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The Monster [2016] – Movie Review (4/5)

Posted by Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard | Nov 16, 2016 | 4 minutes

The Monster  is a very tough movie to watch, because your heart goes out to the characters, but it’s also a wonderful horror movie with a real monster!

When I first heard about  The Monster,  I wasn’t sure whether the monster was actually real. I mean, I thought maybe it was more of a metaphor. Or that maybe the entire purpose of the movie was to find out if the monster existed.

Well, fear not, the monster is indeed very real!

Of course, the more underlying themes of this movie will show you that the  actual monster  isn’t the only monster in the story.

For almost the entire duration of the story, we only see a mother and daughter interact. A few other characters join in briefly, but otherwise, it’s just the two of them. Well, and then the monster itself, obviously.

This requires thrilling and engaging storytelling  and  some very believable and relatable acting from its two stars. Fortunately, Zoe Kazan more than delivers as the alcoholic mother, while Ella Ballentine is heartbreaking as the daughter.

We watched another movie with a very dysfunctional parent/child dynamic recently – an indie horror thriller called  The Id  –  so it seemed all too familiar.

Basically,  The Monster  shows you how things can go desperately wrong at an early point.  The Id  shows us what happens if the child and parent never part ways.

That’s why it was both sad  and  very good that the daughter in  The Monster  is leaving to go be with her father. It’s supposed to be a visit, but the mother knows her daughter won’t return.

In other words, the car ride to the father’s house is their last time together. They both know this and – more importantly – accept and understand why it has to be this way.

The mother (Zoe Kazan) is an alcoholic, who desperately needs help, but so far seems to insist on making it by herself. As anyone who’s been around kids of addicts will tell you, this means the kids end up being mini adults.

You can throw all the monsters you want at me, but  this is the real terror . People can and (unfortunately!) do lead lives as portrayed in this movie.

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About The Author

Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard

I write reviews and recaps on Heaven of Horror. And yes, it does happen that I find myself screaming, when watching a good horror movie. I love psychological horror, survival horror and kick-ass women. Also, I have a huge soft spot for a good horror-comedy. Oh yeah, and I absolutely HATE when animals are harmed in movies, so I will immediately think less of any movie, where animals are harmed for entertainment (even if the animals are just really good actors). Fortunately, horror doesn't use this nearly as much as comedy. And people assume horror lovers are the messed up ones. Go figure!

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‘The Monster’ Review: Zoe Kazan Shines in Bryan Bertino’s Latest

It's no 'The Strangers,' but still a solid effort from Bertino.

Eight years after the release of The Strangers , director Bryan Bertino shifts his focus from masked home invaders to a menacing creature in the woods. The Monster doesn’t quite live up to the expectations The Strangers set, but it’s still brimming with distinctive, commendable work that continues to prove that Bertino is a filmmaker capable of adding new, thoughtful layers to familiar situations.

Zoe Kazan leads as Kathy, a divorced mother taking her young daughter Lizzy ( Ella Ballentine ) to her dad. Things are tense between the two courtesy of Kathy’s drinking problem, short fuse and her contentious relationship with Lizzy’s father, but their road trip soon takes an even darker turn when they become stranded on an isolated road deep in the woods, right where a bloodthirsty monster lurks.

Similar to The Strangers , The Monster benefits from keeping the focus on two characters and one location. Despite what the title might suggest, this isn’t a movie about the monster. It’s about Kathy and Lizzy’s relationship, and how their dynamic comes into play during their fight for survival. That means we don’t learn all that much about the monster. While some might grow frustrated with the lack of background information regarding where the creature came from, what it wants/needs, etc., the essence of this movie is the mother/daughter relationship, and there’s no doubt that dishing out answers about the monster would have done a major disservice to the characters and what makes the movie as a whole stand out.

Kazan and Ballentine make a downright fantastic pair. The Monster continues to let Kazan show off some serious range while also proving how well she can headline a film. One might expect a character like Kathy to be portrayed as a classic antihero of sorts - a good person who’s made some bad decisions - but Bertino doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that, at times, Kathy is a truly awful parent. She drinks excessively, isn’t there for Lizzy when she needs her, and often acts like a child herself. Kathy is a young mother and the movie highlights that in an extremely visceral and sometimes hard-to-watch manner. For instance, there’s one flashback of a yelling match between Kathy and Lizzy that’s both heartbreaking and disturbing, especially when Bertino reminds you how severely these arguments will shape Lizzy going forward.

The Monster is peppered with flashbacks offering backstory on how Kathy and Lizzy wind up in their current position. These scenes are at their best when they highlight the mother/daughter dynamic and resonate in a way that challenges you to consider how that past behavior will affect them during their present predicament. Not all of them work that well - like one that introduces Scott Speedman as Lizzy’s father for a matter of seconds, something that only would have been worthwhile if he was featured in more of the film - but for the most part, the balance between flashbacks and current material do offer just enough character detail to keep you fully invested in Kathy and Lizzy’s fight for survival.

