Monsters

It’s fair to say that Monsters doesn’t do what it says on the tin. A Cloverfield style trailer and a poster of the two main characters in peril suggest a rollercoaster ride of danger, thrills and shaky hand-held camera work. How wrong you’d be. Debut director Gareth Edwards’ film is actually a low key drama with a romantic sub-plot. It just happens to be set on earth during the aftermath of a NASA space probe crash which causes aliens to breed in Mexico. The film follows Andrew (Scoot McNairy) and Samantha (Whitney Able) as they travel through an infected zone of beasties in Mexico in order to reach the relative safety of the southern USA. The film hints at greatness. A nice opening scene is followed by the slow build up of dread as the protagonists go further and further into the infected zone, but then…nothing. Very few monsters, virtually no scares and both Andrew and Samantha traipse through the infected zone with so little problems you wonder why it’s meant to be such a hardship in the first place. The lack of monsters is down to two things. Budget and that the film itself is about Andrew and Samantha’s relation between themselves and the seldom seen aliens. However, it doesn’t work, as this largely improvised film just stutters along. It’s hard to care much for the protagonists when they don’t appear that fussed whether they make it through or not. A more polished script would have helped here and got the message across of what this film is actually meant to be about. The abrupt ending doesn’t help, especially coming after a seriously trite moment which suggest the monster are just like humans. In terms of the monster angle, has Edwards used one of the most outrageous MacGuffin’s in history to tell the story of a romance between two people? So, not fantastic overall, but there’s enough here though to suggest Edwards is one for the future, including a fantastic scene involving a downed jet fighter and a moment that makes cinematic history for the biggest jump scare ever using the word “Quack”.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
As an effort from a first time director it’s hard to be too harsh, but this isn’t really a great film. Be interesting to see what Edwards conjures up next though. Rating: 5/10.