Although it was financially unsuccessful during its theatrical run and received mixed reviews from critics, the film has gained a positive reception from audiences and has become a cult classic in the years since its release.
Sean and the rest of the Monster Squad – his best friend and second in command Patrick Rhodes, clumsy Horace, tough older kid Rudy and little Eugene – go to visit an elderly man known as the "Scary German Guy", actually a kind gentleman and a former concentration camp prisoner, to translate the diary.
To this end, he assembles several monstrous allies: The Mummy, the Gill-man, The Wolf Man, and three school girls whom the Count transforms into his vampiric consorts.
In revenge for their meddling, Dracula destroys the Squad's clubhouse, thereby drawing Police Detective Del Crenshaw, Sean and Phoebe's father, into the fray.
When the confused general fails to make sense of the situation, Sean steps forward and presents the man with his business card, identifying himself and his friends as "The Monster Squad".
While Dekker was putting the finishing touches to his debut Night of the Creeps, he offered Shane Black, his friend and roommate at a West L.A. filmmakers residence nicknamed the "Pad O'Guys", to turn that pitch into a screenplay.
The veteran helmer sent the script to Taft/Barish, who quickly expressed interest, and he agreed to serve as executive producer to help the film move forward.
[10][11] Hyams ended up having a sizeable influence on the venture, and his lean filmmaking approach sometimes conflicted with that of the less methodical Dekker, with the latter calling him "a very stern taskmaster".
[6][12] Hyams also brought in important crew members, such as editor James Mitchell,[12] production designer Albert Brenner and cinematographer Bradford May, all former collaborators of his.
He chose this film over Near Dark as his next project due to its more lighthearted nature, but Kathryn Bigelow was persistent and showed up on set to work out an early release with the producers in hope that he could do both.
[17][18] Woodruff was assigned to work on Frankenstein's monster, Shane Mahan was given the Mummy, John Rosengrant got the Wolfman, and Alec Gillis took care of Dracula's bat transformation.
However, it's the Gillman suit, made by Matt Rose and studio newcomer Steve Wang, that came to be viewed as a milestone in the development of creature costumes.
[19] Based on their Monster Squad work, Rose and Wang were entrusted with building a similar suit on short notice for Predator, which helped the struggling production move forward.
Hyams even considered firing Dekker at the end of the first week of shooting, but producer Rob Cohen helped smooth out their differences, and the young man agreed to conform to industry standard practices after that.
[6] The Monster Squad's PG-13 rating may have prevented it from reaching the audience most likely to identify with its characters, while older teenagers were more interested in the R-rated The Lost Boys, which opened just two weeks prior.
The website's critical consensus reads, "A fun 80's adventure with a slightly scary twist, The Monster Squad offers tween-friendly horror with just enough of a kick".
[38] British magazine Starburst wrote that "[t]reading almost the same route as The Lost Boys, The Monster Squad succeeds where that film failed because Dekker knows his stuff and doesn't see trendy video technique as a replacement for mood and style."
[39] Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it "a feature-length commercial for a joke store that sells not-great, rubber monster masks".
[40] Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune found the film's juxtaposition of child heroes and intense visuals to be distasteful, writing "[p]art E.T.
and part Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Fred Dekker`s The Monster Squad is crass but imponderable, bizarrely mixing glowingly back-lit sentimentality with stomach-churning violence and juvenile sex jokes.
Francis Rizzo III of DVDTalk wrote that "there's much more than nostalgia going for it, as the story of a band of horror film fans battling the classic movie monsters is a fun piece of filmmaking [...] and an exciting action flick.
"[33] Keith Phipps of The Verge deemed it "a devoted homage to the films [Dekker] grew up loving", playing "like highly polished fan fiction from a creator who clearly never let his Famous Monsters of Filmland subscription lapse.
[6] In its July 2006 list of "The 100 Greatest Villains Ever", Wizard placed Dracula at number 30 and chose Regehr's portrayal from The Monster Squad as the definitive version of the character.
[45] Following the 2006 reunion (see Theatrical revival section below), a fan campaign led to a 20th Anniversary Edition two-disc DVD being released by Lionsgate on July 24, 2007.
It contains a variety of bonus features, including a five-part retrospective documentary titled Monster Squad Forever, two audio commentaries, deleted scenes, trailers, TV spots, and animated storyboards.
[50] On April 16, 2006, Ain't It Cool News writer Eric Vespe organized two screenings of The Monster Squad at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas.
[52] On the heels of The Monster Squad, Dekker re-upped with Taft/Barrish for his dream project, a feature adaptation of the 1960s TV series Jonny Quest, but the box office failure of the former put the film in limbo.
In 2010, it was announced that Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes had officially signed on to produce, with Cohen to direct and Mark and Brian Gunn writing the screenplay.