Class of 1987: Creatures of the Night – Tom Noonan, Duncan Regehr, Tom Woodruff Jr., Carl Thibault & Michael Reid MacKay on Becoming THE MONSTER SQUAD

Undoubtedly, one of the most beloved genre movies to come out of 1987 was Fred Dekker’s The Monster Squad, a perfect blend of humor, heart, and affection for the classic monsters so many of us grew up on. And while it may not have done great business at the box office when it was released in August of that year, The Monster Squad has deservedly become a true cult classic, and remains a brilliant gateway horror experience for younger viewers who are just becoming initiated in the ways of genre cinema.

With The Monster Squad’s 30th anniversary nearly upon us, and with our “Class of 1987” celebration currently in full swing, I thought this would make for a splendid opportunity to chat with the actors who put the “Monster” in “The Monster Squad” in the first place: Tom Noonan (“Frankenstein’s Monster”), Duncan Regehr (“Count Dracula”), Tom Woodruff Jr. (“the Gillman”), Carl Thibault (“the Wolfman”), and Michael Reid MacKay (“The Mummy”).

As pre-production was underway on The Monster Squad in 1986, Dekker put together his assortment of non-human villains through a variety of means: trade ads, casting calls, and in the case of special effects artist Woodruff Jr., seizing the opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream of his. For both MacKay and Thibault, The Monster Squad marked the beginning of their respective professional careers in Hollywood, and they discussed how a chance advertisement led to their involvement in the family-friendly horror comedy.

According to MacKay, “It all started when I was looking at Variety, and I saw this little ad in the back of the paper that said, ‘Wanted. Male to play mummy character. Must be extremely thin, on the verge of anorexic.’ So, I followed up on it and I actually went to Sony Studios for what was my first big audition. I met with Fred, he had me do some movements around the room, mimicking a mummy, and then he says, ‘As far as I'm concerned, you got the part’ and the rest is history [laughs].”

“There was this magazine, which is called Backstage US now, that used to have blips in the back for actors and casting notices, and that's where I found the ad,” explained Thibault. “It was under the heading of the category ‘non-union extras,’ which is what everyone considered really down the ladder—almost like it was work as an extra. I committed to it anyways and I ended up auditioning for Fred and the casting director [Penny Perry].”

“It wasn't until later that I found out that they couldn't find exactly what they were looking for through the normal channels, so they went this route to cast both the Wolfman and the Mummy. I wanted the Mummy because I was so thin, and they needed somebody that was really, really thin. For the Wolfman, they wanted somebody that was athletic but not the body builder type, and I guess I fit. I also found out later that Stan Winston designed the Wolfman on his face as well, so maybe they were looking for someone with that bone structure, because I did have a similar face to Stan’s.”

When it came time to cast the role of “Frankenstein’s Monster,” Dekker brought in a then up-and-coming character actor named Tom Noonan, who had just come off of a star-making performance in Michael Mann’s Manhunter, and was looking to change things up when he came aboard The Monster Squad.

“Right before this, I had just done Manhunter,” Noonan said, “which did pretty well, even though we didn't have much money to promote it or put it out. So, then I started getting offered a lot of stuff, and most of it was like Manhunter, you know, the scary stuff. There was this movie called Near Dark, which Kathryn Bigelow was going to make, too, and she had contacted me and sent me the script. But then, I got the script for Monster Squad, and it just seemed like it'd be a lot more fun and it wasn't like Manhunter at all. It was sweet and I liked it, where I thought Near Dark was sort of mean and creepy.”

“So, I agreed to do Monster Squad, but Kathryn Bigelow kept bothering me and saying, ‘No, no, no. You can do both. You can do both.’ In fact, I was about to start shooting on Monster Squad and she showed up on the set and tried to talk to producers into letting me out enough so I could go do her movie, too. I didn't really want that to happen, and thankfully they didn't want to go along with that, either. But, I loved scary movies as a kid, so I thought this might be kind of fun to do. I especially liked Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.”

Tom Woodruff Jr., who initially came onto The Monster Squad as one of the members of Stan Winston’s effects team, saw the film as an opportunity to live out a lifelong dream by getting to portray a version of the Gill-man, in addition to working on the makeup for Noonan’s monstrous character.

