Despite the name and the fact that there are monsters roaming around and causing chaos Monsters isn’t actually about monsters at all. It’s more of a slow paced and thoughtful film about 2 people trying to make their way through a disaster zone which just happens to have great big alien monsters in it.

There’s not a whole lot of focus on the monsters or where they came from other than a bit of exposition which is just text on the screen at the start of the film. 6 years ago a NASA probe found signs of life and brought it back to Earth, unfortunately it broke up on re-entry and spread the alien sample over Mexico, which parts of have now become an infected zone with huge alien monsters roaming around. From there we go in to the film which starts with a low light sequence where we see a group of soldiers being attacked by a monster, gainy, greenlight so not a lot of detail but the fight ends with an airstrike being called in and killing the creature and destroying a building.

Then we go to Kaulder, a photographer trying to get shots of the creature, he’s working for a magazine and wants a shot of a live creature because they’re hard to get. When he gets a phone call from his boss, the daughter of the owner of the magazine is in Mexico and he wants her returned home safely and it’s Kaulder’s job to find her and make sure she’s on a boat home. From there it’s pretty much he finds her, they get to the harbour, book a ticket for her to go home, then go out for a drink, and Samantha and Kaulder are starting to enjoy each other’s company. He tries to worm his way in to her bed but she turns him down. So he goes out and gets completely wasted. Cut to the next morning when she goes to wake him, and ask if he’d like to get a coffee before she leaves, only to find he spent the night with another woman and leaves upset. After chases after her they go back to his room they find the girl has robbed them, taken their money, the ticket and passports. Which leavs them with the one option; travelling through the infected zone to get back to the US.

Not the greatest of plot summaries there, but it’s not the easiest film to sum up really. It’s very much about the natural performances of the two leads, the predicament of travelling through a disaster struck area and how something as extraordinary so quickly becomes ordinary and forgettable when it’s just your every day reality. Sure there are plot holes, such as Sam’s father is rich, why not just ring him and get everything sorted and fly around the infected zone? But it’s nothing that ruins the film. It’s simply a quiet film about 2 people trying to get where they’re going in a dangerous situation, punctuated by the occasional monster smashing things up.

I wasn’t really going to mention the budget because it’s not really something you’re going to notice. This film was done on the cheap. Very cheap. Somewhere between £10,000 and £500,000. The writer/director doesn’t even know what it cost. And I’d say aside from one effects shot at the start you’d be hard pushed to spot anything that makes it look especially cheap. So Monsters isn’t something that’s especially ground breaking in terms of plot or anything, but in terms of what can be done on a budget it really is and as long as you’re not going in expecting a fast paced action film I’d say most people would really enjoy it.

Score 4/5