This very low-budget rip off of Cloverfield is surprisingly well done, yet it is ultimately undone by a near total lack of plot and a complete absence of an ending. It's actually a lot smarter than the many other rip off films like this which litter video store shelves and frequently show up on the Sy Fy channel but while the effort may be admirable, the result is not that entertaining.
Erin and Sarah (Erin Evans and Sarah Lynch) are a couple of American sisters who go to Tokyo to shoot their own documentary on global warming with a single video camera and some girlish gumption. While they're there, the city starts to shake. It's not an earthquake, though. What's shaking things up is a giant tentacled beast that rampages through Tokyo. Filming all the way, Erin and Sarah try to stay alive and, with the help of some Japanese folks, make it to the U.S. embassy.
I wouldn't recommend this movie for too many people because it gets fairly dull after a while. I would encourage all other low-budget filmmakers to give Monster a look. That's because this film is very effectively styled. It's a much more realistic and, in some way, more imaginative take on the concept than the big budget flick it's shamelessly imitating. The quality of the video breaks up and freezes at times; the whole idea that they're going to keep filming everything is a much more contentious issue between the sisters; adding the language barrier nicely (and cheaply) complicates their situation; there's a pretty clever intimation that this isn't the only giant monster attack Tokyo has had to deal with; and there's a neat and perhaps unintentional subtext through the story about how the person in front of the camera is more freaked out while the person behind the camera is more in control, as though looking at the crisis through the lens provides a certain intellectual and emotional distance.
Sadly, all of that gets crushed into a fine powder by the weight of the really sucky special effects and the fact that Erin and Sarah never manage to do or say anything at all interesting. The CGI in Monster is quite fake looking and overused. I lost count of the number of CGI aircraft seen soaring overhead, the damage to the city is represented by superimposing smoke onto unharmed buildings and the creature itself is nothing more 3 or 4 undulating tentacles that could be trying to destroy a city or simply trying to hail a monster-sized taxi. And after the initial discoveries about what's going on, the sisters might just as well be self-directed Segways that wheel from one bizarrely empty spot to another in the supposedly besieged metropolis.
The end result of Monster is below average, but I give these filmmakers some credit for attempting to make something that's more than just another low-budget rip off. Writer David Michael Latt and director Erik Esterberg tried to make a legitimate movie. They failed..but at least they tried, which is more than you can say for most of the people involved in these sorts of ersatz productions.
Erin and Sarah (Erin Evans and Sarah Lynch) are a couple of American sisters who go to Tokyo to shoot their own documentary on global warming with a single video camera and some girlish gumption. While they're there, the city starts to shake. It's not an earthquake, though. What's shaking things up is a giant tentacled beast that rampages through Tokyo. Filming all the way, Erin and Sarah try to stay alive and, with the help of some Japanese folks, make it to the U.S. embassy.
I wouldn't recommend this movie for too many people because it gets fairly dull after a while. I would encourage all other low-budget filmmakers to give Monster a look. That's because this film is very effectively styled. It's a much more realistic and, in some way, more imaginative take on the concept than the big budget flick it's shamelessly imitating. The quality of the video breaks up and freezes at times; the whole idea that they're going to keep filming everything is a much more contentious issue between the sisters; adding the language barrier nicely (and cheaply) complicates their situation; there's a pretty clever intimation that this isn't the only giant monster attack Tokyo has had to deal with; and there's a neat and perhaps unintentional subtext through the story about how the person in front of the camera is more freaked out while the person behind the camera is more in control, as though looking at the crisis through the lens provides a certain intellectual and emotional distance.
Sadly, all of that gets crushed into a fine powder by the weight of the really sucky special effects and the fact that Erin and Sarah never manage to do or say anything at all interesting. The CGI in Monster is quite fake looking and overused. I lost count of the number of CGI aircraft seen soaring overhead, the damage to the city is represented by superimposing smoke onto unharmed buildings and the creature itself is nothing more 3 or 4 undulating tentacles that could be trying to destroy a city or simply trying to hail a monster-sized taxi. And after the initial discoveries about what's going on, the sisters might just as well be self-directed Segways that wheel from one bizarrely empty spot to another in the supposedly besieged metropolis.
The end result of Monster is below average, but I give these filmmakers some credit for attempting to make something that's more than just another low-budget rip off. Writer David Michael Latt and director Erik Esterberg tried to make a legitimate movie. They failed..but at least they tried, which is more than you can say for most of the people involved in these sorts of ersatz productions.