The movie pitted Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolfman, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon against Frankenstein's monster and a group of brave misfit kids. It wasn't a box office hit, but it developed a cult following on video that considered "Monster Squad" as essential an '80s coming-of-age adventure as "The Goonies" or "Stand By Me." Plus, it launched the career of one of Hollywood's most successful screenwriters, Shane Black (the "Lethal Weapon" series, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," "Iron Man 3").
If you've ever found yourself chuckling at the line, "Wolfman's got nards," you're a member of the "Squad" squad. And yet, you still may not know how the film came together, which current A-lister nearly got to play Dracula, or why all the monsters don't look exactly like they did in the old Universal movies. Read on for the secrets of "Monster Squad" -- no translation by a Scary German Guy necessary.
2. When their film was greenlit, Dekker gave it a small shout-out in "Creeps," in a shot where graffiti on a bathroom wall reads, "Go Monster Squad!"
4. The production hired no less than the late Stan Winston to create the look of the monsters, the monster-movie makeup legend who -- at the time -- just won an Oscar for "Aliens." Winston had also just designed the title creature in "Predator," a movie where Black had a bit part.
7. Regehr was always in makeup around the kids -- mostly. For the scene where Dracula lifts Phoebe, Dekker told Bank she would have to scream, and that she'd know the right moment. When the cameras rolled, Bank saw Regehr wearing red contacts and fangs for the first time and let out a shriek of real terror.
9. Black's initial opening scene would have been a prologue where Van Helsing (Jack Gwillim) strafes Dracula's castle with a zeppelin armed with machine guns, facing off against 40 vampire brides on horseback. Dekker quickly nixed the budget-busting idea.
11. If you originally saw the movie in theaters or (more likely) on VHS, there's a lot you may not have noticed. Like how Sean and Phoebe's mom has her suitcases packed, like she's about to leave their father. Or that her note about the Van Helsing diary refers to it as the "Van Helen diary." Or how Scary German Guy (Leonardo Cimino) has a number tattooed on his arm, indicating that he's a concentration camp survivor. Or that the naked snapshot of Patrick's sister Lisa (Lisa Fuller) that Rudy (Ryan Lambert) flashes at her to blackmail her isn't actually a naked picture at all; if you freeze-frame the DVD, you'll see that Fuller's fully clothed. (It's a PG-13 movie, folks.)
13. "Monster Squad" cost an estimated $12 million to make. It earned back just $3.8 million in theaters.
15. In 2016, however, Black said it "could be fun" to write a sequel, along the lines of Stephen King's "It," where the now-grown squad members have to confront evil again 30 years later. No word on whether he'll ever actually write that script, but he did reunite with Dekker to write a new "Predator" sequel, due in early 2018.