Thankfully the powerful performances and all-consuming atmosphere are enough to hold your attention because The Monster is a bit on the slow side, but appropriately so. The movie doesn’t just show you the most eventful moments from their night stranded in the middle of nowhere. Bertino lets sequences breathe, building a good deal of suspense and tension, and also giving the movie a more grounded, realistic feeling - or at least as “realistic” as one might imagine. It’s a unique and commendable approach to this type of film, but at the same time, there’s no denying that Bertino could have ramped things up a little as far as pacing goes.

As for the monster itself, Bertino and his team deserve credit for creating a menacing and terrifying practical beast, but for as good as the monster looks in most scenes, there are occasions when it catches a little too much light for its own good, revealing a rubbery quality to the design. And even though the movie benefits from the simplicity of the narrative, a few more facts about the nature of the creature likely would have enhanced the experience, perhaps even leaving you with more to think about after it wraps up, something that the movie desperately needs. Bertino almost pulls off a meaningful ending for his characters, but there’s one particular plot point towards the tail end of the film that seriously detracts from their journey and nearly completely derails Kathy as a character.

Overall, The Monster is a chilling movie that showcases two fantastic performances and the work of a filmmaker who’s willing to take some risks and makes it a priority to truly envelop the viewer in a nightmarish situation. It’s an engaging and worthy watch that teases great potential in everyone involved.

The Monster will be available on DirecTV on October 6th, and will be in theaters and On Demand on November 11th .

‘Monster’ Review: Kore-eda Hirokazu Hides Surprise Plea for Acceptance Beneath Much Darker Themes

A tricksy timeline and the selective unveiling of crucial information keeps audiences from guessing where this convoluted portrait of a pre-teen in turmoil might be headed.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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In film after film, from “Nobody Knows” to “Shoplifters,” Japanese master Kore-eda Hirokazu has proven himself to be among the medium’s most humanistic directors, inclined to see the best in people, especially children. So how to reconcile the way “ Monster ” makes us feel?

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When the explanation for Minato’s behavior finally does emerge, it comes from left field, but pulls so many of the movie’s other mysteries together … except for one: Why would Kore-eda choose such a convoluted way of telling this particular story? By sharing only select pieces of each character’s private life, he all but obliges us to leap to incorrect conclusions, distracting with topics such as bullying, aggression and suicide when the real subject — how children are socialized, and the unfair pressures this puts on anyone who doesn’t fit the norm — is so much simpler than any of the intriguing dimensions teased along the way.

When Saori finally realizes something’s wrong, she calls a meeting with the school principal (Tanaka Yuko). Believing Minato’s claim that Mr. Hori is responsible for the way he feels, Saori demands to know what kind of school lets a teacher insult and hit the students. As the slight wisps of one of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s last compositions underscores her concern, Saori’s heart (and ours) breaks a little to hear her son say, “My brain was switched with a pig’s.”

Obviously, someone must have put that idea in Minato’s head, but we can’t possibly know enough at this point to comprehend his turmoil. The malicious “pig’s brain” comment eventually traces back to a hardly seen side character. The trouble is, Minato believes it about himself, and fear of being found out drives a wedge in his friendship with Yori — a theme previous explored in last year’s Cannes breakout “Close.” Neither film quite knows how to deal with the idea that some kids can sense at a very young age when they’re not wired like their peers, and so long as prepubescent queerness remains such a touchy subject, identifying as such remains incredibly difficult.

About 45 minutes into the film, Kore-eda allows us to think something terrible has happened to Minato amid a typhoon, before resetting the timeline and taking another look from Mr. Hori’s vantage. There’s a “Rashomon” quality to that strategy, although the events themselves don’t change, only the perspective does, as Kore-eda demonstrates how easy it is to jump to false conclusions about other people (especially when misdirected to do so by a manipulative screenplay). In short order, we realize Minato misled his mother. “Monster” is less clear about why the boy might have lied, subtly observing as Mr. Hori teases his students with remarks like “Are you a real man?” and assigns them essays about who they want to marry when they grow up.

In the third and final run-through, Kore-eda rewinds and replays things once again, this time with a more omniscient understanding of his characters’ motives. We learn that the school principal, whom Saori witnessed tripping a rambunctious child at the local supermarket, has a devastating secret of her own. In the film’s most touching scene, Minato confesses to her, and she assures him, “Happiness is something anyone can have.” From here on, “Monster” stops messing with us and reveals its message. The typhoon hits town for a third time, and instead of suggesting that the boy might be in danger — of self-harm or drowning — the sun comes out. And so does Minato’s secret. “Monster” might have ended terribly, when in fact, Kore-eda’s humanist instinct has been at work all along.

