The Monster Squad follows a group of kids who call themselves, wouldn\u2019t you know it, the Monster Squad. No, it\u2019s not the name of the monsters themselves, but the name of the kids. Little bit of misdirection there, huh? They\u2019re a handful of pre-teens united by their obsession with classic horror monsters, led by Sean (Andre Gower), Sean\u2019s best friend Patrick (Robby Kiger), Horace (Brent Chalem), and newcomer Rudy (Ryan Lambert) \u2014 a cool older kid who stood up for Horace one day, as the latter was being tormented by bullies at school. Meanwhile, Count Dracula (Duncan Regehr) \u2014 who is real \u2014 assembles a team of hair-raising compatriots in order to retrieve a precious amulet that\u2019s been lost to him, consisting of the Mummy, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein\u2019s monster (though he quickly betrays his brethren).
For now, the amulet remains hidden within a mansion in American suburbia, placed there many years ago by the famous vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing\u2019s apprentice. And by sheer happenstance, Sean comes into possession of a diary written by Van Helsing. It holds within its pages the incantation that can banish the monsters, with the help of the same powerful amulet that Dracula seeks. Otherwise, if Dracula gets his hands on it, he can rule the world. Thus, the Monster Squad takes it upon themselves, as allegedly the most qualified people to do so, to retrieve the amulet, recite the incantation, and banish Dracula and the monsters for good.
The Monster Squad isn\u2019t really worth writing much on, so I\u2019m not going to write too much on it. I feel bad talking more negatively or flippantly about a film on my newsletter which purports to boost underrated films and series and people, in order to allow for further reevaluation. But them\u2019s the breaks of letting my subscribers suggest I write about stuff and then actually following through with it. And on the surface, The Monster Squad does seem like something I\u2019d be into. I was totally expecting to enjoy an 80-minute film about classic Universal monsters teaming up, based on the potential for Halloween vibes alone. But aside from the monsters themselves, the film has no association with the holiday. Why not capitalize on the premise and make your film that\u2019s about Universal horror monsters take place on or adjacent to Halloween? Then at least if the film is boring \u2014 which it is \u2014 it\u2019s at least got good vibes.
The film is absent of the more interesting, talented or charismatic child actors that populated the other film this one is so clearly desperate to ape the success of: The Goonies (the biggest name to be found in The Monster Squad is Manhunter\u2019s own Tom Noonan), which had released two years prior. Thus, the kid characters are mostly kind of annoying, aside from eager sister Phoebe (Ashley Bank), who is adorable. The plot sort of drags on and on as we reach the ultimate showdown between the kids and the monsters. The genre is billed as \\\"horror-comedy\u201D but it isn\u2019t funny, save for what amounts to a few snarky one-liners here and there.
This is the biggest issue with the movie for me: that it\u2019s incredibly earnest for such an absurd premise. Before I\u2019d started the film, I was really banking on the writers exploiting the inherent absurdity to more comedic effect. But when the movie opens with a Very Serious flashback sequence involving Van Helsing attempting to banish Dracula, I knew I wasn\u2019t going to have any fun. I guess that was just the way the \u201880s were \u2014 how were you gonna make a movie about a group of spunky kids in suburban Americana teaming up to stop monsters and not try to imbue the same tone as E.T? Reagan\u2019s America was a dark time.
The best things about The Monster Squad are, 1) its PG-13 rating, which is something that sets it apart from its predecessor, The Goonies. This makes it so that the children can actually talk how pre-teens talk and curse more extensively (something that was seen as a similarly welcome relief with Stranger Things, where the kids are even allowed to say \u201Cfuck\u201D). And the rating also lets some more\u2026questionable aspects slide by, for what is ostensibly a family film. These were the parts that I really enjoyed. The previously noted, lighthearted montage of the kids hanging out with Noonanstein is immediately followed by a scene in which Dracula reveals three young women he\u2019s kidnapped and has been holding prisoner in a closet in the mansion.
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