Monstrous - Movie Review

Critics Score - 5 of 10

General Audience Score - 4 of 10

The 1950’s were a period of history that is delightful to witness on screen. As I didn’t have the privilege of being alive during the post-WW2 era, I can only get my fix of this bygone era with it’s cocktail dresses and whitewall tires via old movies and archival film footage. In comes Monstrous, a new smaller film from Screen Media set in the same decade that Elvis Presley became famous. Christina Ricci plays a housewife on the run with her young son, but after escaping to a house in the country, some strange things start happening in connection to a pond nearby. While the 50’s nostalgia factor is pretty neat, once the film gets into the horror elements, it becomes this weird concoction of genres that clash more than they fit together. I can’t help but feel the film going full tilt into the horror realm was a mistake, not only because it doesn’t succeed in creating thrills, but because it took itself way too seriously. This may have been a fun time at the cinema as a mystery thriller, they could’ve added a few laughs and not pushed all the chips in on trying to selling us on the scary. But in the end the film fails in about as many areas as it succeeds and ends up just being an odd assortment of tones and genres that the filmmakers mash together. They call it the Monstrous mash.

SUMMARY - This would be tale of watery terror begins with some underwater visuals, first of someone standing on the edge of a pool above and of bubbles rising while we hear “Cody” whispered musically in the background. We see a young boy Cody (Santino Barnard), in bed at night while hearing oddly arranged piano keystrokes and we get the first impression the film is trying to be creepy, which it never finds much success in. But soon Cody’s mother Laura (Christina Ricci), comes in and tells him it’s time to wake up, we get a clear shot of her smiling face right before the Monstrous title hits the screen and Bill Haley and The Comets start belting out See Ya Later Alligator. This was the first sense I got of the film’s uneven tone, shifting from aspiring creepy to upbeat in a moment, and it only got more perplexing as it continued. Laura then loads her son up and takes off in her baby blue 1950’s Chevrolet wagon to a big new home in the country. Ricci has the look of someone from that era and slides in seamlessly with her red and white polka dot dress and companion yellow sweater. A horror film set in the 1950’s with vintage cars, old timey dresses and classic tunes certainly sounds like a bit of fun, because it is a unique and interesting premise. But I never thought it worked very well in materializing into compelling cinema as the execution just left so much to be desired.

After the home’s caretakers leave Cody and Laura to check things out, strange things begin to happen rather quickly, and not just with the film’s editing. Clips of bubbles rising through water are interwoven with Cody laying in bed at night again. At another point Laura and Cody are sitting on the floor blowing up balloons together when the scene skips forward inexplicably a few seconds into it. While these were no doubt deliberate, this only added to the overall uneven lane the film settled into. The next day Cody goes down to a pond nearby and we get the impression there’s something out there, he later sees an area of the pond bubbling at night. Monstrous uses many of the typical scare tropes, lights flickering to try and create tension, the phone suddenly ringing was used multiple times in attempts to startle the audience. Maybe it was aiming to incorporate more throwback horror elements to scare us but they mostly come across as uninspired and cheap. As things escalate and whatever is in the lake begins to come out, the cringe worthy CGI that the director’s old college roommate probably did for him pretty much annihilates any chances of sustaining tension.

Despite the very concise runtime, the film drags because it gives the audience nothing to hang onto, no exposition, explanation or theory as to what in the world is happening. I attribute these problems to the off-putting screenplay. At one point a caretaker for the property says about Cody, “he’s not supposed to be at the pond, I don’t want him playing near there,” but then no explanation is given for that statement. Things like this along the way began to make me feel lost, like trying to solve a mystery with no clues, the unclear direction the film was heading in was completely out of focus. The film plays it’s cards close to the chest, which makes for more of a hard hitting ending though. The final act is the strongest and I actually enjoyed the twists, but you have to make it through an hour of subpar filmmaking to reap the rewards in the last twenty-five minutes. The retro cars were cool, the costume design of the vintage outfits Ricci wears looked great, although she oddly sports the same pair of white shoes through most of the film. A mediocre score complements a mediocre film with random piano keystrokes falling in lockstep with the random directorial decisions. While I can see some critics completely trashing this film, it does have some elements I enjoyed and the ending does come together better than I would’ve thought. But ultimately it’s so discombobulated that the viewing experience generates as much frustration as it does satisfaction. 

SUMMARY - I have to give this film props for trying out something different, although I don’t think it succeeds, especially not tonally, in pulling together all the elements it’s juggling. You could do worse, but if you’re in the mood for nostalgia, scares, horror or even monsters, you can do much better than Monstrous.