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (Competition), May 17, 2023. Running time: 125 MIN. (Original title: “Kaibutsu”)

• Production: (Japan) A Toho Co. Ltd., Fuji Television Network Inc., Gaga Corporation, Aoi Pro. Inc., Bun-Buku Inc. presentation of an Aoi Pro. Inc production. (World sales: Goodfellas, Paris.) Producers: Kawamura Genki, Yamada Kenji, Banse Megumi, Ito Taichi, Taguchi Hijiri. Executive producers: Ichikawa Minami, Oota Toru, Tom Yoda, Ushioda Hajime, Kore-eda Hirokazu. Co-executive producer: Usui Hisaishi.
• Crew: Director: Kore-eda Hirokazu. Screenplay: Sakamoto Yuji. Camera: Kondo Ryuto. Editor: Kore-eda Hirokazu. Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto.
• With: Mugino Saori, Hori Michitoshi, Mugino Minato, Hoshikawa Yori, Fushimi Makiko.

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Monster review – Hirokazu Kore-eda’s hydra of modern morals and manners

Japanese director Kore-eda offers a deliberately dense but ultimately hopeful examination of how to negotiate family dysfunction with intelligence and humanity

H irokazu Kore-eda challenges us with intricacy and complexity in this family drama about bullying, homophobia, family dysfunction, uncritical respect for flawed authority, and social media rumour-mongering; all working together to create a monster of wrongness. Kore-eda is collaborating with screenwriter Yûji Sakamoto and the late composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose score creates a layer of nuance and meaning. Its plangent, sad piano chords will often counterintuitively be added to a scene of apparent drama or tension, implying that the meaning of this scene has not yet been disclosed. Monster is a movie that does not render up its meanings easily in general, and its repeated motif is to replay the same events from a different viewpoint; in another type of film this might deliver the smooth and gratifying narrative click of a twist-reveal falling into place, but here it has a way of raising more questions than answers.

The action begins with a building burning to the ground, a dramatic blaze against the night sky, and this spectacular event makes a convenient starting point when the action is replayed. The building was the site of a sleazy hostess-bar, and a scandalous rumour runs around that local schoolteacher Mr Hori (Eita Nagayami) was one of the customers. Single mum Saori (Sakura Ando) has heard this tale and is thus perhaps already disposed to think ill of the man; her son Minato (Soya Kurokawa) then comes home from school saying that Mr Hori has humiliated him with a bizarre “pig brain” insult (or has Minato appropriated that insult from elsewhere?), and the teacher also appears to have hit him.

Furious Saori storms into the office of the principal (Yûko Tanaka) – a woman already almost catatonic with grief for a dead grandson – demanding an explanation, and the school attempts to fob her off with a bizarrely formal, legalistic apology, complete with bowing from Hori and three colleagues. This is an event so utterly insincere and irrelevant to her request for a clear explanation that Saori only becomes more livid. But then mumbling Mr Hori snaps, and tells her that Minato was bullying another child: sensitive, imaginative Eri (Hinata Hiiragi).

This claim is apparently substantiated and then un-substantiated with flashbacks and point-of-view shifts showing various classroom events from different angles, and we see more of the boys’ relationship, incubated by their shared secret place: a (possibly rather romantically imagined) abandoned railway carriage in the nearby urban wilderness. The children appear to have a hidden capacity for spite, violence and self-harm, which creates a miasma of fear in the lives of the adults, while the schoolteachers are trying to cover up a situation that could damage their professional reputations. The parent involved is trying to do the opposite: to uncover and get at some extraordinary and scary truth.

Monster isn’t about what it initially appears to be; the narrative peels away the diversionary misapprehensions until it arrives at its emotional kernel of truth, and the film offers us hope, not despair. The performances from Sakura Ando, Eita Nagayami and the boys have a calm frankness and integrity. As for the story itself, it is arguably a little contrived with a thicket of mystery that perhaps didn’t need to be so dense. But this is a film created with a great moral intelligence and humanity.

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‘monster’ review: hirokazu kore-eda measures the weight of bullying on childhood friendship in tender but diffuse drama.

The director’s first film made in Japan since his 2018 Palme d’Or-winning ‘Shoplifters’ applies the Rashomon effect to a story of fractured families and boys seeking connection.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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The movie opens with a blazing fire lighting up the night sky, destroying a building in a small regional city (the unidentified setting is Suwa on the shores of a lake in the Nagano prefecture). One floor of the building houses a hostess bar, and the rumored presence there that night of a new teacher at a local elementary school, Mr. Hori (Eita Nagayama), deepens the shadow cast across him through much of the narrative.

Nearby resident Saori (Sakura Ando, from Shoplifters ) watches with her preteen son Minato (Soya Kurokawa) from their apartment balcony as fire engines converge on the scene. Saori is a sharp-edged but loving mother living on modest means; she encourages Minato to honor his late father’s memory, humoring him with his fanciful questions about reincarnation.

