Monsters is guerilla filmmaking at its best.
An amazing achievement for a ‘first-time’ filmmaker, which measures up to the finest indies for performance and character-work, and the biggest blockbusters for jaw-dropping effects. And it has the year’s best sex scene, too.
In the end, however, this is a good-looking and well-intentioned film, rather than a good and well-made one.
What’s most striking about the film is the way in which it smartly undermines audience expectations by overturning genre conventions. Terrific.
A masterpiece of high-amp anxiety.
Keeps the tension high and the thrills coming.
It should be commended for what’s been achieved on a tiny budget, with a wonderful sense of mood and place, but there just isn’t enough incident.
The most audacious debut since The Blair Witch Project. As a film it’s a couple of notches shy of a masterpiece, but as an achievement it’s completely without precedent.
It’s a gorgeous and unsettling ride.
This is a very postmodern sci-fi, with its downbeat approach to the monsters themselves, but with a hugely involving love story.
Edwards strikes exactly the right balance between story and effects. A true original.
Assured, enthralling and beautifully made.
Monsters works first and foremost as a moving character drama, one that has been enhanced by the presence of its alien elements, not seduced by them.
Monsters is a bit too subdued and uneventful for its own good.
Tiny but encouraging.
Small budget. Big Ideas.
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General release. Check local listings for show times.
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