Monster (2008 Video) User Reviews

Interminably boring -- just an awful movie

[rlange-3 · 2/10 · 11 August 2008]

The entire movie is two young women, attractive but nothing special, with rather flat and uninteresting personalities running around Tokyo during some kind of giant octopus attack. The special effects are not very special, the monster is never really seen other than partial glimpses, there is zero in the way of plot intrigue and plenty of annoying focus on the two characters. They cry. They get their faces dirty. They crawl around in the caves. They run the camera but it's hard to understand some of the shots since nobody is holding or controlling the camera.

This goes on and on. And on. And on. What were they thinking? Then, as if this vacuous mess were insufficiently annoying, every 30 seconds or so the "damaged film" effects kick in, disrupting the continuity and interfering with what little actual "action" there is in the film.

Actually making it through this movie is an exercise in futility. You keep hoping it will either get better or end. I'm about 20 minutes from the finish as I am writing this. It sounds like there is a battle going on but you can't see anything -- another "damaged film" special.

Yikes. Don't bother. Do yourself a favor and just don't bother.

great idea - but terribly bad realization of it

[dari112 · 1/10 · 18 January 2008]

If there is a thousand ways to disrupt a video feed in order to make it look like it's been badly damaged, these girls have now found 1200 ways. The cutting of the video feed had a purpose, I know that, but it was an annoying feature in this film. It almost made me go crazy, but I stuck with it just to see the rest and be able to give this film a fair judgment. The film (idea) itself is not bad at all. The acting has one or maybe two decent moments (although Erin is kinda cute (when she's not sobbing)). The script is just wonderful. It had the potential of being a new Orson Welles's 1938 radio broadcast The War of the Worlds, but unfortunately it just had the intention, but not the drive to actually make it. But honestly I think you should spend your 90 minutes on collecting navel lint instead. In the long run it'll do you much more good than watching this. I watched it - so you wont have to.

A monster movie without a monster

[Sznfctm · 2/10 · 21 May 2009]

Okay maybe this is not a rip-off of Cloverfield, and maybe I should not have watched it a few days after said movie. But still, Monster is almost exactly the same with chicks (you could sell anything with chicks, right?), without a decent plot, acting, and sadly, without a monster.

We get two girls who are in Japan to make a documentary, when Tokyo is hit by an earthquake. And this is when the movie starts to get irreversibly bad and annoying. Because the two girls, however cute they may be, just cannot seem to use the camera. In the middle of a monster attack, *everything* is filmed, except for what is actually happening. When our heroines are staring with their jaws dropped at something supposedly terrible, the camera is well... showing them, their jaws dropped, staring. Then cut, or artifacts on the film (at every 5 seconds, or when something interesting is about to happen), and we go to the next scene. Rinse and repeat. In the end, we are given 90 minutes of artifacts, girls being scared and talking nonsense, running somewhere (filming each other's legs in the process), and just hanging out in Tokyo, obviously afraid of some tentacle monster that they always fail to capture with the camera.

Besides of not being able to make a point (it is hard when you point the camera at your sister instead of at whatever is happening around you), the movie fails to convey a sense of plot. We know where the girls are trying to go, but we just do not care if they ever get there, or what happens if they do. There is simply no drama, no excitement, mostly due to the bad use of camera, and the long talky scenes, and short scary ones (usually cut by artifacts, or simply, darkness).

I can't help but to compare this movie to Cloverfield, where you got a monster, and after some time, you actually got interested in where the group is going, and in the end, you cared. Monster could have been a great movie, even without showing the monster, if it manages to make you feel for the girls, but it sadly fails. It is not simply bad, but also an uninteresting movie.

Top Notch

[stymieu2 · 1/10 · 20 January 2008]

If by some act of god, you're able to make it through the entire sitting of this movie without having epileptic seizures, then you're a better man than most.

This movie contained a monster, I'm still not quite sure exactly what it was other than the fact that they used one voice/sound that sounded like a rhino giving birth to its young each time it was on the prowl and destroying the city. There was also about 300 planes that somehow managed to fly over wherever the girls were currently at and you guessed it, somehow, there was only one sound for these planes as well. Out of the millions of people that live in Tokyo, you see about 10 die total but there is debris and buildings toppled over everywhere. Somehow no one knows English in Tokyo except for two security guards. The only shining moment of this entire movie was the fact that every now and then, you'd see a few nice cleavage shots from the actresses.

