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DVD Review: Monsters – Metro US

DVD Review: Monsters

Monsters
Director: Gareth Edwards
Star: Scoot McNairy
Rating: **1/2

There are monster movies made by real fans of the genre, and there are monstrous ones made by people with an excess of cash and computing power.

Into the humbler and lamentably rarer first category steps this promising feature debut by Britain’s Gareth Edwards. It makes a virtue of poverty.

It posits a not-too-distant time and situation where alien life forms have landed in Central America, delivered by a wayward space probe from Earth. Unchecked by man’s weak defenses, they have proliferated and grown to Jurassic Park size in the planet’s warmth, to the point where half of Mexico is now off-limits to humans, an “Infected Zone” crawling with extraterrestrial creepies.

Photojournalist Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) has to somehow cross the zone, implausibly charged with bringing his spoiled boss’s daughter Sam (Whitney Able) safely to her home in America. What’s a hero to do when all road, sea and air routes are blocked by slithering beasties?

The effort is high on mood and low on monsters, but then the best scary flicks are always the ones where the “boos” come from nowhere. Considering his scant money and resources, Edwards works wonders conjuring creatures in a couple of sequences that fairly chill the blood.

Extras include deleted and extended scenes, interviews and making-of featurettes.