Your Monster
★ ★
It’s hard to know what to make of ‘Your Monster,’ a movie based on a short film of the same name from the same director, Caroline Lindy. The genres are supposed to be comedy, horror and romance. There’s a lot of campy romance, a few moments of comedy and hardly a dash of horror. Some moments work well but are overshadowed by ones that don’t.
Laura (Melissa Barrera) has just been through a breakup with playwright Jacob (Edmund Donovan) after he decides he doesn’t want to be her caretaker while she undergoes cancer treatment. He had been working on a play with her input and influence. He had also been writing the main part with her designed to play the lead.
Melissa Barrera as Laura
© 2024 Vertical
As Laura recovers, Jacob moves on with the play without her. This sends Laura into a deep state of depression, binge eating and weeks of crying. Occasionally, her friend Mazie (Kayla Foster) checks in on her.
Laura hears a loud thumping upstairs in her home. She investigates and discovers a man-sized Monster (Tommy Dewey) in her closet. She screams, panics and runs downstairs. “Monster,” as he’s known in the film, calmly follows her to the living room where she sits scrunched in a ball on the couch.
Monster tells her he’s been with her since she was a child. Laura then lets out an uncomfortably awkward, loud, unconvincing and annyong scream. I found it to be one of the film’s worst moments.
Melissa Barrera as Laura
© 2024 Vertical
As Laura calms down, Monster tells her he won’t eat her or harm her if she moves out in two weeks. I’m not certain why she agrees to this as the monster is the opposite of scary and is anything but threatening. Nonetheless, she agrees, and they live as roommates until it’s time for her to move out.
During this time, they develop a friendship that’s obviously turning romantic.
Yes, a romantic relationship with the monster in her closet. If you’re familiar with the early 90s television show ‘Beauty and the Beast’ with Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman, you’ll find the dynamic similar.
For a moment, their romance starts to work, then becomes tiresome as Laura makes bad decisions as she tries to land her part and wrestles with the fact that she’s still not over her relationship with Jacob.
Meghann Fahy and Melissa Barrera
© 2024 Vertical
I’m not sure too many women would struggle moving on from a cowardly man who abandons her during cancer, but Laura does.
The comedic timing is off, the punchlines are often telegraphed and the acting often feels forced and inauthentic.
Tommy Dewey and Melissa Barrera
© 2024 Vertical
I liked some moments quite a bit but others pulled me out of the story. I’m left very mixed about this film as the genre mash-up is a blended mess without the horror. There’s nothing remotely scary about this film.
So here’s my 2-star review of a film that could have been much better. Now that it’s written I think I’ll fire up a much better horror, comedy romance mash-up: 2013’s ‘Warm Bodies“.
Running Time: 1h 42m
Directed by: Caroline Lindy
Written by: Caroline Lindy
Starring: Melissa Barrera, Meghan Fahy, Tommy Dewey, Edmund Donovan, Matthew Lamb
Romance, Comedy, Horror, Musical