If you're totally cracked out and enjoy tripping out with the possibility of having epileptic seizures, enjoy listening to Rhino's giving birth, have an infatuation with the sounds of planes, and enjoy 2 or 3 cleavage shots in the entire sitting of a movie, check out this masterpiece of a movie. I know that I'm glad I did.

Film Making's Nadir

[geraldjones1959 · 1/10 · 24 August 2008]

Giving "Monster" a one star "awful" rating is wayyyyy too high. Without question this is the worst film I have ever seen. The tone was set with the first 5 minutes when the office of the Japanese Minister was smaller than my closet and the exact same sound effect was used 4 times outside the Ministry of the Interior Building.

The camera work was MUCH worse than Cloverfield and Blair Witch, mostly because even when stationery the objects on the screen were a conglomeration of the floor, the speakers legs, her breasts and mindless panning of the walls.

The plot was utter aimless with dialog to match - the inane banter was devoid of emotion and at the "scariest" moments the two wooden actresses sounded like Ben Stein lecturing on the economy! There wandering around the destroyed city was pointless to the story and lines like "it looks like it's going to be a beautiful morning" while overlooking the fake destruction made one want to throw a shoe at the TV screen.

The best way to describe this "movie" is Pointless waste of film! Another "Cloverfield" did not need to be made and this was a poor attempt at it anyway!

SOMEONE PLEASE!!!! TAKE THEIR CAMERA AWAY!

Watched because I was bored. Still bored at the end.

[myridom · 3/10 · 19 January 2008]

If I had seen this before Cloverfield, I would have had a better impression. But it is just a knockoff. If Cloverfield is "Blair Witch Godzilla" this is "Blair Witch Calamari".. And I don't like Calamari. Frankly I thought I was going to be sick from the camera work. "Camera Effects/Artifacts" were poorly placed. When the camera was still the "effects" were at the highest. When they were running they were at their lowest. I guess all that knocking around kept the camera working..LOL I liked the actors, kept the screaming to minimum. Only one part where the acting look forced. But my overall impression is still low.

Laborious

[sexytail · 1/10 · 18 January 2008]

You've probably all figured out by now that this is the straight-to-video knock-off of the much anticipated "Cloverfield". I was pretty curious about this, partly because it comes from The Asylum (their stuff is just addictively bad!) and because the trailer for it looked nearly competent. So naturally I rented it as soon as I had the chance.

The plot (ha!) concerns two women, a documentary crew, who fly to Tokyo to interview an official about global warming. Everything in the movie is filmed vacation-video style from the girls' hand-held camera (just like "Cloverfield"). During the interview the monster attacks and the city becomes a disaster area. Our heroes are forced to run for cover and try to find people who speak English while still documenting the monster's rampage.

I expected weak CGI effects and bad dialogue, but I was also disappointed to find that the hand-held camera wasn't hand-held looking at all (the making-of feature on the DVD betrayed their real techniques) and the down-time that fills out most of the movie happens in spots that look more like L.A. than Tokyo. Transitions are accomplished with unconvincing video distortion, an attempt to sell us on the gimmick that we are watching found footage. There's an attempt at explanation for the monster too, which was perhaps the worst aspect of this mess.

"Monster" may be The Asylum's worst. In spite of a good trailer, this will be forgotten especially because they chose a title already used for a Charlize Theron movie. "Cloverfield" has nothing to fear from this.

Reaching for a new medium ...

[Poe-17 · 5/10 · 2 February 2008]

