monster squad Tagged Articles at Cinematical

You will see this headline pass through your Google readers and your Twitter feeds today: "Mike Mitchell to Helm Monster Squad." Your heart will race, your skin will flush with fury, and you'll set off to your favorite site (hopefully it's Cinematical) to pound out your anger via your keyboard. Not another remake! Not The Monster Squad! But here's where I can reassure you. Calm down. It's not Fred Dekker and Shane Black's Monster Squad.

Let's let your heart rate settle back to normal. Is it? All right then. According to The Hollywood Reporter and its misleading headline, Mike Mitchell is indeed directing a film called Monster Squad for Warner Bros. Like Dekker's film, it too is a supernatural comedy. But unlike Dekker's film, it once boasted the title Nightcrawlers, and was based on a spec by Brian Lynch.

It's reportedly changed plotlines numerous times. Variety notes that it was once centered on an international organization of children who have made it their mission to combat the monsters under the bed. (Familiar!) Michael Arndt rewrote the script to star a neurotic father who must face down childhood monsters. Warner Bros is keeping the current version by Brad Copeland under tight wraps, but it doesn't take much to suppose it deals with "monsters" and a "squad" that deals with them on some level. All teasing aside, this is good news because it means Warner Bros has opted for an original (but undoubtedly reminiscent) idea over their rival Paramount, who was toying with a remake as of last year.

Fans of the cult classic Monsters Squad should be plenty satisfied. After years and years of hoping the day would come, they finally get to own the movie on DVD next Tuesday. Yet there's more to please the die-hards living in Southern California (and those able to get there). Lionsgate will be promoting the new double-disc release by screening the movie once in Los Angeles and once in San Diego. And each screening will be followed by a Q&A featuring members of the cast and crew. The first event, the one in (actually near) L.A., is happening this Sunday at 3pm at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. The discussion following this screening will feature writer/director Fred Dekker, producer Jonathan Zimbert, visual effects supervisor Richard Edlund and actors Andre Gower, Stephen Macht and Ashley Bank. There might be other guests, too, but so far these are the ones confirmed to appear. Even if nobody shows up, though, it's still going to be worth attending. It's probably the first opportunity you've had to see the movie in a theater since 1987, and you'll get to see it two days before you pick up your copy of the DVD.

The other screening, the one in San Diego, is actually being held at Comic-Con. So, if you have tickets or passes to that event already, you're in luck. If you still haven't bought yours, though, remember that the 4-day passes are sold out and the 3-day passes don't include Saturday admission. Since the Monster Squad screening is Saturday night (July 28, at 7:30pm at Pacific's Gaslamp Theater -- not at the San Diego Convention Center), you will need a single day pass for that day if you want to see it. Actually, since it isn't listed on the Comic-Con site nor is it being held on the Comic-Con premises, don't take my word for that your Comic-Con badge gets you in. All I know is that IGN's Christopher Monfette will be moderating the panel for this one, and it certainly appears to be officially related to Comic-Con. The only listed guests for the screening are Dekker and Gower, but I assume that Macht and Bank are going to be there, too (why wouldn't they?). The benefit of seeing the San Diego screening over the L.A. (Santa Monica) one, is that you will already own your Monster Squad DVD and should likely be able to get it autographed.

It's been one of those "holy grail" titles since the very first DVD player plopped off the assembly line. We got our Star Wars, our Raiders, and our Casablanca digital discs. Lawrence of Arabia has a great DVD package, and so do Gone with the Wind, The Seven Samurai and Citizen Kane. So why the hell did it take so long for The Monster Squad to hit DVD? I mean really. The flick made almost four million dollars in the summer of 1987, for cryin' out loud!

Over the last two decades, Fred Dekker's monster-laden kid-friendly adventure comedy has become a bona-fide cult classic of the highest order. (Right up there with The Wizard and Transformers: The Movie.) We told you when the DVD was announced, we filled you in on the extra goodies, and now (in preparation for the DVD's July 24 release date) we (with a little help from Bloody-Disgusting.com) bring you the official DVD trailer for ... The Monster Squad!

Males between the ages of 25 and 40 should click here right freakin' now. And to those who've never seen the movie, all I can say is this: Imagine The Sandlot, only with ALL the classic Universal monsters. Yeah, that's The Monster Squad. Fun flick. Plus if it sells really well, maybe we can get Mr. Dekker's other mid-'80s genre classic released on DVD too. That's right: I want my Night of the Creeps. (P.S. Thanks to Lionsgate for finally reigning this title in!)

