The Best ’80s Kids Horror Movie Has Been Saved

However, ‘80s kids got the ultimate horror gateway film in the form of The Monster Squad, and this spooky film was anything but cozy.

If you’d like to revisit the monster mash that transformed an entire generation into horror hounds, here’s some good news: Bloody Disgusting reports that Kino Lorber has given us a 4K restoration with more extra features than you can shake a Polaroid picture at.

If you’ve somehow never watched The Monster Squad, the premise is a fun one. We follow the adventures of a group of young horror lovers who are part of a particularly nerdy club dedicated to all things that go bump in the night.

However, when their town is under attack by vicious monsters like Dracula and the Wolfman, these kids’ knowledge of the bizarre threat they are facing may be the difference between life and death.

With the assistance of some unexpected allies, including Frankenstein’s monster, the Monster Squad hopes to drive out the forces of evil before Dracula and his monstrous minions can succeed in their plans to take over the world.

Even though The Monster Squad came from Tri-Star Pictures, it’s more or less a love letter to the Universal Pictures monster movies of the past.

In fact, to audiences watching this movie when it premiered in 1987, a big part of the charm was that this film updated the goofy black-and-white monsters kids had grown up with into something more modern and much, much scarier.

Make no mistake: despite its PG-13 rating, this is one of those kids’ films that delivers plenty of blood and scares and genuinely doesn’t feel like something that could be made today.

Now that the original audiences for The Monster Squad are all grown up, they can enjoy a loving 4K restoration of the film courtesy of Kino Lorber.

In celebration of the movie’s 35th anniversary, the three-disc set includes special reversible artwork and archival extras offering an intimate look at the making of the film.

There are also two separate commentary tracks and The Monster Squad Forever cast and crew retrospective.

But the real star of this set is the 2018 documentary Wolfman’s Got Nards, an 88-minute documentary featuring extensive interviews with the film’s creators as well as some of its biggest fans.

In many ways, this is the perfect time to watch the 4K restoration of The Monster Squad: horror films have been the real box office winners for 2023, showcasing that this genre is as hard to kill as the monsters that it features.

Every generation manages to take the horror concepts of yesteryear and give them a much-needed update. This film’s loving homage to the Universal Pictures monsters makes them seem more frightening than ever before to modern audiences.

Plus, a 4K restoration means you can watch Wolfman getting kicked in the gonads at a greater resolution than ever before; isn’t that what cinema is all about?