Monsters (2010) Is There Beauty In The Beast?

If there's anything I love in the realm of film, it's when filmmakers use every single cent of a tiny budget and make something look like a few million bucks.

Enter 2010's Monsters, written and directed by Gareth Edwards. I knew it was low-budget, but that phrase doesn't scare me away. You can have low-budget that's really bad, but then you have low-budget where it looks like the people involved really went out and tried to make something special. Whether they did or not doesn't really matter, actually. The passion and creativity are there, and that's what important...and maybe leads to bigger and better things.

The story is your basic road story with twists appropriate for the genre. Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able, a real-life couple at the time, play world-weary photographer Andrew Kaulder and Samantha Wynden, daughter of Kaulder's boss, a magazine magnate. Kaulder is tasked with getting Samantha out of Mexico after a disaster destroys her hotel. Oh, and the disaster? A very large, spider-octopus-lookin' thing that could easily have been a star in an H. P. Lovecraft story.

Seems that six years before the movie begins, a probe was sent into space. It crashed back to Earth carrying something...well, many somethings...that grew into these destructive creatures. The new residents of our world are contained in an "infection zone," right about at the border of Mexico and the United States. And, before you start reading political undertones into the movie, Gareth Edwards has stated that there were no such undertones - it's simply where the story is set. So get any political mumbo-jumbo out of your head right away. Some of us watch movies to be entertained, not comb through them for liberal/conservative "secret agendas." Simmer down.

Now, Samantha's dad hired Andrew to get her out of there, but complications arise. Ferries to and from the coast are shutting down due to the creatures' migration patterns. Tickets cost $5000 apiece. Andrew loses Samantha's passport. The only way home is straight through the infected zone.

The film chronicles their journey from the heart of Mexico back home to the United States, and the perils in between. They have several run-ins with the creatures, including one that kills or chases off their armed escort. On their own, and bonding closer and closer along the way, they reach the US of A, only to find the border wall is wide-open, and towns in Texas are being evacuated. They hole up in a gas station and come to terms with their personal lives: Samantha is engaged to someone she doesn't love, and Andrew has a son at home that he loves, but isn't allowed to be his father.

The gas station sequence is really something I enjoyed. Two creatures arrive and after a tense moment, the main characters watch - mesmerized and brimming with emotion - as the two enormous "monsters" communicate and gently caress each other, biological electricity flashing through their bodies in the night. It's a well-done scene, meant to be beautiful, and I imagine I would have the same reaction if I saw something like that at night near my corner gas station. Lucky me, I usually get to see the oblivious schlub picking his nose while he pumps mid-grade.

Monsters is very low-key. It's narrative is slow and deliberate, not meant for shocks and thrills. The "monster" scenes are meant to be tense, but it's never jump-out-of-your-seat stuff. The acting is natural, never forced - Andrew and Samantha come across as real, average people. Everyone else is pretty much an extra...seriously. They used people who were right there to play people...um...right there.

I wouldn't call Monsters scary, but I'd call it a damn fine effort in making a low-budget, good-looking film.

Oh, and pay close attention to the very beginning and the very end of the movie. Neat little storytelling device there...

Until next time, fellow survivors, pray our own "border walls" hold - the undead are getting pretty relentless...

Equinox (1970) The Movie That's So Awesome It Doesn't Care If You See The Strings

Every so often, you hear about or read about or catch a glimpse of a movie that is full of beans and spunk that if it was a living person, you'd want to party with it. And if you told it you could see the strings supporting its special effects, it would belch in your face then win a bar fight with a broken pool cue. The 1970 drive-in classic Equinox is just such a film. It doesn't care that you can practically taste the stop-motion on the animation. It scoffs at the fact that you can see the strings in special effects shots. When you nervously chuckle that it looks as though it was made like a student film, it suggests you pull its finger.

Truth be told, your assessment of it as a student film wouldn't be far off. Much of the film was originally made in 1967 as a short film project by Dennis Muren (Star Wars fans might recognize his name - he won his first of six Oscars with one), and only cost around $6500. Once it was picked up, film editor Jack Woods (who also plays Officer Asmodeus in the film) was credited with directing the additional parts. It played in drive-ins and on late-night TV for years. It's been said that it has inspired, in part anyway, much of the Evil Dead franchise, and it's not hard to spot the similarities. Finally released in 2006 as part of the Criterion Collection, you now can hold the magic in your hands and lovingly gaze upon it with your own eyes.

Equinox is told mostly in flashback, as four college kids head into the woods for a picnic, and to meet one of their professors, Dr. Watermann (sci-fi author Fritz Leiber). There's a bit of a prologue that shows one survivor scurrying in fear onto a highway before being run down by a driverless car. Before that, it was Dave (Edward Connell), Susan (Barbara Hewitt), Vicki (Robin Christopher), and Jim (Frank Boers, Jr.). You might know Frank Boers, Jr. under a different name: Frank Bonner. You might know Frank Bonner better as this guy:



That's right. Herb. Freakin'. Tarlek. You know, WKRP In Cincinnati.

