"Wolfman's got nards!"

The Movie: The Monster Squad, directed by Fred Dekker
Recommendation: My childhood.
Reason: I loved this movie when I was a kid. We used to bike down to the video rental store regularily to get it.

There's not a lot about this movie that gets very complicated. In the style of the Goonies and imitated by Monster House, Monster Squad's about a pack of kids who have decided to defend their town from classic horror monsters who've come to collect a mystical amulet for...something. Probably to make Dracula all-powerful. As Broomie put it, why is Dracula always the one in charge when the monsters get together? Given that his supporting cast in this movie is the wolfman, Frankenstein's monster, the creature from the black lagoon and the mummy, Dracula's sort of default leader. He can do all those handy things like speaking and making plans.

I would love to see more adventure horror movies aimed for kids. Monster Squad made the monsters both scary and easy to defeat-all it took was a bunch of kids brave enough to do it. I loved that message when I was a kid (and was fully prepared to boil down my mom's silverware at a moment's notice if it meant actually fighting the wolfman). Kid empowerment-the monsters might be scary, but you know how to beat them.

It's like It without the creepiness, the Goonies with a bit of an edge. There's a subplot about parents arguing or something, but whatever. The important part is the Monster Squad, the heroes of the day. They're not the tough kids, they're the smart, brave kids, and that's what really matters.

-178/365 down, 187/365 to go