MONSTER

2008 / Director. Erik Estenberg.

MONSTER is The Asylum's attempt to cash in on CLOVERFIELD. Known for their mockbusters MONSTER is one of their smartest exploits, financially speaking. The entire movie is presented as found footage from a video camera of two American sisters who are caught in Tokyo during a gigantic monster attack. At first it's assumed to be an earthquake until glimpses of mammoth tentacles are captured engulfing buildings. I said that it's a smart movie but not because of it's story or it's writing (they're terrible) but because it was made for next to no budget and yet would have sold units to retailers worldwide, this raking in a small fortune for The Asylum. The footage presents a chaotic and destructive atmosphere but close attention will realise that this is all captured with the simple use of a shaky camera and glitchy footage. Any special FX are brief and concealed from the erratic nature of the footage. With constant screaming, sirens and rumble saturating the audio track the film feels frantic when it's really not. Of course MONSTER isn't a patch on CLOVERFIELD and the acting is atrocious, but it's an enjoyable knock-off if you're in a forgiving frame of mind. When the creature is seen, the FX aren't too shabby and fleeting glimpses of fighter jets and destruction are well conceived. There was plenty of room for this movie to be so much better but the Asylum are never about being good. Get yourself shit-faced and take a shot of whiskey every time the two sisters say "but we're Americans" and you might just wake up in the ER getting your stomach pumped. 

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