While wandering around the woods, they find Watermann's cabin demolished and empty. They also see a strange castle on a cliff in the distance, cliffs that are "too steep for the girls to climb" according to Dave. They find a cave and hear distant cackling inside. Eventually running into a bizarre old man, they're put off by his apparent good-natured insanity until he hands them an ancient book. As strange as finding an old cave, a mysterious castle, a skeleton, and a goofy old codger might seem to the rest of us, our brave students take it all in stride by having their picnic. Upon investigating the book, they find that Dr. Watermann has tampered with the forces of evil, engaging in the occult version of "I'll just try a little bit, just to see if I like it." This is part of the reason his cabin is such a mess.

Never let Cthulu borrow your summer place.

Dr. Watermann suddenly appears and tries to steal the book back before falling into a small creek and dying. His body disappears, leaving the students wondering what weirdness will occur next. Not to mention the devil's own Smokey the Bear, Officer Asmodeus, is popping up once in a while with PSA's about clean campsites and not seeing anything unusual.

Things get curiouser and curiouser as Officer Asmodeus attacks Susan with an Evil Make-Out Session, but is chased off by the cross she wears. Knowing certain symbols of good might protect them as they're pursued by the forces of evil who want the book, the four set out to see if they can solve the mystery of this weird tome. Before too long, they meet this guy:

Cloverfield + Dr. Zaius = the Equinox Beast-Ape-Thing

In a surprising upset, they manage to kill the thing before splitting up so they can prepare to leave, and to maybe gather some proof that something weird is going on. Susan loses her cross and starts with the possessed attitude, being all "c'mere, Vicki, I'm going to get evil all over you." Another symbol of good knocks her to her senses and they figure they'd better act fast.

Asmodeus tries to step in where he can, even offering a deal to Jim - all the women, money, and southern Ohio radio sales he can imagine. Okay, maybe not that last thing, but Jim does resist and tries to reunite with the others to make an escape. Dave wants to keep the book to help cure Susan, but Jim wants to leave the book behind. On an open plain where the dimensions cross - the Equinox - they battle a giant...um...something:

In this corner, Andre the Giant meets Grape Ape.

While fighting this big boy, Jim accidentally runs into the barrier separating the worlds of good and evil - yes, that same Equinox - and Dave sprints inside to save his friend. What we know, and what Dave doesn't, is that Jim has already run into Asmodeus and it didn't go well. Dave finds who he thinks is Jim and pulls him out of the parallel world. Jim exhibits strange speech patterns, stiff body language, and bruised eyes, which are apparently signs of evil. Asmodeus reveals himself and beats down Dave before changing into his favorite park ranger persona, then that of a strings-be-damned flying demon:

Soaring onto teens' death metal shirts the world over.

Asmodeus claws his way into Vicki's heart and severely injures Susan before Dave rescues her by forcing a cross into Asmodeus' view. Susan struggles with her dark side as they escape into a cemetery, and take refuge behind a huge cross as Asmodeus explodes against it. Susan apparently dies in the resulting series of supernatural explosions as we now pick up where the prologue started. Dave sees an ominous dark figure that warns him that he'll be dead in "a year and a day." Then, running, driverless car, injured Dave - and we return to the present, back at the loony bin where Dave's been since his brush with the forces of evil.

He loses his cross while having a crazy spell and we find out that it is indeed now exactly a year and a day since Dave was found. The reporter working on the story that required the flashback leaves the screaming Dave behind as another visitor approaches the sanitarium: Susan.

We hear more screaming from Dave as the end title card reminds us that this is "The End...?" Yes, a question mark. Way to punctuate yourself into my heart, movie.

It was like time stopped while watching this movie. I was a kid again, watching old drive-in movies on lazy Saturday summer afternoons. There was no Internet, no message boards, no source of information available to a kid about movies other than a friend saying, "You have to see this, it's AWE-SOME!" It's easy to be influenced by so many sources these days. We've all seen so much, but somewhere along the way - hopefully never lost - is that ability to throw "exacting standards" aside and enjoy something silly and full of hopeful energy.

And that, my friends, is Equinox.

The movie had its little interesting tidbits as well. The Criterion Collection DVD features an introduction by the legendary Forrest J. Ackerman, who is also the voice on the tape recorder interviewing Dave, which leads to the flashbacks. Imagine my surprise when I found that the assistant cameraman was none other than actor, activist, and Spinal Tap drummer, Ed Begley Jr.:



Equinox probably won't be for everyone. It's silly and cheaply-made and absolutely worthy of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment. But the filmmakers worked wonderfully with what they had, and the film has that swagger of a friend you know is probably going to get you in trouble but you can't help but love anyway.

Creative spirit, fellow survivors, that's the key. Now go get some popcorn and enjoy.