Monsters

Whitney Able discovers that blonds don’t always have more fun

(2010) Horror (Magnet) Scoot McNairy, Whitney Able, Mario Zuniga Benavides, Annalee Jefferies, Erika Morales Yolanda Chacon, Javier Acosta Rodriguez, Victor Manuel Martinez Tovar, Walter Hernandez Col, Kennedy Gamaliel Jimenez, Romeo Arista. Directed by Gareth Edwards

The only monsters worth fearing are those of our own making. I don’t know who said it first but maybe it should have been Victor Frankenstein. If not him, maybe a politician we can be proud of.

Speaking of non-existent creatures, Mexico is full of aliens. Not the illegal kind – although they kind of are – I mean the E.T. sorts, the ones who get transported to planet Earth by a faulty NASA probe that crashed in Northern Mexico and hatched some extraterrestrial octopus-looking thingies that proceeded to take over Mexico. As if they didn’t have enough problems.

Samantha Wynden (Able) is the daughter of a wealthy American publisher. That publisher is the boss of Andrew Kaulder (McNairy), a reporter whom the publisher feels can safely escort Samantha through the infested zone back home (there are a few lapses in logic here but we’ll just smile and pretend it all makes sense). He’s loathe to do it but if he doesn’t he’ll be unemployed at a time where that’s not such a good thing to be. Not that there’s any era when it’s a good thing to be unemployed.

So of course they meet and they dislike each other. So yes he turns out to be a screw-up and deeply distrustful of rich people. So yeah they fall in love and wind up in bed. And of course this happens while their happy little trip collapses around them.

Gareth Edwards, the first-time director of this movie, does an impressive job with a pretty slender budget. He employs guerilla filmmaking techniques – shooting on location without permission with locals as extras and even actors. That makes this as authentic a movie as you’re likely to see.

While the concept isn’t particularly new, it is done in a pretty smart manner. This is a universe of corruption and desperation with the innocent people caught in the middle. You can say it’s an allegory of American immigration policies, although I think if so the references are ham-handed. This is not, despite the title, not a monster movie although you do see them from time to time. I think the thought was to keep them in the background for greater effectiveness but this sure could have used a little more monster and a little less romance.

There are only two actors with any experience in the movie and so they pretty much carry the movie and while they don’t disgrace themselves, neither do they seize the opportunity to deliver a career-making performance. I grant you, that can be hard to do when much of their performances are ad-libbed. Able is cute though and has enough charisma to lead me to believe she has a future ahead of her in the business.

The monsters, when seen, are mostly seen in grainy TV footage but they occasionally make devastating appearances. I wish they had a greater presence, but at the end of the day the real monsters weren’t necessarily from outer space. That’s what really makes the movie worthwhile.

WHY RENT THIS: Feels real. Every cent is on the screen.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Weak acting in places. Underutilizes monsters.

FAMILY VALUES: The language here was alone responsible for giving this an “R” rating.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The only two professional actors in the film are Able and McNairy; the rest of the cast are locals who happened to be around when Edwards was shooting.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There are several Q&A sessions with various members of the cast and crew at various conventions and festivals.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $4.2M on a $500K production budget; I’d call it an indie hit..

COMPARISON SHOPPING: And Soon the Darkness

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10

NEXT: Day 4 of the Six Days of Darkness 2012

Advertisement