Lovely Monster (2011) User Reviews

No More Pitches Please

[Theo Robertson · 5/10 · 16 April 2014]

One thing I have noticed about the large amount of short films I've seen recently is the cynical fundamental flaw a lot of them share - Give us the funds to make another 90 minutes . Some of them don't even seem to be trying . I noticed this with a short film about the Edward Snowdon case VERAX that I saw a few months ago . Since most of my output of reviews on this site seem to revolve around mainly horror movies I catch on The Horror Channel and short films I watch on the shortoftheweek website . One good watching short films is that if you've watched a stinker then that was only five or ten minutes you've sacrificed . In other words about the same time it takes to watch an entire run of BREAKING BAD or GAME OF THRONES on the highly amusing Honest Trailers website . Time is precious and we're all living on borrowed time . I shall now be deducting at least one point from every short film that is not self contained . You have been warned

Bob The Moo has been decent enough to write a spoiler warning that this film ends on a jump scare . One can only think Mr Moo is guarding his back in case he gets blacklisted by the site for giving away a very important plot turn . I've guarded my back by doing the same . There really should be no need because the one thing LOVELY MONSTER does very well is foreshadowing . It does it so well that any surprise at the end has been diluted to the point of nothingness . Sophia is an alienated young woman aged 21 . Since puberty she has been stricken by a physical affliction that has made her an outsider to society . A documentary crew charts her life via talking head interviews with her family , her friends and Sophia herself . This all adds up to a shock horror twist as the affliction itself makes a physical appearance

Did someone say that a film studio have bought the rights to turn this in to a feature length movie ? Can all you film makers out there do the audience a favour ? Please don't produce a film and release it saying it's a short film when you really mean " If you give us a wad of Wonga then we'll make another 85 minutes to go with it " because there's a difference between a short film and a sales pitch . Oh and if you're making a monsterplease no CGI please . Thank you in advance

Well Crafted in Documentary Style

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 20 May 2019]

The pretty young girl who is featured here is a known monster. Her friends and family know it. Doctors know it. Yet it's as if she were any of a number of socially unacceptable things. She goes about her daily business, recognizing how dangerous she is. It's really a good deal of awful fun.

a story

[Kirpianuscus · 18 May 2019]

Opinions, words, verdicts, impressions, emotions. And a case. Shocking end. And a film who seems be, more, about its public. Nothing real complicated or profound. Only documentary atmosphere and the final scene as a sort of twist easy or not to accept as decent.

Builds and engages well with the realistic air but ultimately seems to be doing it for a jump scare to nowhere (SPOILERS)

[bob the moo · 12 April 2014]

This short film has already been optioned by Lionsgate to develop into a feature and in a way I guess this is a part of the short film's goal, to tell a bigger story. This gives us the usual problem though that, by building the first few steps to your journey, the short film itself doesn't really satisfy as a whole. I understand this is their point perhaps but it is always pleasing to see a short film that works as a pitch and as a standalone short film. Here we have a good example of the former and what makes it hurt more is that the film really does a good job of drawing you in on its way to not really delivering.

Presented and shot as a documentary, the British talking heads talk about a girl who we also hear from – all of them seem wary of her because she is difficult or, as Sophia puts it "a monster". The documentary style is mostly well done and it does make you interested in the whole story because of the presentation. The downside is that the "whole story" is delivered in the final few seconds of the film where "monster" turns out not to be a phrase but an actual monster growing out of Sophia. At this point everything felt like a build up to this moment rather than being part of the whole and it cheapened it in my mind to see how it actually played out. There was greater potential (and suggestion) of smartness in here, with the documentary speaking across the specifics adding to that sense, however ultimately it came to nothing.

It is still well made and the performances help draw you into the discussions, but you can see that the potential is what made a studio take a pass at seeing if it can become a feature, because although the delivery is solid, the lack of satisfying delivery of the whole does rather undercut it.