“When Stan first broke the news about having the project in hand, my first thought was, ‘How do I get inside that Creature suit?’  I was really kind of an introvert when it came to selling myself, or my work, and so I knew it was going to be hard for me to approach Stan.  But The Creature from the Black Lagoon was my favorite movie monster—it still is in many ways—so I had to find a way.”

“The guys [at the shop] had recently helped me by doing a body cast of me for a gorilla suit I was planning to build.  Since that was already standing there in the shop and ready to go, I thought I could appeal to Stan's business sense and sell him on the idea that already having a body cast of me would save some time and money on the build. I don't think he saw the bodycast as a great asset for the show, but he got that I was really going to commit to playing the Creature if he could make it happen. I don't know what hoops he may have had to jump through, but he came back one day and was able to approve it.”

“It was a big opportunity for me.  It pointed me in a direction of now being able to design and create characters for Stan Winston, including the final level of performing them in a way that made the designs ring true,” Tom added.

When he was cast as the regal Count Dracula, Regehr worked hard to bring the iconic character into the modern world. “I definitely wanted to do something a little different from what had been done before with this character. To modernize it, for me, the approach to the monster aspect of him was to make him as human as possible. He was a sociopath and back in 1986, when we made this thing, there wasn't a lot of that around. The way I saw Dracula was that he was this guy who was a human monster, and he had different layers to him.”

“At the same time, there had to be some kind of sense of humor to the character. Because this was a story that was fun and an adventure, where it's about the kids defeating the evil that is going to overtake the world, so the humor had to definitely be in there. The Dracula that I was playing, I infused him with a certain amount of camp or maybe a lot of camp, arguably. I didn't know—I wasn't too concerned about that. I was more interested in other challenges in developing a strong character that was also the leader of the monsters.”

“Dracula was a bit different from the other monsters because he had to be more dimensional in many respects. The only other one that had some depth would be Franky. So I came in with a lot of ideas that were, in many respects, quite opposite of what Fred was after. We didn't agree on a lot of things, and it is what it is now. But we like each other now [laughs].”

“That's what makes the creative process interesting,” Regehr continued. “If everybody agrees with everybody else, the end results can come out homogenized and bland sometimes. But, when you’ve got two heads seeing things in different ways, great things can come from that conflict and collaboration, and Fred was very young, and he was looking at the monsters less dimensionally than I was. I wanted to make it very psychological.”

For his performance as the Wolfman, Thibault relied more on the directorial advice from Stan Winston than he did Dekker, due to the intricate components of his creature suit.

“Fred and I never really discussed anything, to be honest. When I auditioned, he gave me directions and he gave me a scenario he wanted me to act out then. But once we actually started, I think I got more direction from Stan. I think it was because the effects I was dealing with were a suit and a helmet basically, and not prosthetics.”

“There was a headpiece that I would put on that had servos in it, so all the facial expressions were moved by animatronics which were powered through a pack on my back. So, Stan and all those guys worked with me on getting the look for it—how to squat down, how to keep the arms at a certain height. In fact, I think I've got a photo of Stan and me, him giving me direction, which was pretty great.”

Portraying an aquatic creature who was mostly on land throughout The Monster Squad, Woodruff Jr. discussed how he was able to creative a physical performance unlike what had been seen since the original Creature from the Black Lagoon.

“Most of the original Creature was seen underwater, and so Ricou Browning had developed a very natural swim with that suit on. I was lucky that I didn't have to figure that out since I was never seen underwater. The only aspect that I lifted, out of respect and wanting to relate to the original, was that slow, steady, decisive walk toward Horace [played by Brent Chalem] stuck in front of the store. That was so creepy to me as a kid, where he’s just walking, walking, walking, with his arms down at his sides and staring. And the way the gills pulsated really gave it the right amount of life as he trudged through the trees and brush.”

“But since I was all alone on the street, with nothing to hide behind, I gave it big long strides, but still kept it slow. I kept trying to keep an ear open to hear Brent's lines so I could give him time to do his thing without getting on top of him. I also kept my hands in front of my body to help hide the overall man-in-a-suit look.”

Noonan, who only recently saw The Monster Squad several years ago, was surprised when he saw part of his performance had been altered in the final version of the film. “The producers came to me when we first started shooting and said, "Is there a way you can talk lower?" I was not pleased. I was not somebody that anybody bothered. It was just a way that I worked, because otherwise if you let people start talking to you, they'll really f*** up everything you're doing.”