Here-in lie spoilers ... I think. Technology has tossed a monkey wrench into film making, particularly independent film making, and it's called "everyone has a video device". Pick a major incident around the world from a hurricane to a monster assaulting Japan (Godzilla, anyone?). Odds are, there is going to be homemade video footage. What a wonderful way to think (for a story teller) things through. Another "eye" through which to see and tell the story. "Blair Witch" did a hell of a job. Yeah, I'm one of the ones that didn't buy the "it's real" hype but liked the delivery. It's easy and comfortable for me to "fall" into a tale told by "live" footage. "Blair" creeped me in a way few movies of recent have. Those familiar and comfortable with traditional story-telling in films have trouble with "documentary" style story telling. That's okay. Cinema has its niches. I feel the "documentary" story-telling, via the ubiquitous Digi-Cam, or whatever, is a rudimentary explored aside in cinema. One ripe with potential. Big dollar attempts can be seen with the recent "Cloverfield". Comparing this film, Monster, with Cloverfield, it's easy to see a new medium being explored but not understood. The blending of traditional storytelling and "through the lens of an eyewitness on video" storytelling is an obstacle course for visionary filmmakers. Somewhere in the near future, a filmmaker is going to get it all together and present us with a knockout. Blair Witch spearheaded that move (okay, for cinema buffs "Cannibal Holocaust" spearheaded that move ... no, this other film did it, no ... that film did it ...). I feel Blair Witch upped the ante because it acknowledged the wide availability of video equipment to the lay person. Cannibal Holocaust reflected a world where documentarians (not a word) carried professional equipment with their explorations. It has to do with the writers that can make script seem real and authentic instead of trying too hard to seem real and authentic. If a real event occurred of a giant booger attacking anything or anywhere, the real video of the event would be useless and of no meaning because it would rightfully be chaotic and have nothing linear to bear out a story (which Blair Witch managed to work around). So the Monster story would have to be done on that one in a million video that managed to "accidentally" follow script, with beginning, middle and end. That would be the writer's goal. A documentary that aligns, by deceit, the mandatory framework of storytelling. It's a new field. Filmmakers are trying it everywhere. It's an arena waiting for a champion. Someone's going to do it. "Monster" missed in not providing the appropriate reveal shots and hints at explanation. "Cloverfield" missed in the same way. "Cloverfield" did a better job. Both were fidgeting with a new medium everyone is trying to understand, as filmmaker and as audience. It's a great platform for horror and sci-fi and a lot of other genres. But is new to storytellers, filmmakers and audience. Lots of good things coming. One of the things I couldn't believe in "Monster" was how easy it was for the camera to go digitally berserk. Even cheap-o cameras put in better performance. No, it didn't work but, boy, are they headed in the right direction.

Garbage

[gulchu · 2/10 · 30 June 2020]

It starts out OK and has a decent premise to it. But after about the first 15 minutes it turns into a complete waste of time and do not waste your time by watching this.

Cloverfart

[tmccull52 · 1/10 · 6 April 2020]

I entitled this review "Cloverfart", because this movie is similar to "Cloverfield", except for the fact that it really, really stinks. This movie stinks like five gallons of Chum with five more gallons of steaming diahrrea poured on top.

Two eco-crusading sisters, Sarah and Erin Lynch fly from California to Japan to conduct interviews with Japanese government ministry officials, and the average man-on-street to see what they think about global warming, and why they think that America sucks at doing anything about it. While interviewing a ministry official, Sarah tries some good ol' fashioned ambush journalism techniques on this official. The questions that she was supposed to ask were sent over ahead of the interview, but Sarah goes off-script and gleans absolutely nothing for her efforts. During the interview, there comes a series of seismic tremors that shake the building. Sarah and Erin end up taking shelter in the basement of the ministry building.

Our intrepid protagonists try to find someone that speaks English, and they end up being found by another American, Jason, who was told that two American women had fled to the basement. Jason explains that he came specifically to find them. Then, our three Americans spend about five or ten minutes standing around and talking about how they really, really need to get out of that basement... except none of the three actually makes any effort to leave. Finally, it dawns on them that if they stop talking about it, and actually move their feet, they can get out.

Jason, Sarah, and Erin wander about for a bit, looking for a way to get to street level. Jason finds suitable passage, and then Sarah and Erin pepper him with questions as to whether it's really the way out. I found the way out! You did? Are you sure it's the way out? Yes, I'm sure it's the way out. Okay, but are you really really sure that it's the way out? Yes, I'm really really sure it's the way out. But what if it's not. Are you really really really REALLY sure it's the way out?

The eco-crusading quasi-journslist docementarian sisters finally decide to believe Jason, and lo and behold, they make it to street level. Sarah is Manning the video camera at this point. Jets are flying overhead firing rockets. There are explosions everywhere. People are screaming and running. There is machine gun fire. Does Sarah document this, crack crusader that she is?

No.