A thread running through the original screenplay by Yuji Sakamoto illustrates how traditional Japanese reticence can muddy the truth, whether out of formality, shame or the desire to spare someone’s feelings. This comes through in the invigoratingly spiky scenes where a fired-up Saori confronts the carefully composed school principal, Fushimi (Yuko Tanaka), a dignified older woman who recently lost her grandson in tragic circumstances. She acknowledges the school’s responsibility, but reveals little, reading prepared statements before stepping away and leaving Saori to deal with three men on the faculty.

When Hori humbly apologies, first directly to Saori and then in front of the assembled 5th grade students’ parents, the matter would appear to be closed. But a shift from the perspective of Saori to Hori reveals the situation to be not so straightforward, raising questions about Minato’s relationship with another student, Yori (Hinata Hiragi). That kid is a frequent target of class bullying, being raised by his divorced father, a possibly abusive drunk.

Sakamoto’s screenplay builds low-key intrigue by intimating that the teachers feel they are being quietly crucified, shouldering blame for false transgressions to keep complaining parents quiet and avoid reprisals from the education board. This is echoed in the rumor that Fushimi has kept her professional reputation intact by scapegoating her husband in the death of their grandson.

In one beautiful scene, Principal Fushimi and Minato guardedly unburden themselves to each other, providing valuable insight into the social constraints on both adult and child. But it’s primarily in the interludes of refuge shared by Minato and Yori, roaming the woods or hanging out in an abandoned train carriage there, that the boys find sanctuary and the movie gets past its cumbersome structure to transmit Kore-eda’s characteristic empathy and tenderness.

Performances are lovely across the board, reaping rewards from the director’s unimpeachable skill at working with children. The visuals are unfussy and naturalistic but emotionally resonant in images like the two friends running joyfully across a stretch of sun-dappled green. The drama is complemented throughout by a gentle score of piano and occasional atonal horns by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, to whom the film, his final project, is dedicated.

Monster is not a major Kore-eda entry, no doubt withholding too much to work completely, but for admirers of the director’s films, there are pleasures to be found.

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‘Monster’ Review: Three Perspectives, One Truth

This drama from Hirokazu Kore-eda traces a series of events from the perspectives of a single mother, her preteen son and his fifth-grade teacher.

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By Natalia Winkelman

The stretch of time that unfurls in the sublime Japanese drama “Monster” begins with a fire and ends during a monsoon. These elemental disasters, and a fragile cluster of events that fall between them, are viewed from the perspectives of three characters entwined in a messy struggle for understanding: a boy, a mother and a teacher.

Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda (“Broker,” “Shoplifters”) and written by Yuji Sakamoto, “Monster” opens as Minato (Soya Kurokawa), a sensitive preteen, begins fifth grade. His single mom, Saori (Sakura Ando), grows concerned when Minato comes home distressed and with injuries. She soon casts blame on his teacher, Hori (Eita Nagayama), who is fired over the accusation.

A master of family affairs, Kore-eda directs with a discerning but delicate style, and “Monster,” with its triptych structure, initially feels more schematic than is typical of his works. There is a deep pleasure, though, in marrying this screenplay’s layered form with Kore-eda’s sensitivity and low-key naturalism. While the film’s first segment gestures at science fiction — Minato insists his brain was replaced with a pig’s — the second seamlessly pivots into something Kafkaesque. That’s all before Minato’s point of view excavates the story’s essential truths.

Lovingly detailed and accented by an aching score from Ryuichi Sakamoto , who died in March, “Monster” is one of the finest films of the year, and its structure — like its circle of characters — carries secrets that can only be unraveled through patience and empathy. Put a different way: It’s easy to call someone a monster before you squelch a muddy mile in their shoes.

Monster Rated PG-13. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes. In theaters.

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Movie Review: A heist movie that gleefully collides with a monster movie in ‘Abigail’

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Alisha Weir in a scene from the film “Abigail.” (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows William Catlett, Melissa Barrera, Kevin Durand and Kathryn Newton in a scene from the film “Abigail.” (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Melissa Barrera and Dan Stevens in a scene from the film “Abigail.” (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Melissa Barrera and Alisha Weir in a scene from the film “Abigail.” (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Alisha Weir and Kathryn Newton in a scene from the film “Abigail.” (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Angus Cloud, Kathryn Newton, Alisha Weir, Kevin Durand, Dan Stevens, Melissa Barrera and William Catlett in a scene from the film “Abigail.” (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

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If you always thought your garden-variety heist movies could do with a bit more blood-sucking vampire, have we got a flick for you.

“Abigail,” featuring a 12-year-old tutu-wearing member of the undead, is way better than it should be, a gleeful genre-smashing romp through puddles of gore.

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and producer Chad Villella — part of Radio Silence Productions — have cracked the modern horror code with such hits as “Ready or Not,” “Scream” and “Scream VI.” They do not disappoint with “Abigail,” even perhaps opening a new, bloody revenue stream. (And wait for the phone call scene, a nod to “Scream.”)

