Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror anthology film from 2016. That movie is "Monsterland".
Now I do know a little bit about the premise of this movie. And I'm not talking about it being another anthology film, I mean I know about the framing device for it. Some guy is taking shelter inside of an abandoned movie theater while there's a "Monster Apocalypse" going on outside, and he's taking refuge to what'll ultimately be his last movie viewing experience. Now I do like that sort of premise, however, when it comes to anthology films, those things can be a mixed bag at best, as has this series has proven before.
And while I still want to like this film, I'm also expecting the worst out of it too because I've run into quite a bit of bad anthology films for this series. "Fright House", to me, is easily the top spot for the worst anthology film I've seen period. Now I'm hoping that this film won't reach that level, even if it does suck. However, I won't know if this thing is actually any good or not unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Monsterland".
6 minutes later
Wait, that was it?! That whole first story was just a bunch of idiot teenagers/adults just being killed off by something underwater and nothing else. At least, that's what I'm going to assume anyways. And if it was, then that "story" was complete shit. Now if there's more to it here than maybe I'll take back what I said, unless this is a completely different story and that first one was just basically a waste of time. I'll find out soon enough.
30 seconds later
OK, never mind, we're *now* starting the first story of this anthology. So basically, I was right the first time, that prologue segment, or lack thereof, was just filler and nothing more. That was kinda bullshit, guys.
7 minutes later
The fuck is that thing?! It only appeared for a second, but apparently, this, uh, "thing" appeared in the back of Simon's head after his head got fucked up. I hope this movie will attempt to explain what the hell that is, otherwise, I'm just gonna be left wondering without getting any actual answers here.
3 minutes later
OK, guys, so, apparently, this maggot has a name. It's Brian. And for some reason, Simon hasn't attempted to kill this fucking abomination and somehow seems OK with him hanging out at his place. And also, I should mention, the way that they're digitally moving Brian's mouth here looks horrible. I'm kinda hoping that this story here either ends really quickly or they actually attempt to make some sense of it because I'm totally fucking lost here.
6 minutes later
Thank god, that story's fucking over. That was almost completely retarded. I hope that the rest of the stories here aren't nearly as stupid as that first one was.
6 minutes later
So apparently, this kid's pet mouse can glow green after he "experimented" by pouring down two different kinds of chemicals in his bowl. If it were me, I probably wouldn't even attempt to touch the mouse with my bare hands because I have no idea how infectious it really is because this kid is too stupid to even do something such as wearing gloves. But again, that's probably just me.
6 minutes later
OK, you know what? That was a hilarious way to end that second story. I actually really liked that one.
3 minutes later
Wait, so this guy's wife has been having nightmares for over a year now and *this* was the moment where they finally speak to a psychiatrist? Then what the fuck has this guy done for the past year to control his wife's nightmares? Unless stuff like sleeping pills or some kind of medicine didn't do the trick, then I have a little bit of a hard time believing that this guy has done shit while his wife was having nightmares. But then again, I haven't been married before, so what the hell do I know?
3 minutes later
You know, guys, I find it really kinda funny how he's been looking into what's causing his sleeping problems. And you wanna know where he's getting his information from? Fucking Wikipedia! Guys, I don't think I should have to tell you this, but Wikipedia isn't always the most reliable source when it comes to information. Granted, I only use Wikipedia to look up what year certain movies I cover for this series came out in, but other than that, I wouldn't fully trust getting your sources from mainly Wikipedia. Just saying.
9 minutes later
So, guys, we're now jumping into a new story here, and it's done with animation, too. Interesting. At least, I would say it's interesting, however, the animation in this segment looks like one of those flash games you play for free online. And it looks really stiff, too. I'm not totally sure how to feel about this one, guys.
3 minutes later
OK, never mind. Once again, that was just a random segment that was added in there just to fill time. And I'm thankful that one was real short, too, because the voice acting in that one was awful. But I'll get more into that later when I eventually cover this film.
7 minutes later
So let me see if I understand this. This psychotic idiot thinks he's turning into a vampire. And the first thing he does with our doctor, besides threatening him with a gun, he asks to pull his teeth out because they might be growing into vampire's teeth. Even though he just admitted earlier that he was "bitten" by a vampire. And I use the quotations there because we haven't even seen this bite of his, and yet, we're supposed to take this guy's word because fuck you, that is why. But even if it actually *does* exist, don't you think maybe you ought to focus on that first before you go for the teeth? I'm just saying, guys, it might be more helpful.
