The MonsterSome monsters lurk in the dark, are those closest to you. The Monster is a horror film about a young girl named Lizzy (Ella Ballentine) who has decided that she is tired of cleaning up after and enduring the abuse of her alcoholic mother, Kathy (Zoe Kazan), and so Lizzy takes her to live with her father. After an ill-fated detour down a remote stretch of road through the woods, Kathy collides with a wolf, and their car is disabled. As the torrential rain pours down, mother and daughter must fend off the attacks from a deadly, inhuman predator on a rampage, harrying them from the shadows.
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The Monster is narrated by Lizzy, who shares that she didn't used to believe in monsters, but now knows that they are real. On a literal level, a terrifying creature assails them on the rain slick country road when they are stranded, but Lizzy is also talking about her own mother. Kathy hardly looks old enough to be a mother, meaning that she had Lizzy at a very young age. She is a young woman who hasn't outgrown her wild years; with her pink highlights and bevy of tattoos, she looks like the kind of girl who knows how to party. The audience learns more about Kathy from Lizzy's morning routine--cleaning up empty beer bottles and makeshift ashtrays from Kathy's late-night revels with her most recent beau. Kathy is no doting mother; she is sarcastic and short with Lizzy at the best of times. Lizzy's recollections about her mother's low points come through flashback, scenes that reveal Kathy's character flaws as well as the emotional and physical abuse she inflicts on Lizzy. Despite Lizzy's words of encouragement, Kathy's alcoholism dominates her life, implied to be part of the reason that Kathy is an unfit mother, as much as her immature personality. Kathy's lack of discipline hints at additional psychological troubles, exacerbated by feelings that she has failed to raise her daughter as a mother should. Stranded on a dark road in the woods, and under the looming threat of being devoured by some shadowy monster, Kathy is forced to accept her role as a mother with her daughter's life on the line, adopting increasingly desperate plans of escape in the interest of saving Lizzy first and foremost. The monster becomes a metaphor for Kathy's less visceral demons; she is reluctant to acknowledge the existence of something sinister stalking them until it's presence is tangible.
The Monster subscribes to familiar tropes of the horror genre--it even takes place on a dark and stormy night. The long stretch of road through the woodlands is implied to be the unlikely detour route following some kind of accident on the main road, and it is completely devoid of traffic or other forms of civilization, raising the question as to just what kind of route Kathy was taking to Lizzy's father's home in the first place. When a tow truck operator named Jesse (Aaron Douglas) arrives at the scene, he loads their possessions into his truck, locks it, then notices that their car is in need of repair, requiring that he hitch it to the truck. This is a transparent set up so that when the inevitable attack by the monster comes, it justifies why they are unable to phone for help. The monster is obscured for the early portion of The Monster, and its existence is only implied after Kathy plucks an enlarged incisor from the neck of the wolf she struck with her car, evidence that the animal sustained serious wounds before to the accident. Even when the slowest ambulance in the world finally arrives, and the paramedics catch sight of Jesse's dismembered arm on the hood of Kathy's car, they separate and explore the woods despite Kathy's warnings--who has since been gnawed on by the beast--with predictable results. The monster is a hulking monstrosity whose origins are left to the audience's imagination--it might be some escaped science experiment, an alien, or some ancient thing that has always dwelt in the dark and forbidden reaches of nature. It resembles a hairless ape with the massive skull of a wolfhound, covered in leathery black skin, with bulging, dark purple eyes and an angry maw of long fangs. The creature is drawn to sound, and aggressively pounces on its prey, rending and gnashing at flesh with brutal savagery. Whatever the monster is, it embodies a variety of nightmarish traits, from its murderous violence, its predilection to darkness, and even its uncanny cleverness--a composite of the terrible things that go bump in the night.
Recommended for: Fans of a monster movie that embraces horror movie tropes, while establishing parallels between fantasy monsters and abusive parents. The Monster approaches explores domestic violence with seriousness and gravity, from the point of view of both the victim and the abuser.
The Monster subscribes to familiar tropes of the horror genre--it even takes place on a dark and stormy night. The long stretch of road through the woodlands is implied to be the unlikely detour route following some kind of accident on the main road, and it is completely devoid of traffic or other forms of civilization, raising the question as to just what kind of route Kathy was taking to Lizzy's father's home in the first place. When a tow truck operator named Jesse (Aaron Douglas) arrives at the scene, he loads their possessions into his truck, locks it, then notices that their car is in need of repair, requiring that he hitch it to the truck. This is a transparent set up so that when the inevitable attack by the monster comes, it justifies why they are unable to phone for help. The monster is obscured for the early portion of The Monster, and its existence is only implied after Kathy plucks an enlarged incisor from the neck of the wolf she struck with her car, evidence that the animal sustained serious wounds before to the accident. Even when the slowest ambulance in the world finally arrives, and the paramedics catch sight of Jesse's dismembered arm on the hood of Kathy's car, they separate and explore the woods despite Kathy's warnings--who has since been gnawed on by the beast--with predictable results. The monster is a hulking monstrosity whose origins are left to the audience's imagination--it might be some escaped science experiment, an alien, or some ancient thing that has always dwelt in the dark and forbidden reaches of nature. It resembles a hairless ape with the massive skull of a wolfhound, covered in leathery black skin, with bulging, dark purple eyes and an angry maw of long fangs. The creature is drawn to sound, and aggressively pounces on its prey, rending and gnashing at flesh with brutal savagery. Whatever the monster is, it embodies a variety of nightmarish traits, from its murderous violence, its predilection to darkness, and even its uncanny cleverness--a composite of the terrible things that go bump in the night.
Recommended for: Fans of a monster movie that embraces horror movie tropes, while establishing parallels between fantasy monsters and abusive parents. The Monster approaches explores domestic violence with seriousness and gravity, from the point of view of both the victim and the abuser.