“Abigail” starts with an odd assortment of mercenaries — played by “Scream” veteran Melissa Barrera, “Downton Abbey” star Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, Kevin Durand, William Catlett and the late Angus Cloud .

The six — representing the muscle, sniper, computer expert, getaway driver, medic etc — are hired to kidnap a rich preteen (nicknamed “Tiny Dancer”) and hold her for ransom. The rules are: No names. No backstory. No grabass, which is a weird request, if we’re being honest. All this group needs to do is detain the target for 24 hours until rich dad pays $50 million in ransom.

Why are six professional underworld characters needed to snatch and detain a sweet preteen, still wearing her tutu? That’s easy: Not all of them are going to survive to claim their share of $7 million. That’s because Abigail (Alisha Weir, awesome, stay away from me, no seriously) is really into, well, neckwork.

“I’m sorry about what’s going to happen to you,” Abigail sweetly tells the kidnappers. We have some idea — and it’s going to be great. Suddenly, the rambling estate they’re holding her becomes a prison. The tables are turned.

The script written by Stephen Shields (“The Hole in the Ground”) and regular Radio Silence collaborator Guy Busick (“Ready or Not” and the “Scream” movies) — gleefully mines humor in the horror. Laughing a moment after a body fully explodes is normal here.

“This whole thing is a trip,” says one of the gang. Believe them. “Something doesn’t add up,” says another. Believe that guy, too.

Garlic, sunlight, spears and crucifixes are employed to try to stop Abigail, who has hijacked the heist movie and turned it into a run-for-your-life thriller. She’s a very smart 12-year-old who turns hardened mercenaries against each other.

Barrera, who had been so central to the life of the “Scream” franchise, shows why she’s so good at horror — funny, sarcastic, vulnerable, athletic, soulful and very convincing with a stake in her hand.

Angus Cloud, Kathryn Newton, Alisha Weir, Kevin Durand, Dan Stevens, Melissa Barrera and William Catlett. (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

Stevens, who famously left the aristocratic “Downton Abbey” for better roles, may wonder what he’s doing here now, bathed in blood fighting a preteen vampire, but does an admirable job, definitely in on the camp.

But it’s Weir in the titular role who carries it, doing pirouettes and leaps as she chases the bad-guys-now-good guys to the theme of “Swan Lake” with blood dripping down her throat, rotten teeth and feathers in her hair. “I like to play with my food,” she says.

Run faster!

“Abigail,” a Universal Pictures release that hits theaters Friday, is rated R for “strong bloody violence and gore throughout, pervasive language and brief drug use.” Running time: 110 minutes. Three stars out of four.

MPAA definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Online: https://www.abigailmovie.com

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Stream and Watch Online

Looking to feast your eyes on " Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story " on your TV or mobile device at home? Finding a streaming service to buy, rent, download, or watch the drama TV series via subscription can be difficult, so we here at Moviefone want to help you out. We've compiled a list of streaming and cable services – including rental, purchase, and subscription options – along with the availability of "Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" on each platform. Now, before we get into the various whats and wheres of how you can watch "Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" right now, here are some details about the Netflix show. Originally premiering September 21st, 2022, "Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" stars . The series runs 1 season(s), and has a score of 80 (out of 100) on TMDB, which put together reviews from 2,420 top people. You probably already know what the show's about, but just in case... Here’s the plot: "This series examines the gruesome and horrific true crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer and the systemic failures that enabled one of America’s most notorious serial killers to continue his murderous spree in plain sight for over a decade." "Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" is currently available to stream via subscription, rental, or purchase on Netflix , and Netflix basic with Ads .

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Charlize Theron gives a searing, deglamorized performance as real life serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster , an intense, disquieting portrait of a profoundly damaged soul.

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Infested review: a horror movie about spiders made me feel like it was 2020 again.

I'm hardly going to complain about a monster movie where the monsters, not the humans, feel underdeveloped. It plays so much better than the reverse.

• Infested is more than just a creature feature - it's a character-driven ensemble piece about disaster and community.
• The film explores pandemic-era themes like isolation and quarantine, along with police violence and racial discrimination.
• While the spiders in Infested are terrifying, the true source of tension comes from the well-developed characters and realistic horrors.

To call Infested ( Vermines ) a creature feature is both literally true and somewhat misleading. The French horror film by writer-director Sébastien Vaniček is, at the literal level, about an apartment building that becomes the hunting ground of absurdly dangerous spiders. But that's only part of what's going on in this movie, and perhaps its weakest element. The spiders aren't exactly shortchanged; arachnophobes will undoubtedly find this tough to sit through. They just aren't the true source of tension.

Infested (2024)

Fascinated by exotic animals, Kaleb finds a venomous spider in a bazaar and brings it back to his flat. It only takes a moment for it to escape and reproduce, turning the whole place into a dreadful web trap.

