The film follows a divorced mother (Zoe Kazan) and her daughter who are caught in an emergency on a wild overnight trip by the girl’s father. When the car crashes along them on the deserted country roads, it appears they have discovered that they are not alone as a deadly evil awaits them.
We're coming up to the end of a year full of great horror movies. "The Monster" may have more modest goals than some of the others, but it deserves a place on that list.
A fully realized depiction of elemental fear and desperation, The Monster's modest scale should attract discerning genre fans while establishing a firm basis for potential cult status.
The Monster offers solid performances and a real-world subtext. But those virtues aren't enough to keep the movie from getting stalled in some big bad woods, miles short of profundity.
Mr. Bertino, who also wrote the undercooked script, sets the scene effectively, using his leads to give the story a sense of normalcy that he dismantles trick by genre trick.
The Monster feels like a film reaching desperately for profundity and missing by a country mile. The Witch this is not. It's just another arthouse horror film broken down on the side of the road.