Instead, Sarah shoots close-ups of Jason's and Erin's reactions to all of this mayhem, as she walks around them to get a 360 degree angle of their heads.

Jason ends up with the camera next, and is promptly killed. How? Take a guess. It's never actually shown what kills him.

Erin starts to cry about how she wants to go home, and Sarah tries to explain how important it is that they document what's going on around them. A little while later, the roles are reversed, with Sarah crying about how all she wants to do is stay alive and go home, and Erin telling her how important it is for them to record everything. Then their roles are reversed again. And again.

The bulk of the movie is shaky camera angles, constant depictions of damaged footage, camera malfunctions, the sisters taking turns on camera being all angsty about this and that. Erin, in an inspiring moment of course and introspection, records herself. If anyone finds this recording, she wants the world to know that Erin Lynch was there... and that she really likes Kelly Clarkson and puppies, or some such drivel. Tokyo is being torn apart, and she's basically filming a video profile for a dating service. No shots of the monster that she claims to have seen. No footage of the carnage and destruction. "Hi, world! I'm Erin Lynch, and I really like Kelly Clarkson!"

As for the monster, there's a total of about 30 seconds spread throughout the entire course of the movie where you get any glimpse at all of the dreaded beast causing all of the mayhem and destruction.

I understand that it's a "found footage" movie, but for most of it, the viewer had very little to no idea as to what is actually going on, or what everyone is running from. Speaking of running, at one point, Sarah badly injures her ankle. She needs help walking with the assistance of a couple of other survivors that the sisters run into. Two minutes later, she's running down the street like Usain Bolt.

This movie sucks on every level. The direction is awful. The lead actresses display all of the gutsy, gritty determination and angst of a pair of platypusses on Valium. They spend more time looking into the camera as if to check whether or not they hit all of their marks while the movie was being made than they do anything else.

Oh. Here's Erin, looking all sad. Oh. Now here's Sarak looking all worried, but grimly determined to carry on. Oh, look. Erin's sad again. Aww, now Sarah's sad. And there's Erin being philosophical and whimsical. Aw, Sarah's crying about how she wants to go home. Now Erin's crying about how she wants to go home. Now Sarah, again. Now Erin, again. And, of course, there's the requisite tragic ending, which can only be revealed through the found footage. The real tragedy is that this film was ever made to begin with.

The Asylum film company strikes again!

[Wizard-8 · 18 June 2010]

This time around, The Asylum decided to rip off "Cloverfield". There is one positive thing I can say about this movie, and that it employs a lot of Asian actors, a minority that just about all Hollywood movies do not use. Aside from that, I can't think of anything else that is good about this movie. The movie is obviously not filmed in Japan, just using occasional stock footage of Tokyo in an effort to fool the audience. The sound is awful - there were large sections of the movie where I simply could not understand what the characters were saying. The visual look of the movie is equally bad, clearly shot with a low-rent digital video camera. The direction is horrible, with some things like characters in the background walking casually when the city is being terrorized by the monster. There is far, FAR too much talk, when a movie like this needs plenty of adventure and special effects. (The limited special effects are pretty cheesy, and never gives us a good look at the title creature.) And there is no real ending to this movie - the last scene ends in a way that makes you think the director said, "Okay, we've got enough footage to make this movie 85 minutes long if you count the slow-moving end credits!" The writer/director, as of this date, has only this movie on his resume. No wonder.

not a knockoff

[wbukato · 6/10 · 20 February 2009]

Perhaps one of you, eloquent commentators, could explain how "Monster" (on the market since January 18, 2008) can be a knockoff of "Cloverfield" (on the screen since January 16, 2008)? A great show of clairvoyance or a masterpiece of film-making and marketing? There are quite a few flaws in the movie (like why the recording on the first cassettes was OK and the distorted picture/sound effects appear at the same time the monster does - if the cassettes were found later together, damaged), but they are their own flaws. Oh, and stop wondering how one camera battery could hold for so long - the girls had a few batteries, as they indicate themselves at one point.

Well,Cant say they JUMP THE SHARK !

[guestar57 · 5/10 · 26 January 2008]

MONSTER www.Theasylum.cc with Sarah Lieving Okay, Lets get over the CLOVERFIELD connection, Move on nothing to see here. Got into the rhythm of MONSTER , By thinking it was like that BIGFOOT footage that has made the rounds. Makes one feel you are there and therefore its as real as your mind would allow.