• Creates a compelling ensemble of well-developed characters
• Explores pandemic-era themes that really hit home
• The script grounds everything in reality
• The monsters end up overshadowed by more realistic horrors

Instead, Vaniček presents us with something better. Infested is a character-driven ensemble piece about a marginalized community visited by disaster , and how that disaster both tears them apart and brings them closer together. Faced with arachnid swarms, these people don't merely fear dying, but dying alone, without saying goodbye, or before making long-overdue amends. The film is savvily aware that the unreality of an overrun building pales in comparison to being trapped there by a too-plausible, police-enforced quarantine. Those expecting to sit down and switch off will find this monster movie more affecting than they bargained for.

Infested Actually Takes The Time To Develop Its Characters

So we really care when things take a turn.

After a killer prologue showing how smugglers catch these spiders in a Middle Eastern desert to sell on the black market, we meet Kaleb (Théo Christine), the poor soul who purchases one from the back room of a local shop. We follow him for some time before any carnage begins and come to understand his life, and the lives of those around him. His neighbors come from a wide range of racial and immigrant backgrounds. The building they live in is run-down, and opportunities for its inhabitants are limited.

If Infested suffers from anything, it's that Vaniček makes its characters and themes too real, and the monsters can't keep up. I'm still torn on whether that's a bug or a feature.

The narrow line Kaleb is trying to walk is quite skillfully drawn in Infested 's early scenes . He loves this place and these people; a love instilled in him by his mother, who has passed recently enough that the wound is hardly scabbed over. His sister, Manon (Lisa Nyarko), is fixing up their apartment herself to get it ready to sell, which he sees as a deep betrayal. He, instead, has started selling quality sneakers out of his storage locker, hoping for a path to financial stability that isn't on the harder side of crime.

He tries to nudge the other young men around him away from that, too, but the pressure is clearly there. And there's a gnawing sense that his good intentions might not matter — one neighbor, the building's voice for white male hostility, treats him like he's dealing drugs anyway. They certainly matter to us, though. The film's approach to dialogue gives every character we meet, however briefly, a touch of realism that grounds us in this world, but it's Kaleb's perspective that sells it. Seeing this community through his eyes gets us invested in it pretty quickly.

Which makes it all the more tragic that Kaleb's purchase proves its downfall. The spider is meant to be part of the collection of creatures (ranging from insects to frogs to fish to a rare scorpion) he keeps in his room, the endurance of a childhood dream. It doesn't stay in its box for long, and gets right to multiplying. Before Kaleb even notices it's gone, the first unsuspecting victim dies a painful, disfiguring death.

Infested Makes A Compelling Horror Movie About 2020

And undercuts its monsters in the process.

Infested , whether thematically or stylistically, recalls movies like Attack the Block , Cloverfield, and (occasionally) the 2022 French film Athena . But from the handling of this first death, which everyone at first assumes is due to some rare disease, I understood it first and foremost as a 2020 movie . The infestation isn't purely a metaphor for the pandemic, but the imagery of isolation and quarantine makes the parallel pretty clear. And the film's interest in the distrust this immediately sows between these tight-knit people puts that imagery to good use.

I say 2020 movie, not pandemic movie , because police violence gets equal attention. The racial makeup of this building's inhabitants and the discrimination they face is already text when cops in riot gear are dispatched to deal with the potential deadly outbreak. Sequences follow that make very clear how the institutions supposedly protecting and serving these people end up hurting them, even if at first by tragically misunderstanding the threat. Another example of good intentions not amounting to much.

If Infested suffers from anything, it's that Vaniček makes its characters and themes too real, and the monsters can't keep up . I'm still torn on whether that's a bug or a feature. That a fantastical horror film scenario should feel less scary than horrific things we've lived through is only natural, and would look pretty good as a movie's "point," if that's what Infested is after. Regardless, I'm hardly going to complain about a monster movie where the monsters, not the humans, feel underdeveloped, when it plays so much better than the reverse.

Infested is available to stream on Shudder from Friday, April 26. The film is 106 minutes long and is not yet rated.

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At first, the Japanese juvie drama “Monster” seems to be a tragedy about a troubled, maybe dangerous, pre-teen. Little things about Minato Mugino ( Soya Kurokawa ) stand out to his single mom, Saori ( Sakura Ando ), like a new haircut and a cut over Minato’s right ear. Some of these might be read as signs of a problem, like when Minato asks his mom if she thinks a person would still be human if they received a pig brain transplant. Minato also sings to himself a phrase that hangs over the rest of the movie like a slow-breaking raincloud: “Who’s the monster?”

Saori is convinced that something’s up with Minato, so she keeps after her son until he admits that he was physically attacked by his homeroom teacher, Mr. Hori ( Eita Nagayama ). Saori’s heard and seen enough to pursue Hori, and her reading of events is apparently confirmed by the insincere apologies she gets from him and the school’s reserved principal, Makiko Fushimi ( Yuko Tanaka ).

