Kathy
is the sort of alcoholic chaos-addict Dr. Drew always warns us about.
Unfortunately, she is also a mother. She has never provided much support to her
increasingly disgusted daughter Lizzy. Without question, her mother is the last
person Lizzy can rely on during a crisis, but Kathy is all she has when a
strange creature starts stalking them in Bryan Bertino’s The Monster (trailer
here),
which opens today in New York.
This
road trip was supposed to be the last Kathy saw of Lizzy for the foreseeable
future. She either lost custody to her infinitely more responsible ex-husband
or simply gave up on mothering. Lizzy has mixed feelings on the subject, but
she is obviously still hurt. While driving through a wooded back road, Kathy
hits a wolf, who was running for his life. Frankly, she really just put him out
of his misery, but she shattered her axle in the process.
Obviously,
whatever was chasing it, will now shift its attention to the stranded mother
and daughter. It is hard to say exactly what sort of monster it is, but it
certainly is evil looking. It is also quite methodical when hunting its prey.
There
is a temptation to interpret the monster as a metaphor and perhaps even a
psychological projection of all the domestic tribulations endured by Lizzy, but
the monster in rendered with too much detail and Bertino gives us too vivid a
sense of the dank dark woods to support such readings. Regardless, The Monster is sinister and moody in ways
that are unusual for a horror movie.
Looking
like a dead-ringer for Juno Temple, Zoe Kazan (granddaughter of Elia) is a
frightfully convincing self-destructive parental basket case. After only five
minutes, we are already prepared to throw her to the slimy, slobbering
predator, but you could argue that is the sign of a potent performance. Arguably,
Ella Ballentine is even more powerful as Lizzy. You can just see the emotional
damage compounding for her in scene after scene. Obviously, The Monster was filmed in Canada,
because Scott Speedman duly turns up in a nothing throwaway cameo as Lizzy’s
dad, as per the Canadian Scott Speedman protectionist regulations.