8 minutes later
I have no clue what the fuck I'm seeing here, guys. Apparently this whole thing is done with puppetry and I don't even know what the fuck's happening here. Oh, and one of them is actually King Ghidorah with Mothra's wings. Again, I have no clue what the fuck is going on here, guys. It's really more of a mindfuck.
3 minutes later
OK, and now we have an actual human actor in this thing. Granted, I don't know why that is considering everything else in this segment is not making any fucking sense. Then again, I don't know if there's even an actual story here and they just decided to say "fuck it" and let's just improvise shit as we go along. Oh, and now he just lost his fake beard as it turned into this weird-looking puppet with many eyes and colors...and it's shooting really shitty-looking rainbow beams at him. And now, he has the head of a pie...seriously, what the fuck am I watching?!
5 minutes later
So our next, and possibly last, story features our main character growing surgically implanted breasts because he answered an ad in the paper to be a stay at home Dad and get paid for it. This story is shit, guys. I don't even care if it even gets better. That concept alone already makes me hate this story more so than I did with the first one. I didn't even think that was fucking possible, but this story found a way to instantly be worse than all the stories in this entire anthology. That is almost terrifying, guys.
13 minutes later
Well, guys, for the third time this review, I was totally fucking wrong. We actually got one more story out of this anthology, and already, I believe I've found a big problem with this anthology. And I'll talk more about it later in the review, but the pacing in this movie is just really bad.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Monsterland". Thank fucking god, it's done. I'm just gonna shut this movie off here...dear lord. Sorry, guys, but this is probably the first film that has completely fried my brain. I don't even know where to fucking start with this film because I fear I'd be here for at least a week trying to explain what the fuck I just watched.
Well, before I actually do talk about the issues that this movie has, I'm gonna talk about the biggest problem with this movie as a whole. The pacing here is just really bad. To start with, this anthology has a total of 7 stories. Which, normally, I would say is almost heard of. However, I do remember watching "HI-8 (Horror Independent 8)" earlier this year, which had a total of about 8 stories. So I'm not gonna complain about the number of segments in this film. What I am gonna complain about, however, are the in-between segments that occasionally appear throughout the movie. All the unnamed segments in this film are a complete waste of filler. These segments do nothing to help enhance the overall movie, which in turn brings the entire pacing down to a screeching halt. And I have no idea if this was a way to showcase potential segments that couldn't get turned into actual stories for this anthology, or if they just need them in here to pad out the runtime, which runs about an hour and 40 minutes. And that, guys, to me, is just way too fucking long. They could cut out all of the unnamed segments and the movie could've flowed a whole lot better.
Now while on I'm this subject, for this review, I'm not going to count any of the unnamed segments because, again, they just exist as filler. I'm only gonna be focusing on the 7 stories that do have titles to them, and see how they fare with their writing. And to start with, I'm gonna focus on the two worst segments first because both of them are fucking terrible. "Stay at Home Dad" is easily the worst segment simply because of it's premise alone. And normally, I wouldn't bash at a bad premise so long as they could make it work. But guess what? They didn't. The idea of an idiot Dad getting surgically implanted breasts so that he can get paid as a stay at home Dad is fucking retarded. That, plus I'm not a fan of children, so this segment was already dead on arrival to begin with. The first story "The Grey Matter" just ends up being some stupid romantic horror comedy where a maggot that came out of a guy's massively exposed head is giving love advice on how to score with a girl. And just to let you guys also know, in case you're new here, I hate romantic comedies. And this story ended up becoming shit the moment that stupid maggot started talking. So yeah, we have two awful stories. One at the beginning, and the other which was the second to last one of the anthology.
"Hellyfish" is also terrible as well, but I also have a feeling that one was to be intentionally bad, where it tried to parody all of those terrible shark movies that you would see on the Sy-Fy channel. Which probably would've been fine, except I'm not a fan of shark movies because I find the concepts to be completely stupid and not worth the time. And instead of sharks, we have killer jellyfish, all of which are terribly rendered in CG, but I'll get into that later when I cover special effects. And then we get to "Happy Memories", AKA the puppet segment. Now there's probably gonna be that one person who's seen this movie and says that there's some "deeper meaning" that I missed from that segment, and I don't want to hear it. Because there was no story there at all. It didn't even attempt to try and make some sense and just made it's own shit up as it progressed. The last time I watched a movie that came close to being a mindfuck was the 1989 horror film called "Dr. Caligari". At least there, however, it had a more coherent story when compared to...whatever the fuck this segment was trying to do. "Happy Memories" is not a story, and yet, somebody approved of this being in the actual film. And to that person, you can rightfully go fuck yourself.