Even the credits are done as if a REAL documentary, That's a stretch that may / may not pay off.

Lots of plugs for YOUTUBE, Guess this counts as another one. So, How did the camera battery last for 90 minutes let alone the days they supposedly filmed ? Great cover art and the few, Very few scenes of creature. The leads were really good, Considering they had to carry the films as Scared Talking Heads. Its funny to think most of it was actually filmed in Japan, Money could have been used to show the MONSTER some more.

Something else...

[Cel_Stacker · 2/10 · 6 September 2008]

Sisters Sarah and Erin hop the bigger pond, landing in Tokyo to film a documentary about global warming (though God knows why). In the midst of their interview with the Environmental Minister, havoc strikes. At first, it's assumed to be another earthquake. When military presence intensifies, terrorism is suspected. But all too soon, it's revealed to be...something else. Sounds a bit familiar, no? Just to get it out of the way, whether or not it's an unhappy accident of conflicting release dates, there's no getting around that this is "Cloverfield"-lite, with a few (very few) deviations. This is evident--from the distant explosion that marks the start of the action, to the overall concept, to splattering the camera with blood at least once. The monsters even roar as if they were separated at birth. To be fair, this film does have a few things on Cloverfield. The fish-out-of-water angle, namely placing the protagonists in an unfamiliar culture, was a great idea. It's difficult enough to survive disaster when most everyone speaks your language, but when they don't, the challenge is increased quite a bit. While the presentation of the global warming message is..."crunchy" at best, the not-so-subtle hint that global warming itself awakened the creature is another juicy notion. Honestly, there's no better place on earth to set your disaster than Tokyo, the world's capital of disasters! The biggest thing for me personally would have to be the logic of the beast itself. In this film, it seemed to cut its paths of destruction through heavily populated areas, as I believe an angry beast would, rather than conveniently following four scrawny twenty-somethings around, and even directly snacking on one of them, as New York's monster did.

Now that that's out of the way, even if Cloverfield never existed, this would still be pretty poor. The creature, a giant squid presumably, isn't actually seen doing very much to constitute a threat. Perhaps it could have actually picked up someone or smashed something, but all we're treated to is many angles of large, waving tentacles. One thing it makes you appreciate is how difficult disaster is to write. It seems that it's very easy to get so wrapped up in the turmoil of your story that you forget how people actually talk, particularly in the midst of emergency. Sarah and Erin (their actual first names, by the way; a bright-and-shining sign of non-actors) appear to struggle on the initiative to keep many of David Michael Latt's throw-away lines out of the production, but enough of them sneak in to become distracting. "I feel like we were meant to be here...", "It's so important to document this..." Sure. I realize they would have to invent reasons for our heroines to lug around an industrial-grade camera, but there must have been another way. Call me shallow, but I believe I'd find it difficult to think of what progeny will see someday when flaming debris is exploding all around me, and the street is caving in underneath my feet.

An additional note about the cast--in truth, considering the script, there's really no reason to have anyone American in it. The Japanese actors (and their characters) are FAR better than the American ones; particularly the high-schooler who lives with her half-crazed dad (and dad seems to know something of the angry creature) and the young doctor who just wants to get across town and make sure his son is okay. I wished the film were about THEM, or someone like them. Were I in Erik Estenberg and company's shoes, I'm sure I would have shot the entire thing with an entirely Japanese cast and subtitles. Couldn't the Japanese document their own disasters? They've had lots of practice.

So, maybe it's not so much a ripoff as it is just not good. Of course, consider that trailer for another Asylum treat, "AVH". As in, "Alien Vs. Hunter". As in intergalactic hunters with advanced camouflage fighting slimy aliens with elongated heads and teeth. Can't wait for that one, can ya? What? You've seen it? Of course you have...

Please don't make me watch that again!

[NiccoStarr · 1/10 · 3 February 2012]

The title of this movie was the scariest thing about it. Not only was the acting HORRIBLY atrocious; the script, effects, and everything made me want to kill myself! Never mind the fact that the script was both insulting to the Japanese culture, but also made Americans look like absolute brainless wonders of nature. Thank God there was a reasonably attractive heroin in the story (if you can call it that) - but even she killed it the first time her and her sister had to "pretend" to be in a Monster attacked Tokyo; simply awful. Maybe they should try singing for American Idol instead. Intensive acting school is indeed of great need for these would be starlets - as well as many-many lessons in captivating screen writing. (5 burned-out stars, is how I would rate this "monstrous" failure.)