“But when they asked me, I just said, ‘Oh yeah, sure,’ and then I just wouldn't do anything. I would just talk the way I talk. I didn't see the movie until about three or four years ago, because I didn't see it when it came out, but I was shocked when I saw that they had harmonized my voice. They lowered the pitch because they somehow thought that I should sound like some other version of Frankenstein. So I don't know, but I did like playing this part.”

There are a lot of aspects to The Monster Squad which have always made it a standout effort from everyone involved in the production, but the special effects created by Winston and his talented team of artists remain some of the best and most iconic creations to come out of that modern era of effects craftsmanship. For Woodruff Jr., who wore two hats on the project, he found that being busy both in front of and behind the camera was not a huge challenge for him at all.

“There wasn't any bouncing back and forth between my roles as makeup artist and actor,” Tom recalled. “During the design process at Stan's shop, I was focused on the Frankenstein character. Stan had divided up the workload on the various monsters amongst us, and he had created sketches of each character and then turned over the work of adapting his Frankenstein to Tom Noonan's face to me, and then gave the Creature's head and body design to Steve Wang and Matt Rose to really bring it to life. And once that work was done, and we moved into shooting, Stan took over the process of applying the makeup to Tom Noonan, along with Zoltan and Kathy Elek, and I was in costume as the Creature.”

Thibault discussed his experiences working with Stan and his effects team, saying, “These guys worked with me a lot. I was really glad to work with them because they've done this stuff many, many times. This was a first for me, so when I did it, they walked me through a lot of stuff. I had to do a full bodycast and it was a pretty intense experience. They told me later that a lot of people don't make it through it, because sometimes they freak out. But, they walked me through everything to make it easier on me.”

“But there were no airs about them whatsoever. When I went up for the fitting, I still thought it was a low-budget film because it was in the non-union extra part of the paper. So, when I went up to the studio, and we were sitting in the makeup room, I saw the different things they had up on the shelves, and one of them was the Terminator bust. I asked them, ‘How'd you guys get that?’ And they kind of looked at me, and said, ‘Do you know anything about this film?’ I said, ‘Actually, no, not really,’ and then they told me what it was about, what the budget was, and everything else. That was the first that I ever knew that it was going to be a decent kind of film.”

When he had to physically transform himself into the Mummy, MacKay had a relatively easy time in comparison to his monstrous co-stars. “I enjoyed the process. They did do a body cast, and they did the head cast and everything, but my feet and hands were all pre-made. The feet were like boots, and the hands were like gloves, and the head was a very flexible material where they just slipped it over my head, and then they fastened it in the back. Any seams that were showing or whatever, they just put bandages around them.”

“But my suit was very lightweight, so it was like being in pajamas [laugh]. I was very fortunate in that way, compared to what some people had to wear. I had the contact lenses and fake teeth and everything, but the suit wasn't really clunky or heavy or hot. It made it very easy to perform in, and once they’d wrap me up, I was always ready to go.”

For Noonan, who had to don heavy prosthetics for all his scenes as Frankenstein’s Monster, he loved the way the makeup looked, but the process did come at a hefty price—for his skin, that is.

“When you wear makeup like that, it changes so much how you look. You just look in the mirror and it completely changes you. Your reaction, your relationship to yourself is really deeply affected by that feeling of looking in a mirror and not recognizing yourself. It's very easy to act the part, to do whatever I did, and the makeup really helped.”

“I really didn't talk to anybody on The Monster Squad, because that’s my process, but I developed a relationship with the guys who did the makeup because I sort of thought of them as my parents. I used to call Stan ‘Dada,’ which drove him crazy, and he thought I was f***ing with him, but I wasn't. I was going to this state of thinking that they had made me, that they created me, so it felt fitting. Without them, I wouldn't be ‘alive.’”

“The makeup was really beautiful, too,” Noonan continued. “It's the best makeup I've ever worn, and I've worn a lot of them. It just moved really beautifully on my face, and it really doesn't look like me, but it really does look like me, and it's great. I thought it was fun to see myself that way. I do remember things got hairy toward the end, on the last day of shooting in fact. This was back when they made latex prosthetic pieces that had to cure for a few days. You couldn't just plop them onto somebody until they sat around.”

