Monsters (2004) User Reviews

I Think I Know What It's About

[Theo Robertson · 5/10 · 28 August 2005]

I see Bob The Moo was genuinely chilled by this little shocker and I defy anyone not to feel a little shaken by MONSTERS . But I feel many , many people ( Bob included ) may have misunderstood what writer/director Robert Morgan is trying to say . I personally believe that Mr Morgan is pointing out the link between children being cruel to animals and growing up to be serial killers . Jeffry Dahmer would would kill and dissect animals as a boy while notorious child killer Mary Bell would write her name on pavements in the blood of pigeons , hence we see young Stan's dreams of ducks heads scattered around the lawns and the scene outside the rabbit hutch . What we are witnessing are the symptoms of someone who will grow up to be a very serious danger to society in a few short years

That's what MONSTERS means to me even though I confess I maybe mistaken by my conclusions . But I'm sure we can all agree that despite being well made on a technical level ( The editing is excellent ) narrative wise it's very disconcerting and unpleasant and contains unlikable characters . It also lacks any type of cleverness that makes a short film standout

Unsettling and memorable despite being narrative-wise a bit unsatisfactory

[bob the moo · 27 March 2005]

Stan Blake has dry skin over his hands, a wicked imagination, an abusive and cruel sister and a mother who is remote at the best of times. When he finds a duck's head in the garden, it puts visions in his head of a crazy masked man, ripping the heads off ducks and running while. He makes his own attempts at this with his sister's tampons and starts a fight with her that ends with threats and repercussions.

Starting out with a strange air to it, this film moves into the realm of Stan's imagination quite effectively and manages to produce a real unsettling air to it in both the imagined and the real sections of the film. Narrative-wise I wasn't sure where it was trying to go or where it ended up but it was unsettling to go their with it and it did leave me thinking about it long after I'd watched it. The direction is excellent for a small budget short film and the scene of horror in the bedroom is surprisingly vicious and shocking – perhaps more so for the low-key shock that comes later.

The cast are good, with the two child actors doing very well with unsettling ideas and actions but it is the director that really controls the film and ends up being the reason you remember it (the cast not helped by the material in the longer term). Overall it is an interesting and unsettling film that may not have all the answers to the questions it itself poses but is memorable and worth seeing nonetheless.

Not much beyond the gore and violence

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 30 July 2016]

"Monsters" is a British 17-minute short film, although I must say that all the versions I found (including the one I watched) only ran for slightly over 12 minutes, but it seemed complete nonetheless. The writer and director is Robert Morgan and this is a rare occasion that he made a live action film as he was mostly found in animation otherwise. It is his fourth film and came out back in 2004, which means it is already over 10 years old. It is the story of a young boy who shows signs of a sociopath and maybe this is what your childhood looks like if you turn into a murderer when you're grown up. In here we see dead animals and a horror sequence with some gore. I wish the filmmaker could have gone for better story-telling aspects as this film seems ambitious occasionally and has some decent moments as well, but then there are moments like the ones I mentioned previously when the films lacks realism entirely and loses itself in cheap thrills. I cannot recommend the watch. Thumbs down.