31 Nights of Halloween Horror part 26 - The Monster

The Monster
91 mins.
Dir. Bryan Bertino
2016/USA

There are two ways to look at this movie.  Want an solid simple good old fashioned Monster movie? Then The Monster is about a mother and daughter stranded on the side of a road one night while a monster lurks outside threatening them.  Want something a little more?  Then The Monster is about an addict of a mother who is negligent of her old beyond her years daughter.  On their way to drop her off at her fathers, they get in an accident and discover there is a monster outside lurking.  The Mother must fight off her inner monster as well as the physical one outside to protect herself and her daughter.  The truth of the matter is, The Monster is both of these things.

The movie open with 10-11 year oldish Lizzy cleaning up beer bottles and emptying ash trays in her living room, obviously from a bender that went on last night.  From there she goes to try and wake up her young mother Kathy, who is already an hour late getting up, then falls back asleep and wakes up in the afternoon.  Kathy apologizes and the two continue on their bickering as they head out in the car to take Lizzy to see her father, that Kathy is divorced from.  Through a series of flashbacks throughout the film, we see that Kathy has a drinking problem and is not a good supportive mother to her daughter Lizzy.  The two are not too fond of each other and Lizzy would much rather go live with her father full time.  But they still have an unspoken love for each other as a mother and daughter do.

A late start and construction force them to take a less traveled road at night when it starts to rain. Suddenly a wolf darts in front of their car and they hit it head on, killing the wolf and their car in the process.  Slightly bruised and a car that is now immobile they call for a tow truck and ambulance.  In the meantime, they go to see if the wolf is indeed dead and discover that the wolf seems to be slightly torn up, as if it was in a fight with something and they find what seems to be a large tooth embedded in it.  Lizzy obviously freaked out suggests they go back and wait in the car.

Tow truck eventually comes, driver informs them the ambulance will be arriving a little later.  He grabs there bags and throws them into his truck and upon inspection of their car sees they are losing oil and have a broken axle he needs to repair in order to tow them.  Realizing their phone is now in the tow truck they call out to the driver only to find out he is no longer under their car and is missing.  After panic sets in and a severed arm falls onto the hood of their car, they see the tow truck driver crawling out from the woods to his tow truck and their sitting on the road behind is a large black creature with big fanged teeth.

Yes there are indeed monsters.  The rest of the movie is Kathy and Lizzy trying to protect themselves by any means necessary from the monster that is outside and very aware of them and like all good monsters, wants to eat them.  This might sound a little Cujo like with a mother and child trapped in a car, but it really isn't.  There is much more of a background relationship between the mother and daughter and in dire circumstances, petty things are put aside and you fight for what really matters most in life.

The Monster was written and directed by Bryan Bertino who brought us The Strangers.  Similarly this is another film about people trapped in one location.  The Monster really brings on the tension of something lurking outside that we can't see.  By filling up the story with flashbacks of the relationship between the mother and daughter we get much more feeling for the characters and filling out what could be a tedious story.  At it's core The Monster is a solid simple horror movie.  There is no explanation for what the monster is, where it came from or what it wants.  And really none of that matters, all we need to know is it is out there and it wants to eat us.  When you are trying to survive, that is all you need to know.  But Bertino really brings in a backstory to make us really feel for the characters and uses the Monster in a symbolic way for the mother to get her ass in gear and make a change in her life to protect her daughter and a daughter whomust face her fears and protect her mother.

The movie is not without flaw though, I honestly could have used seeing less of the monster, I was not overly thrilled with the full reveal.  It is almost a little more animalistic then monsterific.  Also the ending, while the whole movie is obviously far fetched, the end game was a little too heroic instead of realistic.  But we needed that end resolution, so it can be forgiven.  A better movie than it's simple premise would lead you to believe and a worthwhile film to check out this Halloween if you have already seen everything.  Plus I just like monster movies.