Monsters

Released by: Magnolia Pictures
Released on: 2/1/2011
Director: Gareth Edwards
Cast: Scoot McNairy, Whitney Able
Year: 2010
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The Movie:

Gareth Edwards managed to make Monsters for under half a million dollars. While to many indy filmmakers out there that sounds like a lot of money, when you see what he's accomplished here, you'll figure his film cost a lot more. Shot on a single camera by the smallest crew imaginable, Edwards' film isn't the effects heavy monster mash that the cover art implies it might be, instead it's a clever character driven drama set in a not all together unrealistic alternate reality.

When the movie begins, a few text screens bring us up to speed - a NASA space craft was returning from a mission with specimens of alien life forms aboard when it crashed over Mexico. As such, the jungles of South America were 'contaminated' and the aliens that were on board the ship readily adapted to their new surroundings. The United States decided to build a massive wall around its border to keep the squid-like beasts out, which also succeeded in keeping out whatever human's might want to cross over. The Mexicans, however, simply learned to adapt.

Here we meet a photojournalist named Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) who gets caught up in the natural migration of the aliens in the area that takes place when mating season arrives and is more than a little excited about getting some great shots of it all going down. The train on his parade arrives in the form of Samantha (Whitney Able), the very pretty daughter of Andrew's boss who is in need of an escort back to the United States as per daddy's request. Andrew begrudgingly agrees, knowing that bringing this woman back to the border to run home to her fiancé isn't going to be such a good time. As they start to travel together, however, their shared experiences start to change their respective views on things and when they miss the ferry back to the States and have to make the journey through the infected jungles on foot, the inevitably wind up learning all sorts of things about themselves and their surroundings.

If the ending sounds corny and cliché ridden, well, on paper it is but Edwards ties this all up quite nicely. Thanks to some well written characters and two entirely believable performances from his two leads, his movie has a realism to it that makes it work. While the CGI rendered monsters don't always take your breath away, the Lovecraftian squid creatures are still pretty impressive in their own right and provide some welcome spectacle against the lush greens of the jungle, but it's the acting here that brings this one home. You'll have no trouble accepting these two in their respective roles and much of the film's success is because of their efforts.

Edwards was also smart enough to employ a good editor here. Much of the dialogue was improvised on the spot so it would have been easy to simply let the camera keep rolling and use as much of the footage as possible but the movie is a trim ninety-three minutes and doesn't over stay its welcome. There's enough action and suspense worked in between the quieter, character driven moments to earn the film some genre credibility while the film's political leanings deliver a message that is both timely and thought provoking.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Magnolia offers up Monsters in a good AVC encoded 2.35.1 widescreen 1080p high definition transfer that does a very nice job handling the visual side of things. In the extras we learn that the film was shot pretty much entirely with a handheld camera and without the luxury of professional lighting set ups, so there are some shots that aren't quite as crisp as others and a few bits here and there that are a little on the dark side but generally the image is surprisingly strong here. Detail is consistently sharp and color reproduction always looks very strong, effectively capturing the humidity of the jungles and the dustiness of the rubble where the film plays out. Again, there are scenes where it isn't perfect, but for the most part Monsters looks far better than most will probably expect it to given its origins.

The only audio option on this Blu-ray release is an English language DTS-HD 7.1 Master Audio mix, but thankfully you don't need anything else. Optional English and Spanish subtitles are provided. While this film doesn't have the action set pieces that bigger budgeted pictures do, there are a couple of standout set pieces where the full spectrum of your surround sound system will be kicking along. The quieter scenes, of which there are quite a few actually, sound good and demonstrate effective rear channel use for ambient noise, while bass response is pretty thick and heavy when called for. Dialogue is always easy to understand and there are no problems at all with any hiss or distortion or weird fluctuations. Monsters sounds pretty great, really.

There are a lot of extras here and all of them are presented in either 1080i or 1080p high definition, which is a nice touch. Directed Gareth Edwards starts things off with a commentary track where he's joined by cast members Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able. There's some obvious affection for one another here as this warm track comes across as three friends telling a story more than a formal, structured chat but this is a good thing as long with the facts, figures and trivia we get some good natured humor which makes this both interesting and amusing.

Behind The Scenes Of Monsters is a massive seventy minute featurette that, as the title implies, takes us behind the scenes of the movie as it was being made. Through fly on the wall footage and more structured interview segments we get a look at Edwards' shooting style and get a peek at some of the various set pieces being put together. This really gives us a sense of just how minimalist this movie was in so many ways, which makes it all the more impressive that Edwards pulled it off as effectively as he did.

Monsters: The Edit lets the film's editor, Colin Goudie, talk about how he was tasked with sorting the hours upon hours of footage, much of which was improvised on the spot by the two cast members, into a coherent and structured film. You'll definitely gain some respect for the job by watching this as it hammers home just how important editing is to the finished product. Up next we get a thirty five minute segment on the Visual Effects that appear in the film, hosted by Edwards who explains how he used digital video and related technologies to bring the creatures to life in the film with minimal financial resources at hand. Edwards is also the subject of his own solo interview in which he talks for forty-five minutes about why he decided to make this project and why he decided to do it the way he did. He goes into quite a bit of detail here about the movie's themes and ideas and talks about the science behind it all, covering quite a bit of different ground from that which he covers in the commentary. McNairy and Able, who are a married couple in real life, also talk for twenty-eight minutes about their experiences on set, working so closely with Edwards, and about their respective characters.

Rounding out the extras are twenty-minutes of deleted scenes, a five minute Q&A session with Edwards from the 2010 San Diego Comic Con, a four minute HD Net promo spot for the film, trailers for various Magnolia Pictures releases, animated menus and chapter selection.

The Final Word:

Not the slam bang creature feature that the cover art or title may have you believe it is, Monsters is never the less quite an interesting movie that does a great job of bringing us into the characters' lives and sucking us into the drama that inevitably unfolds. Magnolia's Blu-ray release looks and sounds great and contains a pretty staggering selection of extra features, making this one that fans of cerebral sci-fi should be on the lookout for.

Click the images below for full size Blu-ray screen caps!