And least it looks like these filmmakers were honestly trying

[MBunge · 4/10 · 3 May 2011]

This very low-budget rip off of Cloverfield is surprisingly well done, yet it is ultimately undone by a near total lack of plot and a complete absence of an ending. It's actually a lot smarter than the many other rip off films like this which litter video store shelves and frequently show up on the Sy Fy channel but while the effort may be admirable, the result is not that entertaining.

Erin and Sarah (Erin Evans and Sarah Lynch) are a couple of American sisters who go to Tokyo to shoot their own documentary on global warming with a single video camera and some girlish gumption. While they're there, the city starts to shake. It's not an earthquake, though. What's shaking things up is a giant tentacled beast that rampages through Tokyo. Filming all the way, Erin and Sarah try to stay alive and, with the help of some Japanese folks, make it to the U.S. embassy.

I wouldn't recommend this movie for too many people because it gets fairly dull after a while. I would encourage all other low-budget filmmakers to give Monster a look. That's because this film is very effectively styled. It's a much more realistic and, in some way, more imaginative take on the concept than the big budget flick it's shamelessly imitating. The quality of the video breaks up and freezes at times; the whole idea that they're going to keep filming everything is a much more contentious issue between the sisters; adding the language barrier nicely (and cheaply) complicates their situation; there's a pretty clever intimation that this isn't the only giant monster attack Tokyo has had to deal with; and there's a neat and perhaps unintentional subtext through the story about how the person in front of the camera is more freaked out while the person behind the camera is more in control, as though looking at the crisis through the lens provides a certain intellectual and emotional distance.

Sadly, all of that gets crushed into a fine powder by the weight of the really sucky special effects and the fact that Erin and Sarah never manage to do or say anything at all interesting. The CGI in Monster is quite fake looking and overused. I lost count of the number of CGI aircraft seen soaring overhead, the damage to the city is represented by superimposing smoke onto unharmed buildings and the creature itself is nothing more 3 or 4 undulating tentacles that could be trying to destroy a city or simply trying to hail a monster-sized taxi. And after the initial discoveries about what's going on, the sisters might just as well be self-directed Segways that wheel from one bizarrely empty spot to another in the supposedly besieged metropolis.

The end result of Monster is below average, but I give these filmmakers some credit for attempting to make something that's more than just another low-budget rip off. Writer David Michael Latt and director Erik Esterberg tried to make a legitimate movie. They failed..but at least they tried, which is more than you can say for most of the people involved in these sorts of ersatz productions.

Another Asylum rip-off of someone's better idea

[JoeB131 · 2/10 · 17 February 2008]

Okay, we all know Asylum's Modus Operendi by now. Find someone else's better idea, get some no-name actors, some YouTube quality special effects, and go to town. Collect a lot of money from the DVD sector from poor chumps thinking they are seeing a better film.

Got it? Good.

So these two babes, Sarah and Erin, go to Japan. Except it's not really Japan, it's probably a Japanese Market in Los Angeles catering to the thousands of Japanese businessmen who live here looting our country, but I digress. In the middle of their interview with a Japanese official, an earthquake hits Kobe. Or maybe it's Toyko. They are never really clear, except the 2003 earthquake actually happened in Kobe.

The cause of the Earthquake is a tentacled monster that pops up out of the ground making a howling noise. To give the producers credit, the scenes with the monster are very effective, giving us a sense of menace without showing us much. Unfortunately, these parts are too few and far between, with most of the movie containing scenes of Erin and Sarah crying, arguing over their camera, and for inexplicable reasons, filming each other's cleavage. All of this is done with shaky camera shots, scrambled film, etc.

Panasonic wants it to be known that their equipment works much better than this.

At the end of the movie, we are told that neither girl was ever found, but their father released the film to YouTube. YouTube would like it to be known that they usually don't have this low of standards.

