I’ll try to keep this as simple and concise as I can (not an easy task given my curse of verbal diarrhoea), for this is less an opinion piece than an outright demand: we, the British people – and yes, I do feel comfortable in presenting both myself and Warped Perspective co-editor Keri O’Shea as entirely representative of our nation (ahem) – demand our own physical media edition of The Monster Squad!
I’m writing this in the wake of seeing documentary Wolfman’s Got Nards at Sheffield’s tenth annual Celluloid Screams horror film festival (although I had seen the film already for the purposes of this review), and also having the good fortune to meet the film’s producer Henry Darrow McComas, and its director Andre Gower – who was, of course, also the lead actor in The Monster Squad. In our brief but very pleasant conversations, we noted how curious it was for them to be in the UK presenting their chronicle of the legacy and fandom surrounding Fred Dekker’s 1987 kiddie-horror comedy classic, when the film itself has not had an official UK release since Video Collection International put it out on sell-through VHS in 1990. (Although I personally own an ex-rental copy of the earlier Braveworld edition, with the much cooler, original poster cover art. Smirk.)
There was, admittedly, a time when I didn’t think this lack of a British Monster Squad DVD or Blu-ray was necessarily that big of a thing, as it seemed to be a film that not too many people cared about. Sure, I knew it was a film which I cared about. A film which marked my first dalliance with horror, and within the course of a wonderfully lean 79 minutes turned me from a meek child who was petrified at the mere thought of watching something scary, to a rabid genre devotee who was suddenly desperate to see everything I possibly could that featured things going bump in the night. A film which I would watch religiously throughout my formative years, and return to with such regularity throughout my adolescence and all the way into adulthood that I couldn’t even attempt to offer a realistic estimate of just how many times I’ve seen it.
Yes, there was once a time when the lack of a UK DVD/Blu-ray didn’t surprise me too much, as I had for a great many years assumed I was more or less alone in feeling so strongly about The Monster Squad. However, the past twelve years or so have proven just how wrong I was in thinking that. The film’s rapturous reception at the now near-legendary 2006 cast reunion screenings at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse, followed by impassioned fan campaigning, resulted in Lionsgate taking the initiative, snapping up the rights and putting out a Region 1 DVD. Like a lot of British fans, I wasted no time in purchasing this; indeed, it’s the main reason I own a multi-region DVD player at all. Even so, it sucks to know that you can’t walk into an HMV in any British city centre and pick up a copy of a film which, as I now know, means so much to so many of us, even on this side of the pond: watch Wolfman’s Got Nards, and you’ll see almost as many passionate fan testimonials from Brits as from Americans.
So once again – we demand a UK Blu-ray of The Monster Squad. British distributors, please take note. Arrow Video. Eureka Entertainment. 88 Films. Any of you, anyone else, make this happen. And when you do, you make it the best possible edition you can. Hell, get in touch with Andre and Henry and see about releasing it alongside Wolfman’s Got Nards, not unlike how Eureka just put out the Troll collection along with Best Worst Movie. I don’t pretend to know much about the business end of this, but I find it hard to believe it can’t be done.
I’ve written time and again about my love for The Monster Squad. It was the subject of one of my first published articles, sadly no longer online, for late webzine B Through Z; it’s been the basis of a number of articles published right here at Warped Perspective (dating back to our previous handle, Brutal As Hell); it was even the primary focus of my MA dissertation. To everyone reading this who also counts themselves among the “goddamn club,” and would also like to see The Monster Squad get the British Blu-ray release it so richly deserves, I actively encourage you to also share that love. Blogs, social media posts, carrier pigeons, whatever. Tell your friends, tell their friends, and tell the British labels.
After all, if there’s one thing The Monster Squad has taught us, it’s exactly where to kick you if we have to…