Back in February we learned that Fred Dekker's cult classic horror comedy The Monster Squad was finally (FINALLY!) going to make its way to the DVD shelves. (And there was much rejoicing among movie nerds of a very specific age and gender.) Now comes word from BD.com that Lionsgate's 2-disc 20th Anniversary Monster Squad release, which hits the streets on July 24, will be absolutely over-stuffed with good geeky gizmos. Check out these specs:

• An anamorphic widescreen transfer with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio!

• "Monster Squad Forever!" -- A five-part retrospective documentary featuring the participation of writer/director Fred Dekker and squad members Ashley Bank, Andrew Gower, Ryan Lambert and a bunch more!

• A never-before-seen interview with Frankenstein's Monster!

• Audio commentary with Dekker and "The Squad"!

• Audio commentary with Dekker and cinematographer Bradford May!

• Deleted scenes, trailers and photo galleries!

• And the cover art really rocks!

To those who might not be overly familiar with the classic piece of mid-'80s brilliance, The Monster Squad is about a bunch of evil creatures (Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, and the Black Lagoon Slimebag) who aim to take over the world with the help of a magical amulet. Too bad there's a horror-addicted gang of kids who stand between the monsters and world domination.

I know this is fantastic news for all you Squad geeks out there, and I'm definitely right there with you -- but the Fred Dekker DVD I really want is Night of the Creeps. Perhaps Lionsgate can help me out on that one next!

This might seem like a trivial little news-niblet to most of you, but to a small-yet-rabid group of genre junkies, it's a huge piece of information: Fred Dekker's 1987's cult classic The Monster Squad appears to be headed toward a DVD release. And no it's not Anchor Bay who's hooking us up this time; Lionsgate is the rumored distributor, although they did not respond to our attempts to get a comment. For those who've never experienced the cinematic bliss that is The Monster Squad, it's about a scrappy group of kids who team up to foil the nefarious plot of Dracula and his evil minions -- namely, Frankenstein's Monster, The Mummy and The Gillman!

Written by Dekker and action expert Shane Black, the flick might not have set the world on fire upon its theatrical release ... but damn if it hasn't enjoyed an underground resurgence over the past ten years. According to HorrorHound.com, which claims to have the inside track on a Lionsgate plan to release the DVD, the company has not divulged anything as specific as a release date or a specs list just yet, but just knowing that the Squad may be on the way, well, it makes me all nostalgic for the late '80s. Now if we can only get Dekker's Night of the Creeps on DVD, I'll be one happy horror geek.

[Via Bloody-Disgusting.com]

Did you guys know that Jack Arnold's The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) has never been released on DVD? That's right: One of the most imaginative, intelligent, and thought-provoking science fiction films of all time (yes, I said all time) is still sitting in some vault collecting dust, while genre contemporaries like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, War of the Worlds, and The Day the Earth Stood Still have all hit DVD sporting all sorts of well-deserved bells & whistles. Directed by Black Lagoon's Jack Arnold and penned by certified ultra-genius Richard Matheson, The Incredible Shrinking Man stands as one of the most influential movies in the history of Weinberg. Plus all that stuff with the cat, the spider, and the dollhouse ... awesome.

So this got me to thinking about other movies that I loved as a kid, most of which (stuff like 1941 and Jaws 2 and The Goonies) already have a home on a special little DVD shelf all their own -- but SOME of which have never seen life as a shiny digital disc! For example, how is it that we can get 11 different versions of (the truly awesome) Evil Dead 2 -- yet The Incredible freakin' Shrinking Man remains DVD MIA?? I actually have a theory on this one: Universal owns the rights to Shrinking Man, and that studio has spent several years trying to cobble together a remake with Keenen Ivory Wayans as the director. One can only assume that Uni is waiting for that retread to bear box office fruit before releasing the original film on DVD as a "tie-in," which (obviously) annoys me to no end.

So listed below in this most recent edition of Cinematical Seven are a bunch of semi-obscure 1980s horror movies that I'd really like to see on DVD. Why switch over from The Incredible Shrinking Man to the generally unpleasant topic of "forgotten 1980s horror movies?" Because a wise man once said "write what you know," and I know very, very little outside the realm of 1980s horror movies. (OK, and Futurama and Halo ... and The Phillies. I know a lot about those things, too.)