I Thought My Kids Were Ready For The Monster Squad. I Was Wrong.

With Halloween right around the corner, my kids and I have been watching all kinds of spooky, kooky, and not-so-scary horror movies. The first few Friday movie nights this October were filled with Hocus Pocus, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the classic Disney Channel original movie, Halloweentown. But when my wife was going to be out of town for the weekend (the final one before the holiday), I thought they were ready for The Monster Squad.

Spoiler alert: I was wrong. Maybe it was a combination of kids being in perilous situations, or maybe it was that admittedly scary opening scene, perhaps it was the bats. Whatever it was, my kids were shook while watching with a Paramount+ subscription. Not enough to stop the movie (something I tried), but they’ve been acting a little different since they saw that Stephen King-obsessed motley crew take on those iconic monsters.

Don’t Get Me Wrong, They Loved The Monster Squad As Much As I Did As A Kid

Let me get this out of the way… my kids (or at least my son and older daughter) loved The Monster Squad and were bouncing between fear and laughter throughout its sub-90-minute runtime. I mean, what’s not to love when there’s a scene where a character kicks a werewolf where the sun doesn’t shine and yells “Wolf Man’s got nards”?

They were engaged throughout the entire movie and were asking all sorts of questions that parents want to hear when showing off one of their childhood favorites. For the moment, I thought all was well in the Sledge house. Then it came time for bed…

But Now They All Want To Sleep In The Same Room Again

Shortly after putting my kids to bed, I began to see the error of my ways. My wife and I spent the better part of a month getting all three kids to sleep in their own rooms not long ago, and it was like all that progress evaporated because I thought they were ready for The Monster Squad. They weren’t, and all three were crammed in my older daughter’s bed for the night… and the one that followed.

At first, they didn’t want to admit it was because of Dracula, or the Wolf Man, or the Mummy, or the Gill-Man; but instead some mysterious reason they didn’t want to share. After some time, my younger daughter spilled the beans and admitted it was because of the monsters. Just not Frankenstein’s monster, as “he was a good guy.”

Hey, it’s better than them taking over my bed again.

Don’t Get Me Started With The Cussing

Whenever I go back and watch a great ‘80s movie from my childhood, I’m shocked by the level of cussing that was allowed in PG and PG-13 movies back in the day. This one is no exception. Not only are there some insane homophobic slurs in the early part of the movie (luckily, my kids were too distracted by a character being called “Fat Kid” to pick up on them), but this movie has so many four-letter words that no kids should be saying.

I’m no puritan, and I’m prone to let out certain cuss words, but my kids thought seeing other kids use profanity was the green light to start talking like sailors, especially my son. However, I will give them credit for spelling them out after I asked them to stop partway through.

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Overall, watching The Monster Squad with my kids on a cold, rainy October night was one of the best experiences I’ve had in a while, even if it means I’ll be paying for it for a very long time.