Bah I really need help remembering a movie title...

It looked like it was from maybe the 80's or 70's. It was about a group of kids who were trying to rangle up a bunch of monsters (Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein etc) and send them back into a black hole or something. (which happens in the end) I also remember the grandpa tries to help the kids defeat the monsters. And it was set in a small town around halloween.. ANY help would be wicked. Yoda/Caity, if this is in a wrong section, please move it. Thanks for any help.

Tim (The Electric Wizard)

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Heh! I remember this film. I cried at the end because Dracula died.

Anywho, the movie you're thinking of is called The Monster Squad.

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The Monster Squad got almost zero boxoffice in 1987, but once it hit cable months later became a bit of a mianstay and a cult hit of sorts among kids of that era. I've seen it a couple times in more recent years, and frankly it doesn't hold up very well past the nostalgia aspect. It's just a Goonies rip-off with classic Universal monster archetypes thrown into the mix and a much less appealing bunch of misfit kids, kind of The Lost Boys for the pre-teen set. It's very badly dated, though the FX of the vortex at the end aren't horrible. It would probably still work as a movie for smaller kids, but there's not much to it, and anyone over the age of thirteen would likely find it all too cheesy.

The thing I remember most about the movie from back in the day was how completely unscary the guy who played the uber-creepy Toothfairy in Manhunter just the year before was as a friendly Frankenstein Monster. And that the cute girls in school are probably too stupid to realize having sex with someone they didn't particularly like still takes their virginity.


Monster Squad is still not yet available on DVD.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Oh man, i loved this film when i was younger. Thanks for the info Holden. I can only remember little bits, like when Dracula gets his faced burned by garlic pizza! and when they kick the werewolf in the nuts and the kids like "Werewolf's have balls?" and when the stupid Frankenstein guy flies off into the vortex waving....oh the memories.

Whilst were on the subject of finding out film titles, save me starting another thread, whats the title of this film? i've been trying to find it for years, its got a bunch of kids, i think one of them may be Corey Feldman, and one of the kids is a super geek and he invents this bubble thing that they can sit in and fly around, so they get an old fairground cart, and a washing machine and some other bits, and build a spaceship inside the bubble then fly into space and meet a big green fat alien that farts and burps a lot and emulates all the Earth tv shows that his been watching for years. i think he has a really cranky wife as well. Same kind of era as Monster Squad. Any ideas anyone?

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Pumpkins scream in the DEAD of night!

Also, whilst the door to memories past has been opened, one other film that i'd like to know the title of. I think its a remake of an old sci-fi movie, may be Body Snatchers or something like that. But this Kid sees a spaceship land in his garden, and when he goes down there to see it, its gone, but anyone who walks over where it landed gets sucked under into the sand, and then replaced by Alian replica's. I think you can tell which ones are the Aliens because they have funny little holes or cuts on the back of their necks. No one believes him, and eventually his parents get turned into them as well. I think theres a bit where he sees his fat ugly teacher eating a frog or something and he realises that she's one of them too. Also i kind of remember the ship, its red and organic looking. i know this all sounds a bit odd but if any of you can help would be good, i'd love to see these movies again!

P.S - Sorry for taking your thread over Electric Wiz.

Hmmmmm

The Puppet Masters maybe?

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No its not that one, thats with Donald Sutherland right? The bodysnatchers type film im talking about was earlier than that. Maybe early 80's.

That's Tobe Hooper's re-make of Invaders from Mars (1986).

Explorers (1985), starring Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix, directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins).

Spot. On.


I don't think Invaders From Mars is available to buy anywhere

Have you seen both of these then Holden? What did you think? Because as a child, these were the best films in the whole universe, infinity, no full stops.

Explorers is a kiddie movie without enough drive and energy for me, and the "What if I could really build a space ship?" daydream pull wasn't nearly interesting enough or done particularly well. I don't think.

