Monsters

I am so happy when I discover a movie like this one. On a night that I could have watched just about anything, it didn't really matter, I took a gamble and picked a movie on Netflix Instant that honestly didn't have the best sounding description, or for that matter a great picture to represent it. This is the perfect example of a movie understating itself to a fault, and then blowing me out of the park.

Six years ago NASA had a probe returning to earth that had been looking for signs of life within our solar system. It crash landed in Mexico near the border to the U.S. The probe brought back with it something alive. Now the area along the border has become the infected zone, it is off limits and the U.S. doesn't seem to be helping out the Mexicans very much. This is where the story starts, Andrew is a photographer down in Mexico taking photos for a publication. He takes a call from his agent, he needs to go get the Boss' daughter who is down there, injured, and he has to bring her home. A fairly basic story, man and woman traveling together, trying to get home.

How this film got no press is beyond me. Its like a much cheaper version of "Cloverfield" with out the shaky camera that was making so many people sick. The cameras they shot on were decent enough prosumer cameras. Not the shitty camcorders they sell to families, not quite professional grade. But what they do with it is very impressive. As I watched I was time and again taken aback by the impressive Cinematography. Even more so when I found out that the crew consisted of two people. TWO! One guy on camera, the other...I'm guessing running sound..?

The effects as well were amazing knowing how little they made this on, 800,000, and only making back a little over a quarter of that. It's a shame that this wasn't picked up by a larger company for distribution. So I will try and spread the word for them now.

It's gritty, its surprisingly poignant. It takes a lot of risks by not throwing action in all over the place, even more so by playing down any sort of sex angle they could have. There was almost no script from what I've read, they let their only two actors just sort of go...and almost everyone else in the movie was just people who happened to be around at the time that were either unaware they were being in a film, or were added in, and just told to go. My assumption would be that this sort of tactic would backfire, but it doesn't. It works so well.

These filmmakers understand so much that some Hollywood mainstays don't. I know it sounds like I'm not really critiquing the movie, but I cant really put my finger on anything that was wrong with it. It was a very well made indie feature that more people should see.

I wish I could make this review longer, perhaps its because I haven't written anything on here in a while, and I'm just out of practice, or maybe its just that this movie really did it for me. I have nothing more to add other than rent it. If you have Netflix, then you can watch it on Instant. I'll say this much, I intend to buy it. 9/10 stars.

Director: Gareth Edwards

Starring: Whitney Able, Scoot McNairy

The above poster is not the one they used on Netflix, but it should be.