I really can't believe it

[dc207145 · 1/10 · 8 October 2008]

My intro sums up my feelings on the movie and some of the comments on this site. The easiest way to elaborate is with an "I can't believe" list: 1. That someone paid to make such a painfully bad movie. 2. That I paid to watch it. 3. That some people on this site thought that there were good aspects of the film. 4. That someone thought that simulated crappy camera footage was a good idea for the entire length of the movie. 5. That the actresses said let's stop filming, put down the camera, please stop the camera, and so on about 50 times during the film but no one was mercifull enough to actually stop the f---ing camera. 6. That the monster was about as menacing as a kid in a Squidward costume (Sponge Bob reference) 7. That I hated it so much I joined this site to tell everyone.

I don't care what anyone says, the acting in this movie was somewhere between a high school version of the princess and the pea and a really low budget porn movie. Some people liked the 2-3 cleavage shots but even if the two girls were nude for the entire movie it wouldn't have been any better. I kept hoping that the story would pick up and of course it never did; the only thing that I can say is thank god for fast forward. I think that I'll tell the video store that I want my rental charge refunded.

To bad there is no zero rating.

[song_of_rainbow · 1/10 · 8 August 2022]

I saw this movie, while looking for something to watch. I saw "monster" and Japan. Having been a fan of Japanese monster movies way before the average American had even been born. I thought what can possibly go wrong, after all they were so bad that there were good fun: 1) the two "actresses"; 2) a great example of the term "the Ugly American". An "ancient" book by the title, about how rude, impolite, and self absorbed, Americans could be while abroad. Add to that how ridiculous those two women were: "we have permission to film", really? Regular people who didn't want to be filmed. Didn't wait to see the monster.

Garbage

[jhr2012 · 1/10 · 12 June 2021]

A poor remake of Cloverfield. A giant squid attacks Tokyo and two stupid girls can't seem to get away from it. The bouncing camera work will make you nauseous. Terrible..

Much, Much Better than Most Reviews posted

[gord-174-593106 · 7/10 · 26 August 2012]

I've not seen much in the way of positives posted about this movie. I'm going to stand alone in total disagreement and say that, for an asylum flick, it is honest, well thought out and comes across as a labour of love from all concerned. I very much enjoyed it.

The two leads, Erin Evans and Sarah Lieving, did a most creditable job of portraying a pair of sisters who were amateur film makers, in their deportment, voice tone, and physical reactions to the storyline. Miss Evans especially did a fine job of portraying believable despair, and her simple attractiveness made her a protagonist worth pulling for. The dialogue throughout was consistently appropriate. In my opinion, the girls were solid actors portraying amateurs, and did it well. I've seen lots worse, especially in this genre. Director Erik Estenberg paced the action well, and was skilled enough to pull of a pretty fair Tokyo, filming in LA. Not bad.

Action sequences were believable, and sometimes excellent within the budget constraints. The bombing scenes were especially effective, and the limiting of the monster to a few tentacles here and there and just one major showing, veiled by darkness, was appreciated. Thumbs up here.

Flaws? Oh, sure. Mr. Estenberg could have chopped about 8 to 10 minutes off the film to tighten up the drama, and some of the survival decisions made by the characters were, shall we say suicidal and stretched credibility a tad. Not really a Cloverfield ripoff, I would say it is more like another movie in the same vein, not as well done but certainly watchable. But I'd like to counter the negative with some positives and hope a few of you reading this will give "Monster" a fair shot.

And I would also hope to see the two leading ladies and director in other endeavours - the talent in this trio was evident, and makes the film click. I'll watch it again with no hesitation.

Probably Could Have Been Interesting....

[msdemos · 3/10 · 5 July 2021]

.

Probably could have been interesting, but the filmmakers seem to put ALL their efforts into making the film seem "real", rather than making more of an effort to make it ENTERTAINING !!

YES, WE GET IT........the film is REALLY supposed to look like it was all shot by the two women actors playing the two main roles.....but there comes a point when you HAVE to realize that LESS is MORE......and STOP with all the 'jump cuts', edits, "interference", bad (filming) angles, and 'stop and start' filming in order to CONSTANTLY keep reminding your audience of just how "real" it all is, and simply just TELL THE STORY.

Somewhat similar, in a way, to the film that REALLY started all the more recent "first person perspective" films, The Blair Witch Project (1999). Yes, that film too could be VERY annoying with all the "real" film shots that comprised the movie, but until I saw this film, I didn't really realize how COMPLETELY overboard you can go on trying to make your first person perspective film seem "real", and thus, end up taking away almost ALL of the "entertainment" value it might have to offer, by making it hard to actually sit through and watch.