At this point, the plot of “Monster,” which was scripted by the celebrated TV writer Yuji Sakamoto , shifts focus to Hori’s perspective. As you might expect, Minato hasn’t told his mother the whole truth. Some school bullies are also involved, and so is Yori Hoshikawa ( Hinata Hiiragi ), as well as Yori’s withdrawn father ( Shido Nakamura ). There’s also obviously more to the principal’s seeming indifference and Hori’s defensive skittishness, though not enough to paint a tidy picture of either character. However, we learn more about what’s really going on with Minato and Yori, two close friends who live in their own semi-private fantasy world.

Based on this short synopsis, you might imagine that “Monster” is a sort of middle school “ Mystic River ” that inevitably casts a very broad sort of blame on yet another small community of blinkered loners. Thankfully, while “Monster” depends on dramatic irony and revelatory twists, it’s also a showcase for director Hirokazu Kore-eda , whose knack for collaboration brings out the best in his actors, especially his younger cast members. To better serve this story, Kore-eda (“ Broker ,” “ Nobody Knows ”) focuses on impressionistic, revealing details about Minato and his mom, as well as Fushimi and Hori.

Still, “Monster” isn’t really about who really did what or why. A lot is explained, and a few are implicated, but not everything and not everyone. Saori doesn’t become pigeonholed as a villain after we learn that she was wrong to attack both Hori and Fushimi without knowing the whole truth. And while Fushimi gives a kind speech at the end, her unyielding response to Saori’s desperate questions also doesn’t look much better in hindsight after we’ve gotten to know her better.

A nesting doll narrative like “Monster” seems to encourage viewers to cast their own judgment or maybe even share the impossible emotional burden of these characters. Who could have known, or really seen everything that happened, and why didn’t everybody respond better? However, what’s really striking about Kore-eda’s latest is his diligent attention to mood and a credible sort of subjective reality.  

As usual with Kore-eda, a question like “Who’s the monster” is misleading since, as we see, there’s nothing more or less real about Minato, Yori, or their teacher once we learn know what they did and where they’re coming from. Instead, “Monster” ties a group of outsiders together not by their mutual experiences but by their search for meaning in how they look at and care for each other. It’s incredible to see a complex character like Hori seemingly exposed as an uncaring creep in an establishing scene, like when he blows his nose or makes insinuating comments about Saori, and then summarily complicated rather than completely vindicated or dismissed in later scenes.

“Monster” is also a typical Kore-eda movie in that it’s ultimately about the elusive world of two young children who live in the immense shadow of their adult guardians. You can tell what kind of movie this is just by listening to the sunny, melancholic piano and synthesizer score, a mix of two new compositions and some older pieces by the recently deceased composer Ryuichi Sakamoto .

Sakamoto’s music swoons and pulses with a subtle and, in his words, “esoteric” complexity. His playing beautifully expresses Minato and his loved ones’ mutual loneliness without succumbing to treacly conventions or platitudes. It’s mood music, which can be easy to take for granted in a movie where the plot seems most important. (“Monster” won the Best Screenplay award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival)

Still, Sakamoto’s music complements Kore-eda’s keen direction and general consideration for individuals who tend to struggle in private and only sometimes see themselves beyond who they’re with. It’s a shame they’ll never work on another movie together, but it's a real pleasure to see (and hear) their only collaboration.

Now playing in theaters. 

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in  The New York Times ,  Vanity Fair ,  The Village Voice,  and elsewhere.

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Film credits.

Monster (2023)

Rated PG-13

125 minutes

Sakura Ando as Saori Mugino

Eita Nagayama as Michitoshi Hori

Soya Kurokawa as Minato Mugino

Hinata Hiiragi as Yori Hoshikawa

Yuko Tanaka as Makiko Fushimi

Mitsuki Takahata as Hirona Suzumura

Akihiro Kakuta as Shoda Fumiaki

Shido Nakamura as Kiyotaka Hoshikawa

• Hirokazu Kore-eda
• Yuji Sakamoto

Director of Photography

• Ryūto Kondō

Original Music Composer

• Ryuichi Sakamoto

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Horror movie ‘Late Night With the Devil’ earns eerie amount at box office, Variety reports

(NEXSTAR) – In an eerie twist that’s sure to please the publicity team behind “Late Night With the Devil,” the new horror movie earned $666,666 at the box office on Sunday, Variety reported.

The film, which hit theaters March 22, earned a total of $2.8 million during its entire opening weekend. In doing so, it also gave IFC Films its biggest opening weekend ever, shattering the previous record of $826,775 earned during the opening of 2022’s “Watcher” despite debuting on roughly the same number of screens, according to Variety .

