"Wolfman's got nards!"
So, we’ve come out the other end of the Halloween season and ploughed through famed, feared, and classic flicks for the month of October. How do I plan to bring us down after that lot? Why, by stepping back a bit on the scares and the gore and, instead, screening those favorites from childhood, the PG-rated horror flicks! The kiddie shiver primers! The “My First Monsters” coloring books! …OK, really, it’s the cult favorites that we’ve all got stashed in the back of our heads as the goofy monster movie specials that were tame enough to make it on network TV, but were enthralling enough to stick with us into our adult years. The stuff tailor-made to entertain and maybe even scare the bejeezus out of our formative selves before a night spent extorting candy out of the neighbors.

…at least that’s why I remember ‘em. Ah, the apparent immortality of youth.

(Unfortunately, we’ve got a bit of a problem, but I’ll come to that.)

Universal’s Legacy: The Monster Squad (1987, 82 minutes). Existing squarely at the intersection of “The Goonies” and “The Lost Boys” is this little lost gem, in which it’s up to a squadron of pre-teens to save the world from the revival of nearly the entire lineup of Universal Monsters. While its sentimentality and script is aimed squarely at the kiddie set, it does inject a surprising degree of menace from the leading monsters and the film’s effects and makeup are several steps above the expected. The legendary (and recently deceased) Stan Winston re-designed all of the monsters himself specifically to pay tribute… but not to impinge on any of Universal’s copyrights. And then there’s that one line for which the film is most famed…

The second film is a bit of a problem… I can’t decide between two flicks to round out the evening. One is “Mad Monster Party?,” a Halloween companion piece to the Rankin Bass “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” animations we all watched as kids. I’m not sure I’m actually cruel enough to subject y’all to this one. Boris Karloff does a grand job injecting some gravitas into his part, but practically nothing could counteract the fact that Phyllis Diller sings. Repeatedly. Maybe some judicious fast-forwarding? The other movie is 2006’s animated flick “Monster House.” The problem here is that it’s not actually that bad of a flick. It’s possessed of the same oddly off-natural scripting (and practically the exact same character dynamic) of “Jimmy Neutron,” the flick is nevertheless surprisingly gratifying in the way that the action comes right out and grabs people, even if the kids are the only surviving witnesses. The peak of the action… let’s just say you won’t be disappointed. I just worry that people will get bored without a legitimately bad flick to ridicule and round out the night. What say y’all? I may just leave it up to those who arrive…