The phenomenon of the “fan documentary” has sprung up across the horror genre over the last ten years. Thanks to the success of docs like Never Sleep Again and Crystal Lake Memories, it seems that every franchise and film is getting its own corresponding fan documentary: Scream, Psycho, Hellraiser, Fright Night, Pet Sematary…the list grows every year. Now with Wolfman’s Got Nards, we can add 1987’s The Monster Squad to that list.

What separates Wolfman’s Got Nards from other fan documentaries, though, is that it isn’t just made by a fan – it’s made by someone who was there. Director Andre Gower, who played the lead Sean as a kid, has served as an ambassador for The Monster Squad since the film’s resurgence in the 2000s, making him the ideal person to chronicle the movie’s path from box office bomb to beloved cult favorite. Like the great Best Worst Movie, also directed by its subject’s lead actor (Troll 2 star Michael Paul Stephenson), Wolfman’s Got Nards isn’t just about the minutiae of a single film. It’s about the genuine phenomenon that surrounds that film, how the movie’s reputation changed over time, and how its belated success affected the lives of those involved. It’s a love letter to a film that was itself a love letter to a lot of films – namely, the Universal monster movies and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Speaking on camera on behalf of The Monster Squad are many of the major participants involved in its making: in addition to Gower, there are co-stars Ryan Lambert (Rudy), Ashley Bank (Phoebe), Stephen Macht (Sean’s dad), Lisa Fuller (Patrick’s sister), Duncan Regehr (Dracula), co-writer/director Fred Dekker, co-writer Shane Black, effects artist Tom Woodruff (who also performed inside the Gill Man suit), and a host of familiar horror faces including Heather Langenkamp, Chuck Russell, Joe Lynch, Adam Green, Graham Skipper, and Jackson Stewart. A number of fans are interviewed as well, including two superfans-turned-critics, Germain Lussier and Eric Vespe, who organized the first major repertory screening in 2006 and essentially kicked off the Monster Squad resurgence that led to the DVD finally being released and made the movie what it has become today.

Truth be told, the deck is inherently stacked in favor of a movie like Wolfman’s Got Nards. As an ‘80s monster kid, of course, I love The Monster Squad and have since seeing it in its too-brief theatrical run back in 1987. Because of that, I’m going to love a movie devoted to celebrating it. But I’m not sure the documentary offers much insight into the film’s unique history; it’s more interested in charting the timeline than it is in analyzing what might have happened. The real story of the movie should be Fred Dekker, who appears genuinely tortured to be talking about The Monster Squad whenever he appears on camera. His relationship to the film is very, very complicated: he says it’s both the best movie he ever made and that it destroyed his career, and the nearly 20 years between the film’s box office failure and its resurgence clearly took a toll on him. He admits to being unable to enjoy the success that Monster Squad has found in recent years because it’s so disconnected from when he made it, and I found myself wishing there was more of a focus on the struggle of Dekker trying to come to terms with his feelings about a movie everyone loves but he still sort of resents. All of his insights are the most interesting stuff in Wolfman’s Got Nards.

Beyond that, the documentary is pretty much an “Isn’t Monster Squad great?” party, and because, yes, Monster Squad is great, it’s a party I’m happy to attend. It’s a movie that means a lot to a lot of people, including me, so I’m happy to see it getting this type of love letter and to see star/director Andre Gower giving it a well-earned victory lap after 30 years. There are a handful of questions left unanswered – the late Brent Chalem (Horace) gets a touching tribute, while Robby Kiger’s name isn’t even mentioned – but Wolfman’s Got Nards doesn’t look to explore, only exalt. As fan docs go, it’s heavy on the “fan” and light on the “doc,” but that’s ok. The Monster Squad is a very special film with a very special history, one that rewarded us for being Monster Kids all those years ago and which has created new generations of Monster Kids in the years since. That’s reason to celebrate, and celebrate is what Wolfman’s Got Nards does best.