Search - Monster Force, Vol. 1 on DVD

Great Show, Fond Memories, Could have better packaging!

Exchronos | Canton, OH USA | 10/18/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I've waited for this show to come out on DVD for a very long time, and I'm glad it's finally available! I only gave it 4 stars because of the bad treatment the DVD got. The sleeve artwork is very inferior to the actual animation when it comes to portraying characters, and there's no booklet or even special features. Even the DVD itself has no artwork and is only a solid color. Yet you do get 7 great episodes of the TV show, but I believe there was only 13 episodes so really a complete series set would've been easier. Now who knows if they'll release Vol. 2? (Just like how Disney just stops releasing cartoons like Gummi Bears, Gargoyles, The Tick, and other companies do that too with cartoons like Inspector Gadget, Count Duckula, and I'm still waiting for Silverhawks Vol. 2, and who knows if they'll ever release Season 3 of the newest Ninja Turtles cartoon)



As for the cartoon itself I'm glad some episodes I remembered were on this set, and here's a breakdown:



1. Sign Of The Dragon - Count Dracula's captured the team's werewolf, the current descendant of Larry Talbot (The Wolf Man!). The team has to rescue him from Dracula's clutches.



2. Stalking The Beast - The team makes a trip to Talbot's ancestral home to fight a werewolf problem and he hopes to find the werewolf who bit Larry Talbot in hopes of ending the family curse. This story gives a variation of the events of "The Wolf Man" (1941) in flashback sequences and the silver tipped wolf's head cane is intregal to the plot.



3. Immortality Of Evil - Count Dracula wants to use ancient Native American magic to gain true immortality unless the team stops him.



4. Return Of The Creature - A skeptic of the MOnster Force needs their help while trying to explore the ruins of a sunken city...because it's population of one is the Creature From The Black Lagoon!



5. Dark Deception - Meet Abraham Stoker (named after Bram Stoker), a vampire hunter of the classical sort who distrusts technology and prefers a wooden stake and a hammer! While Dracula's away from Transylvania the Monster Force take the oppurtunity to study records at a monastary before joining Stoker on a raid of Castle Dracula itself!



6. He Walks Again - Enter the Mummy! Im Ho-Tep is unleashed to do Dracula's bidding, but the Monster Force decides otherwise!



7. Dark City - Every 100 years it appears at a different location for one day, and then vanishes once again with the humans it lured into it's evil clutches!



The series was notable for using a modern descendant of the original Wolf Man as a hero alongside the Frankenstein Monster, a psychic, their leader the scientist Dr. Crawley, and two others who help fight monsters around the globe! Vol. 2 if and when they get around to it should have more memorable episodes of this unfortunately short lived series! Though, I think if it had a catchier theme song it might've lasted longer...action cartoons and instrumental theme songs don't go together that well, and the theme is boring and not very memorable."