Release Date – 10/29/10 (limited)
Six years ago, NASA discovered possible alien life on another planet. Probes were sent to check it out and when they came back, they crashed somewhere in Mexico with unidentified life forms attached. These life forms grew and spread creating a quarantined area near the US/Mexico border. Now in the present day, the military is fighting off these fully grown alien beings while trying to contain the infected zone. Meanwhile, the daughter of a wealthy businessman is injured in an alien attack and a reluctant employee is sent to help her get back to the United States. This starts their journey through Mexico to the safe ground of America. This movie is like a combination of District 9 and Cloverfield with monsters that look like they belong in The Mist. The only problem is its more of a romantic road trip in an apocalyptic setting than a sci-fi horror movie.
Scoot McNairy plays Andrew Kaulder, the photographer who is on a mission to recover his boss’s daughter and bring her to safety. He’s trying to get in tight with the big boss so he reluctantly takes on this dangerous mission. He’s kind of a dick but does look out for her best interest. Whitney Able plays Samantha Wynden. Able is actually the real life wife of Scoot McNairy so their chemistry together worked really well. They build up a good sexual tension as they travel around. She’s engaged so his constant attempts to woo her never work. The only real problem I had with the movie is the lack of monsters. Yeah for a movie called Monsters, it really lacks in the monster department. I mentioned Cloverfield and District 9 before which had an abundance of monster and creature sightings while still making a character driven movie. We only get a select few shots of the giant squids running wild through the cities. And in the final scene, they’re kind of just there doing nothing. There was no epic battle or real fear that the squids were going to kill the main characters. It was basically a love story with monsters on the side.
I give the director Gareth Edwards all the credit in the world for creating a full length feature with decent CGI for supposedly under $20,000 but that is also where the problem comes from. Because the budget was so low, the monsters were used sparingly. Instead we are treated to road trip movie where the 2 main characters run into several travel problems like a boat breaking down, losing their passports and not having money for an expensive ferry ticket. If the monsters were totally removed from the film and it just be set in some End of Days type scenario, it could have been the same movie. But in the end, I’d rather watch a romantic road trip with possible danger around every corner than just your average romance movie. It was a world where dead squids on top of buildings and collapsing structures are like a normal day out and about. The romantic clichés are still there, like you know how the relationship is going to end but this time there’s a bit of a unique twist.
IMDB – 6.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes – 64%
Movie Wiseguys – 6.5/10