Now, with all that being said, are there any segments here that are good? Yes, actually. The best story, at least to me, goes to "Curiosity Kills". And what makes this one so unique is the fact that the entire segment is done with almost no dialogue. The most dialogue you might get is if the kid's family is watching TV and you can hear a bit of the audio from it, or if someone's screaming. Beyond that, though, the most acting you get from this segment is done through body language and facial expressions. And it's really well done. The only slight problem with this approach is that you don't get to see or hear anyone's names. So, it's a slight downgrade, but the story itself is really funny. I want you to imagine an episode of "Tom and Jerry", but in this short film, Jerry got infected with radioactive waste and ends up killing almost the entire family that is represented by Tom. It's really a unique and funny story that I actually wound up laughing by the time it was finished. It is easily the best story of the entire anthology. Second place would have to go to "Hag", where the husband of this wife ends up having sleeping problems that ends up with a demon lurking over him. It's a pretty decent segment, overall. "House Call" I would've liked, if not for the execution of the story being really kinda stupid.
So overall, guys, I'm gonna shorten the whole thing for you. Out of the 7 stories in this anthology film, I only liked 2 of them. Which is a really bad batting average. Add on to the fact that this anthology film has terrible pacing, which makes this anthology a little bit more of a chore to watch. So...yeah, writing for most of the segments could've been a whole lot better. Now as for the acting, oh lord, where do I start? Well...I can say the acting here is OK. It's certainly not great, or even good for that matter, but it's far from the worst thing I've heard in a low budget horror movie of any kind. Really, guys, it's hard for me to pinpoint which was good or which was worst here because there's a lot of it that I can't really pin down. The only one I can think of is the unnamed segment with the stiff flash animation, where one of the actors sounded like he was recording it with his phone. But I can't really count that one because it's not part of any of the named segments here. So with that being said, I'm going to give the acting a pass here because I really can't pick which ones had the better acting, and which ones had the worst.
Special effects in this film are a giant mixed bag. Now obviously, since this is a low budget film, we're not aiming for the stars here. And rather than just talking about the effects for each of the segments, I'm going to summarize most of it for you here. The CG in this film is horrible. Most of that comes from the last segment "Hellyfish", which has all of the killer jellyfish rendered in terrible CG. It's the kind of CG that you would see on a Sy-Fy Channel Original Movie. Which, maybe that was the intention by the filmmakers of this segment, but that doesn't mean that I can't still criticize it. So yeah, the CG in that one was terrible. There's also kind of a cheap effect in "Curiosity Kills" where the mouse is glowing green and it's more or less just a cheap-looking visual effect. Also, at certain points, the camera will position itself in a first person view from the mouse's perspective and you can kinda notice how the mouse is more of a hand puppet. Which, again, looks really cheap, but it's actually cheap on a laughably bad level. I actually really dug the effects in that one.
Practical effects, like the makeup effects in "Hag" look decent. And as for the, uh, "creativeness" in "Happy Memories", well, a lot of the puppetwork and artistry looks...fine, I guess. The backgrounds in the segments look mostly done in green-screen, which does also add to the cheapness of the movie in a so bad, it's good kind of way. But yeah, guys, overall, the special effects in this thing are a mixed bag at best. Camerawork here is fine. The lighting here is fine. Sound-mixing here is also competent. The music, though, I really can't remember a single thing about this movie's music, so I'll just write it as passable. That's really the best way I can summarize because, again, I don't remember a single thing about it. So yes, guys, technical work here is fine.
So now, comes the hard part. When all is said and done, guys, am I able to recommend "Monsterland"? It's actually really tough to say. Because even though I only liked 2 of the 7 short films in this movie, I can't entirely deny that there is some merit in watching this movie. If you can find it cheap for about $5, go for it. Especially if you're somebody who's really into horror films, and you also like anthology films on top of that as well. And hey, you know what? If you somehow liked any of the other segments that I didn't like here, then that's great. More power to you if you enjoyed them. However, as for me, personally speaking, I can't really say that I'll be watching this film again because, as I just said, I only liked 2 out of the 7 short films here, and that's not good enough for me to keep this movie around in my DVD collection. I'm definitely going to be trading it in. Though before I do that, I do know an associate from work who might be interested in this movie because they're a big fan of horror films. So I'm gonna see if she wants it before I decide to trade it in officially. Now...I'm gonna go and watch something a little bit better. And you know what? I see my copy of "Chillerama" sitting on my DVD shelf and I need to rewatch it again after skipping out on it last year, because I really liked that film. So I'm gonna go and do that next as soon as I get done here.
Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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