Oddly, it now makes me want to go back to watch Blair Witch again, to see just how much better (or worse) it was in terms of their use of all the "real" shots that ended up in that film.

On the plus side, the two female leads are very attractive women, so if one DOES have to sit through this thing, at LEAST there's that.....though, sadly, in the end, turns out that is just NOT enough of a reason to EVER see it......

.

ow ow ow it hurts make it stop

[roby2358 · 1/10 · 29 January 2008]

I marked this as containg "spoilers", although I really don't think you could spoil this one. The short version is: a couple of cute actresses don't make up for 90 minutes of innovatively slow and eye-wrenching film-making.

Wow this one was bad. I kind of like these rip-off titles, because it's fun to see a low-budget rip-off of a Hollywood production. This one was timed to pre-empt Cloverfield with a 1-15-08 release, and mimic the hand-held camera, street point of view experience of a giant monster attacking a large city. In this case the city is Tokyo, and the monster is... uh, some kind of tentacle thing. Hard to say cause you never really see it.

However, the filmmakers here decided to one-up Cloverfield by making the camera MORE shaky. And they came up with the brilliant device of simulating a damaged tape by having the picture fuzz out and go to black...well, every three seconds or so.

So basically it was like watching a feature-length film in three-second bursts, separated by static and black screen.

What's worse, when something does happen, the film punctuates the action by freezing the film and then cutting to black. Wha....? Most of the film consists of excessive shaking of the camera (either Tokyo was built on pudding, or both actresses have a really bad nervous tremors) while filming the actresses talking or crying. Sometimes there are sound effects of people screaming in the background, and sometimes a terrifying monster roar.

Because HEARING the monster roar is better than SEEING the monster. Which seems to be the mantra in this movie.

I measure how bad a movie is by how quickly I start fast-forwarding through it to get to the special effects. Five minutes into seeing the girls acting cute, I was blazing at full speed. And I think I stopped maybe three times to see glimpses of the monster and then... fuzz out and cut to black.

The only good thing about this movie is that the girls are cute. They are easy to watch for a while. And in another innovative simulation of what real life may be like, a lot of the scenes are shot of the actresses from the neck down. There are several scenes with the camera lying on the floor with an actress crawling toward it.

But on the whole, this is an amazingly bad movie, with some amazingly bad filmaking choices sort of obsessively driven home. In the end, it's not even close to being so bad it's good -- it's just spasmodic, choppy, and amazingly slow and talky.

I think the real monster in this snoozer is the film itself.

Terrible!!! (may contain spoilers!)

[antnjess · 1/10 · 10 February 2008]

I've just joined this site so nobody else wastes an hour and half of their life watching this film. I've been searching on the net to see if there is any point to this film and to be quite honest there isn't! The film is made using footage that is supposedly been found after the event however it is full of tape glitches and flickering lights and a very shaky camera, it's like watching a very bad pirate copy. You never get to see the monster properly and the acting isn't any better than the storyline. We watched the whole film hoping it had a good ending but unfortunately it didn't. If it had been real footage then it would have been slightly more interesting but as it's not then i'm really sorry but this film is not entertaining and you just end up with a headache and feeling irritated.

a floating turd

[rimple · 1/10 · 12 February 2009]

Some films are abhorrently bad, but you can still find a redeeming quality in it. But this thing was a monstrous waste. Time better spent watching a turd floating in gas station toilet.

Typically, you should feel sympathy for a character. In this film I couldn't wait for the 2 stupid girls to die - despite Sarah Lieving's cleavage shots. Forsberg, Estenberg and Latt should be tarred and feathered for creating such plotlessness, inane dialog and most of all, that retarded damaged tape effect that compelled me to chuck my beer bottle at the TV and hit my wife for buying the damn DVD when there is economic crisis going on.

You might be a masochist and want to watch this for the pain factor. Fair enough, but remember there is a long list of other films which should never have been made. Watch one of those instead or better yet, clean your bathroom tiles with a toothbrush.

As director Lech Kowalski says: "Film is ecologically unsound and messes up a lot of water in the process of development. Why mess up so much water by making a bad film?"