THE SECRET OF NIMH (1982)
This is another movie that gets pretty … dark. The main characters are all rats and mice — except for a clumsy crow, voiced by the peerless Dom Deluise — and there is no shortage of death and destruction. The film is the first feature directed by Don Bluth, who was a star animator at Disney till he left to start his own company (doing a movie about a talking mouse was a nice eff you to Disney). Bluth is also notable for his involvement with the groundbreaking — though, admittedly, overrated — video game Dragon’s Lair.
MONSTER SQUAD (1987)
Before writing definitive guy movies like Lethal Weapon and directing Iron Man 3, Shane Black wrote Monster Squad. It may not feature Murtaugh and Riggs, but it’s a better-than-average scare-comedy that provides kids and adults alike with 82 minutes worth of Dracula, Wolf Man, The Mummy, and Frankenstein’s Monster. Obviously, it’s a great Halloween movie.
