The Monster 2017: Movie Review

The Monster was an unexpectedly amazing film, and most definitely worth a watch. While not "horror," in the classic sense, that one may assume from the cover and the standard synopsis, The Monster takes viewers on an exceptionally personal and dramatic journey that will be hard to forget.

The story follows a young mother and her daughter who are driving to visit the father. As the rules of horror movies predicts, they end up driving down a deserted, forested road at night, only to have their car break down and spend the rest of the movie being stalked by a monster. They must then choose to confront the monster or be eaten alive.

I'll stop there so as not to give away any spoilers.

While that may sound like a pretty standard horror movie plot, the story takes on a much deeper theme about the rocky relationship between a mother and daughter.

If you're looking for cheap thrills from a b-budget horror movie, you may be disappointed. The Monster is more of a story of a mother and daughter -- that just happens to have a giant Monster in it. The movie tackles sensitive topics such as alcoholism, parenthood, and child neglect -- the real monsters that any of us may have to confront in real life.

The cast consists primarily of 2 actresses, the mother (Zoe Kazan) and the daughter (Ella Ballentine), both of whom put on an incredible performance that will move you to tears. Despite being made with a clearly not-so-high budget, the movie successfully provides suspense, drama, and a few good scares.

In short, The Monster combines incredible acting, lovely cinematography, and a Monster for an emotional roller-coaster that may be difficult to recover from.

Final Rating: 6/10

To be honest, I absolutely love this movie in its entirety. However, I have to be honest about the sub-par production quality, for which I subtracted points.

Distributor: A24
Production companies: Atlas Independent, Unbroken Pictures
Cast: Zoe Kazan, Ella Ballentine, Aaron Douglas, Scott Speedman
Director-writer: Bryan Bertino
Producers: William Green, Aaron L. Ginsburg, Bryan Bertino, Adrienne Biddle
Executive producers: Richard Suckle, Sonny Mallhi, Charles Auty, Ted Cawrey, Vaishali Patel, Simon Williams
Director of photography: Julie Kirkwood
Production designer: Shane Boucher
Costume designer: Jennifer Stroud
Editor: Maria Gonzales
Music: Tom Hajdu, Andy Milburn
Casting director: Ilona Smyth

Rated R, 91 minutes