It’s worth nothing that Box Office Mojo, an online resource for box-office data, did not yet account for Sunday’s earnings for “Late Night With the Devil” on its site as of Monday. ( Deadline published estimates that the film earned slightly more than Variety reported — $733,000 on Sunday — though representatives for IFC Films were not immediately available to confirm the box-office tally for Nexstar.)

The found footage-style horror film stars David Dastmalchian (“The Suicide Squad,” “Oppenheimer”) as Jack Delroy, the host of a fictional 1970s talk show.  

“However, ratings for the show have plummeted since the tragic death of Jack’s beloved wife,” reads a plot description at the film’s official site. “Desperate to turn his fortunes around, on October 31st, 1977, Jack plans a Halloween special like no other — unaware he is about to unleash evil into the living rooms of America.”

As of Monday morning, the movie had earned favorable “certified fresh” rating of 97% at Rotten Tomatoes. The film fared slightly worse by the standards at MetaCritic, with a score of 72 (which still indicated “generally favorable” reviews from critics).

 “Late Night With the Devil” opened sixth at the box office over the weekend behind “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire ($45 million), “Dune: Part Two ($18 million), “Kung Fu Panda 4” ($17 million), “Immaculate” ($5.4 million) and “Arthur the King” ($4.4 million), per IMDb.

Still, Scott Shooman the head of the AMC Film Group — the parent company of IFC Films — told Deadline that the opening numbers for “Late Night With the Devil” were encouraging.

“’Late Night With The Devil’ continues to showcase that there is still potential for highly reviewed, intelligent auteur films in movie theaters across all genres,” Shooman said.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV.

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In a Violent Nature

An ambient horror slasher that methodically depicts the enigmatic resurrection, rampage, and retribution of an undead monster in a remote wilderness. An ambient horror slasher that methodically depicts the enigmatic resurrection, rampage, and retribution of an undead monster in a remote wilderness. An ambient horror slasher that methodically depicts the enigmatic resurrection, rampage, and retribution of an undead monster in a remote wilderness.

• Andrea Pavlovic
• Cameron Love
• 3 User reviews
• 17 Critic reviews
• 65 Metascore

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Apr 16, 2024
• May 31, 2024 (United States)
• De naturaleza violenta
• Low Sky Productions
• Zygote Pictures
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

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• Runtime 1 hour 34 minutes

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‘Kraven the Hunter’ Movie Now Releasing in December 2024

Sony returns to their own Marvel universe with the upcoming Kraven the Hunter , which has been bumped all over the release schedule. This week, it’s been bumped once more.

There was a time when Sony was going to unleash Kraven in theaters in October 2023, but the film was then bumped to August 2024. It’ll now release on December 13, 2024 .

Kraven the Hunter  will be the very first Marvel movie from Sony to be released into theaters with an “R” rating, with lots of bloody violence being promised.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as the title character, Marvel’s ultimate predator.

“Kraven the Hunter is the visceral story about how and why one of Marvel’s most iconic villains came to be. Set before his notorious vendetta with Spider-Man, Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as the titular character in the R-rated film.”

Ariana DeBose  will play Calypso in the upcoming  Kraven the Hunter  movie.

Christopher Abbott  ( Possessor ) is playing The Foreigner, with  Levi Miller  ( Better Watch Out ) also on board.  Alessandro Nivola  ( The Many Saints of Newark ) will play another villain, but character details are under wraps.  Russell Crowe  and  Fred Hechinger  also star.

J.C. Chandor  ( A Most Violent Year ) is directing  Kraven the Hunter .

The screenplay was written by  Art Marcum  &  Matt Holloway  and  Richard Wenk .

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

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Alden Ehrenreich Joins Horror Movie ‘Weapons’ from the Director of ‘Barbarian’

The new horror movie from New Line Cinema and director Zach Cregger  ( Barbarian ), the upcoming Weapons is assembling an impressive cast, with Josh Brolin  ( Dune 2 ) and Julia Garner  ( The Royal Hotel ) recently signing on. Deadline reports today that Alden Ehrenreich ( Cocaine Bear ) is the latest actor to join the cast of Cregger’s new movie.

The upcoming  Weapons  is from writer/director Zach Cregger, who will also produce alongside his  Barbarian  producing team: Roy Lee of Vertigo and J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules of BoulderLight Pictures. Vertigo’s Miri Yoon also produces.

The Hollywood Reporter teases, “Plot details for  Weapons  are being kept holstered but it is described as a  multi and inter-related story horror epic  that tonally is in the vein of  Magnolia , the 1999 actor-crammed showcase from filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.”

Cregger was a founding member and writer for the New York comedy troupe “ The Whitest Kids U’Know ,” which he started while attending The School of Visual Arts. The award-winning group’s self-titled sketch comedy show ran for five seasons on IFC-TV and Fuse. He was also a series regular on Jimmy Fallon’s NBC series “Guys with Kids” and the TBS hit series “Wrecked,” and was featured in a recurring role on the NBC series “About a Boy.”

Weapons  will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.

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