“So, we got to the last day of shooting, and it ended up where we didn't finish everything, and we had to go another day, but they had no prosthetic pieces that had been cured. They didn't have anything and they couldn't do the makeup again, so I volunteered to wear the makeup home that night, and I'd come back the next day and shoot the last day. It was sort of fun riding around Hollywood in this makeup, I must admit [laughs].”

“And then, I shot the whole next day, but what happened was the gentle pressure of those pieces, which didn't fit exactly on my face, caused all the skin on my face to blister. When they took the makeup off, my face was covered with these big pustules hanging off my face. The makeup guy was freaked out. It was only the top layer of my skin that was actually affected, but it really looked scary. They called Stan over, and he grabs a hold of a whole handful of these pustules on my face, ripped them off and says, ‘He's fine.’ And then he walked right out. But that was Stan,” added Noonan, “I think he liked to torture me [laughs].”

When it came to working with their younger co-stars in The Monster Squad, for the most part, the “monsters” didn’t spend a lot of time with the kids, which most of the actors admitted was a huge benefit to them being able to appear as threats to the youngsters. According to Regehr, “We all did separate ourselves from the kids for the most part, and it really did help. They were really frightened of us. Kids at that age, they still had enough imagination to start thinking, ‘Well, maybe this is real.’ And for the scene where I pick up Phoebe [Ashley Bank], we didn't talk about anything before, so she was absolutely terrified, she was totally into it. I loved that scene, especially because I get to toss around the cops, too, and everything. It was a lot of fun.”

While The Monster Squad may have underperformed financially upon its theatrical release, Dekker’s horror comedy has gone on to become a bona fide cult classic over the last three decades, and remains a revered staple amongst horror fans both young and old.

“Well, I was disappointed when the film didn't do that well when it was released,” said Thibault. “It just kind of faded away, so I was disappointed by that. But when it came out on VHS—again, I had no idea how well it did until the residual checks came in. It’s interesting how the film ended up finding its way eventually, and now has this great cult following. And I’m honored that the most memorable line in the film also happens to be with me, which doesn’t happen too often.”

Regehr discussed how he believed timing might have been something of an issue for the film, saying, “It didn't surprise me that it did not do well at the box office, but it has survived through the years, where other horror movies have not. I think it came down to a question of timing. Monster Squad was a little bit ahead of its time, so audiences had to catch up to it, and over the years, they did.”

For Noonan, the fact that marketing for The Monster Squad didn’t seem to be on target for the film ended up being a big disappointment for him, in more ways than one. “I don't think they marketed it very well, in my vague memory. They weren't sure whether it would appeal to kids, or if it would it appeal to teenagers. I don't think they ever really decided what they were going to do with it, and I think that hurt the distribution.”

“If you watch the original DVD release, there’s an interview on there I did as Frankenstein, and the reason I did that interview was because I told them that if this movie comes out, and they want to do an interview, I'm not doing it as me. They're going to have to put me in the makeup every time. If I get called to The Tonight Show, I'm going on as Frankenstein. It would have been great and I would have loved to do it, but all those plans just fell apart when the movie didn't open strong.”

But even though things may not have gone so well with the initial release, MacKay enjoyed everything about his involvement with The Monster Squad, much like the rest of his villainous cohorts. “It was a great all-around experience for me, since it was my first professional film. It was a fun film, and it was heartbreaking, it was heartwarming, it was scary. It had all the elements. And it was a good film to work on. It was wonderful, and I love that when I talk to fans now, they tell me it was a movie they would watch over and over again on VHS, and now their kids watch it over and over on DVD.”

And for Woodruff Jr., The Monster Squad was a dream come true, allowing him to fulfill an ambition he’s had ever since he fell in love with the Universal Monsters as a kid.

“It was a really good time, a great experience, and it was everything I'd hoped it would be. Those expectations I had were planted in my head back when I was a little kid watching monster movies on TV, and wanting to be the monster. It led to real opportunities to act and try to do something special with creature characters in front of the cameras. It also led to a few more great experiences with Stan, and then breaking away with Alec [Gillis] to pursue our own things. And we’re still doing things that a lot of people can't do inside a creature suit, too.”

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This retrospective is part of our Class of 1987 special features celebrating a wide range of genre films that were first released thirty years ago. In case you missed them, check here to read all of our Class of ’87 retrospectives.