[Hello, readers! To celebrate Valentine's Day, the Daily Dead team thought it would be fun to do things a little differently this year. We're putting the spotlight on our favorite horror-loving characters from genre cinema—people who have represented our own fandom on screen and, in many cases, helped bring our passion for horror into the mainstream. Be sure to check here for more of our tributes to some of the greatest horror fans to ever grace the big screen.]
The history of horror movies is full of Monster Kids—those young boys and girls obsessed with all things horror who are, sooner or later, able to put all of their knowledge gathered from hours spent in front of Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolf Man to good use. From Tommy Jarvis in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter to Paula in Neon Maniacs, the genre knows that the quickest way to our horror-loving hearts is through representation and identification: us fans love seeing some version of ourselves on screen acting out the fantasy of standing side by side with axe murderers and fantastic beasts. There are few things more satisfying to a young horror fan than seeing one of our own go toe to toe with a nasty creature and come out on top.
There is no better example of this in all of horror cinema than Sean Crenshaw, the lead character played by Andre Gower in Fred Dekker’s 1987 classic, The Monster Squad. He is the quintessential Monster Kid. He is the best of us. From his iconic “Stephen King Rules” T-shirt to the titular club he starts with his monster-loving friends, Sean is more horror-obsessed than maybe any other Monster Kid on film. He sits on his roof with binoculars just to watch a slasher movie on a nearby drive-in screen. He spends his school days drawing monsters in a notebook (Spider with Human Head!). And when real monsters do arrive in his small suburban town, Sean is the first one to notice the signs and do something about it. He gives the big motivational speech to the rest of the Squad about how they are uniquely qualified to handle the situation and need to step up to save the town, and possibly the world: “Something's out there and it's killing people!” Sean declares. “And if it's monsters, nobody's going to do a thing about it except us.”
Now, Sean isn’t the only Monster Kid to ever vanquish a big bad—just ask Jason Voorhees how he got that machete scar on his face—but he’s one of the only ones to ever really use the preexisting knowledge gleaned from a lifetime of monster obsession to defeat the enemy. He knows how to kill every monster that comes his way, and when that won’t work, he at least knows their weaknesses. What’s more, Sean is the only Monster Kid to ever take the fight to the monsters instead of simply playing defense once attacked. He figures out Dracula’s identity by unscrambling the King of the Vampires’ impenetrable riddle (seriously, Drac, you might have tried a little harder than “Alucard”…) and decides to strike first by sneaking into the mansion to steal the amulet, thus kicking off the movie’s action-packed third act.
Andre Gower’s performance goes a long way towards making Sean Crenshaw the poster child for movie Monster Kids, as he imbues the character with passion and conviction and demands that both he and the threat be taken seriously. He’s not humorless, but for Sean, monsters are no laughing matter. The performance has to accomplish two things at the same time: on a micro level, Sean the character has to convince the others in the movie of the reality of their situation, and on a macro level, Andre Gower the actor has to convince us, the audience, of the reality of the world inhabited by these people and monsters. He’s able to do both because he projects total sincerity at all times, never wavering from the total conviction with which he approaches every moment. Gower makes Sean into a natural-born leader, and though his tendency to call the shots even around those with more age and experience might grow tiresome at a certain point, the film’s lean running time and focus on a potential world-ending crisis never has the opportunity to explore the downside of his alpha personality. He’s the Monster Kid hero we need.
There are so many things that make The Monster Squad such a special film. The script by Fred Dekker and Shane Black is funny and endlessly quotable. Stan Winston’s makeup effects are awesome, offering a new spin on all of the great monsters while retaining just enough of the classic look to skirt right up against Universal’s copyright. Just the idea of doing an Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein-esque monster bash of a horror comedy was an inspired decision in 1987, during an age when the classics could be caught on TV but were harder to come by than they are today.
This is a movie that inspired new generations of Monster Kids. For some of us, this was our Goonies. Sean Crenshaw was our poster child, living the life the rest of us wanted to live: watching slasher movies, championing Stephen King on his clothing, talking about monsters with his friends, hanging out with Frankenstein’s monster, sending Dracula back to Hell and even getting that validating thumbs up from Abraham Van Helsing himself.
Sean’s passion for monsters made him our champion even before any of the bad guys showed up; his expertise at fighting off the same monsters he adores just cements his position as the greatest Monster Kid in movie history. For this Monster Kid, watching Sean Crenshaw back in 1987 meant more than just being entertained by a bunch of stuff I liked. It meant that I wasn’t alone.
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If you’re a fan of The Monster Squad, be sure to take part in F This Movie Fest, the world’s only all-Twitter film festival taking place on Saturday, February 11th beginning at 12 noon CST. We’re celebrating the movies of 1987 and will be ending the day with—what else?—The Monster Squad. To learn more, visit:
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Click here to read more "To Horror, with Love" pieces from the Daily Dead team.
Patrick lives in Chicago, where he has been writing about film since 2004. A member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Online Film Critics Society, Patrick's writing also appears on About.com, DVDVerdict.com and fthismovie.net, the site he runs and hosts a weekly podcast.
He has been an obsessive fan of horror and genre films his entire life, watching, re-watching and studying everything from the Universal Monsters of the '30s and '40s to the modern explosion of indie horror. Some of his favorites include Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931), Dawn of the Dead (1978), John Carpenter's The Thing and The Funhouse. He is a lover of Tobe Hooper and his favorite Halloween film is part 4. He knows how you feel about that. He has a great wife and two cool kids, who he hopes to raise as horror nerds.
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