The role of a monster in storytelling is to be the manifestation of our fears and anxieties. The reason monsters come in so many varieties, (undead, giant beasts, aliens, demons, radioactive mutants) is because each one represents a different part of our world of which we are afraid. Zombies, vampires, and other humanoid monsters represent parts of the human condition and our own nature that we would rather not acknowledge. Aliens, on the other hand, represent our fears of things that are foreign and unfamiliar. As we are creatures of reason and define our world based on what we know, the unknown is a terrifying concept. The recent independent film Monsters tries to tap into both of these areas of the human psyche, with both alien creatures and with an unflattering portrayal of how society and governments deal with said giant aliens. The premise is that a U.S. Space probe returning to Earth carrying samples from one of Saturn’s moons crash landed in northern Mexico. What ever those samples were supposed to be, they had biological material in them that grew and developed in the wilds of Mexico and became giant octopus-spiders that are quite destructive. The whole northern half of Mexico is now under quarantine as an “infected zone” and the United States has constructed a massive wall along the Mexican boarder to prevent the monsters from entering the country. I think this is supposed to be some kind of allegory for America’s stance on illegal immigration, but within the context of what is happening in the movie building a giant wall to defend against dangerous monster attacks is a pretty sound idea.
The story centers around two Americans stranded on the wrong side of the infected zone. One is Andrew (Scoot McNairy) a photographer and the other is Samantha (Whitney Able) the over-privileged daughter of Andrew’s boss back in the states. Andrew is called from his journalistic endeavors to locate Samantha and escort her to a boat that will sail her around the infected zone so she can get married to some dude that is not important. While Andrew does get Samantha to the ferry safely, her incredibly overpriced ticket is stolen and there will be no other boats to take her home. Samantha then pawns her engagement ring for the money needed to hire a group to lead the two through the infected zone back to the U.S. boarder. Things do not go well as those hired to lead them through the jungles and ruined cities are killed off one night when a giant spidopus flattens their convoy. Andrew and Samantha now have to make it on foot by themselves back to the U.S. This movie is a great idea on paper and I was very excited when I heard the concept and that it was all being shot in a guerrilla style on a tiny budget with almost all of the extras being the residents of the various locations in which they filmed. There are only two complaints I can level at this movie, but they are big complaints. First, the actors that director Gareth Edwards got for the two leads, who must carrying the entire film, are not very well-layered or convincing actors. Many of the parts that should have been heavy moments when they were reacting to the vast amounts of devastation or witness to people being slaughtered by the creatures came off as stiff and amateurish. Their roles required a lot of subtlety, but Scoot and Whitney were just not experienced enough yet to handle such roles for a full ninety minutes. The second complaint is that the monsters in this film looked too much like a regular Earth octopus. These are supposed to be creatures that evolved in an entirely different ecosystem. Whoever was in charge of creature design really messed up here. I can see why it would be beneficial for the aliens to have traits that the human brain can recognize and relate to other things, but putting an octopus on stilts strikes me as lazy and uncreative.
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