MONSTERS

I only watched this film because it was getting quite a lot of praise from my horror websites, which is kind of ironic because the film is clearly not a horror film.  Sure it has monsters in it, but if you are going in expecting that kind of film, you will be very disappointed.  This is an ultra low-budget film (estimates are between $400,000 to $500,000) where the director, Gareth Edwards, wore as many hats (director, production designer, cinematographer, even the visual effects supervisor) as he could in the production of this UK film. He has done a great job too, because it does not look low-budget at all. 

The story is about a man, Andrew, who is hired by a multi-millionaire to go down to Mexico and find this man’s daughter, Samantha, and bring her back to America.  Six years earlier, NASA discovered proof of the existence of alien life, and one of their space probes ended up crash landing in Mexico, which was carrying on board these so called “monsters”.  Since that time, that part of Mexico has been shut off and is called the “infected zone”.  America has since gone to the trouble of building a large wall around its border to stop these monsters (or “aliens”) from entering their country (sounds like allusions to the cross-border immigration issue, doesn’t it?). 

Anyway, the couple buy tickets for the last ferry leaving for America, although it doesn’t ship off until the next morning.  During a night of partying they end up losing their passports, meaning they now obviously can not board the ferry, and must seek an alternative route.  The only way back into America, is to be smuggled through the “infected zone”.  This is obviously quite dangerous, as they not only have to put their lives in the trust of complete strangers, but they are entering the area where these monsters inhabit. 

From here, we basically follow these two characters on their journey home to the U.S, where we ultimately find out more about both of them (as they are finding out about themselves), as well as the true nature of these “monsters”.  The strongest asset of this film are the two leads who have such a great natural chemistry between them (apparently the two actors were dating each other at the time the film was shot), making it all seem very real.  The other smart decision was to focus more on the human story and not getting sucked in by making the creatures overshadow the main characters. 

The final thing I’ll mention is that the film has a fantastic ending (in fact, the final two scenes are sublime), but the director has mentioned that a lot of people miss the point of the ending (to help out, the beginning is the end).  As “Monsters” is such a low budget film, it may be hard to find (I am amazed, and pleased, that it has got a cinema release here in Australia), but it would be well worth your time to watch it, if you ever get the chance.

Ranked 20 in Top 25 of 2010