Invaders from Mars is just an OK reworking of the '50s classic. The original Invaders from Mars, though it has super-cheesy effects, actually has a good nightmare feel to it. My father was creeped out by the original as a kid, but that was added to because he lived in San Diego and had a sand pit much like the one in the movie just behind his house too.

But Don Seigel's original classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers is infinitely better than Mars, as is Phil Kaufman's '70s re-make of Body Snatchers far superior in every single way to Hooper's '80s Invaders from Mars.

I've just added Explorers to my rental list, hopefully i still may enjoy it, if not, my nostalgia will have to do. As for Invaders From Mars, this re-make had the same affect on me as the original did for your dad, this film gave me so so many nightmares when i was little, its the thing about your parents being turned into them, plus i seem to remember it having quite a dark, ambigious ending. I'd love to see it again, but as it's not out i think i'll try and hunt for the original to see if thats available.

Yeah, Monster Squad sounds and looks pretty familiar after viewing the trailer.

That movie was good. I liked the parts where:

1) The WearWolf man kept begging the police to lock him up. Finally when they restrain him, the moon comes out and he starts attacking them. Chaos errupts, and then a slight cloud goes over the moon, and the man has a gun. He fires 3 shots off and then goes, "LOck me up!"

2) Where the bully steps on the kids Sneckers bar and then makes him eat it.

3) The part where Frakenstien's coffin falls in the pond and then bubbles, because my oldest cousin went, "the bubbles are the sea monster."

Seeing as you're on a bit of a role Holden, heres another one, it is another Kids movie that iv'e been trying to remember for years. Its a plastacine animation feature length film, about a boy and a girl, and they meet Mark Twain somehow and he flies them through time in a hot air balloon, i seem to remember them going all the way back to Adam and Eve, and the Egyptians as well. Thats all i can think of but would love to know what it is. Its quite crude animation, and its very odd. Any ideas?

First of all, that's "roll", not "role".

The movie in question is a Claymation feature called The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985 - Will Vinton), where Twain - voiced by James Whitmore - sails off to find Halley's Comet with his characters Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn & Becky Thatcher.

Deel with it.

Thanx and Wel Dun.

Iv'e just remembered one more, see if you can get this one, its a real toughie. Its an animated feature length cartoon set in the future or on another planet, very dark and weird, at the beginning a boy sees his girl friend or mother or sister or someone strangled by a baddy, he then runs away and goes off and grows up, ends up in some swamp place where big slug leech things land on him and suck his blood and grow big, fat and red. Then in the same swamp these horrid monster swamp people see him and try to kill him, with the leader one shouting something like “I want his hair!” in a creepy high voice. At the end the lead guy goes back and the baddy tries to strangle him but he beats him up and wins.The film's maybe called something like 'Orion'. I know this is vague but its all i have. Any ideas?

I loved this movie as a kid, but agree with Holden that it probably wouldn't be as entertaining for me today. But I would still like tto see it come out on DVD so I could share it with my son one day!

On the subject of finding a movie name, I have a tough one for you all. It was a TV movie in the 80s about a couple that buy a home in new england. She starts to hear voices that she thinks comes from a statue in the home, and also sees visions in the bathroom mirror of a woman in pilgrim days being hanged, either for being a witch or for murdering children or something like that. She would also hear audio of it on the radio. She ends up getting rid of the statue and it stops, but then she get's pregnant and has the baby, and the ghost of the hanged woman appears (it turns out the house was built on the spot she was hanged) and tries to take the baby.

I saw it once when I was a little kid and it's stuck with me for around 20 years, so it definitely made an impression. If I watched it again today I'm sure it would be dissappointing, but it's killing me that I have no idea what it is!! Can anyone help?

Thanks

Does anyone remember the title of this movie?

The basic plot works out like this. Kids build a spaceship in the woods behind their house. They sneak out one night and fly into space. While in space they are captured by aliens and hang out on the ship for a while. I think one alien falls in love for one of the kids or something. I can't really remember anything else. Let me know if anyone can figure this out. Its killing me.

Thanks.

You mean like in Explorers, as discussed earlier in this very thread?