Monsters

{Reviewed by Alex Everson}

Monsters is like a candle you may have bought in your younger years for your mother on mothers’ day: cheap to make, but in fact an excellent idea. It is a slow burner in terms of storyline, with much of the film being donated towards the character relationship between the two main characters, Samantha and Andrew (Who happen to be a real life couple, a great casting idea by director Gareth Edwards which adds to the film and the relationship that develops between the two of them throughout).

The other characters in the film who appear are all uncredited, and had been hired in as locals throughout the film, give reasonable performances despite never appearing for long. The performance of Whitney Able is pleasing and should lead her to be able to gain some bigger roles in future from this performance. Her partner, Scoot McNairy, was a bit more brittle, and managed his role well, but possibly could have tried to add into his role during his dialogue a little more with this unscripted film.

The film itself follows the story where NASA have previously discovered alien life forms which have broken down upon re-entry from space over Mexico, and has created a 200km “Infected zone”. The storyline however is more of a secondary concern with much of the film being lent to the build up to the viewing of the monsters which doesn’t happen until quite late on in the film adding to the immense sense of tension that the film manages to build towards the end, with the subtle views of the monsters, which at times reminded me of a modern day Alien.

Action was obviously not meant to play a part in this as opposed to other more recent alien films, (see Skyline) which seem to have relied so heavily upon action  that they have forgotten they they are making a science fiction flick, and not just a hero vs. villain type, which many alien films do end up turning themselves into. The build up to the monsters gives way to some incredibly well made CGI moments and after effects which have been put in by Edwards after the shooting of the film on his PC at home, giving the film even more credit due to the low budget nature of the film, all being made on a reported $15,000 budget.

Overall, Monsters does manage to perform the role of the Sci-Fi film with a subtle aplomb whilst never dazzling, it always entertains. Despite the slow burning start, it manages to produce what is a very worthy contender of anyone’s hard earned money. With no one knowing what this movie was going to be able to give when it was released, it is certainly a surprise and a delight to watch after having seen other much poorer executed Alien films over the last few years.