„Monsters takes place six years in the future, after a NASA probe containing alien DNA crash lands in Mexico. Alien life begins to appear, and much of the area gets cordoned off as an „Infected Zone”. Enter photographer Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy), who is tasked with the assignment of getting his boss’ daughter Samantha (Whitney Able) from Mexico back to her home in the States safely. Regular boat or air travel offer no help, so Andrew is forced to trek through the Infected Zone to bring Samantha home.
Besides dumping any expectations you may have for Monsters, I immediately also suggest any comparisons to District 9 or Cloverfield. Outside of the inventive, overused hand-held camera-style filmmaking, the idea of alien segregation and the (significantly) cheap production budget, Monsters shares nothing with either of these two films. This is a movie all its own, that may owe a bit of imagination and drive to those films, but should not be compared to them. Both of those films offered a visceral, blazingly unique experience that few films have replicated since. Their ingenious marketing campaigns only helped strengthen the ideas in the films, and the Academy even felt District 9 worthy of a historic Best Picture nomination.
But Monsters will likely not have any of that. It is a very slow moving, very emotionally driven film. There are some action scenes (including a rather amazingly well done opening scene, shot entirely through night vision), but the majority of the film is spent focused on the relationship between Andrew and Samantha, and is frequently very quiet. A comparison to a film like Before Sunrise/Before Sunset is not totally out of the question here – you just need to add aliens. Hopefully this more apt comparison does not turn off intrigued viewers, although it may attract more. But it likely will drop anyone’s expectations significantly. I know I was not prepared to watch an indie drama, but that is much closer a description to what it actually is.”
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