Monsters

Within about a two week period in December 2010, I saw two alien invasion films: Monsters and Skyline. Although ostensibly two films with the same premise - aliens have arrived on planet Earth and the film follows a small group dealing with the consequences - they really couldn't be more different. Skyline is set, Cloverfield-style, before and during the first few hours of invasion whereas Monsters has a completely different timeline as the aliens aren't here as invaders, but residents, as they have been on Earth for six months and live in a quarantined zone in Mexico.

Gareth Edwards' film follows two very different people, connected by a wealthy industrialist in the United States. Andrew, a young photojournalist who is in Mexico to cover the local population and their attitudes towards the newly established 'Infected Zone', which has walled off half the country, is phoned by his employer and asked to escort his daughter, Samantha, back to the United States.

Both Andrew and Samantha are in an extremely difficult juncture in their lives as Andrew is desperate to get back to the US and to get to his estranged six-year-old son's impending birthday party whilst Samantha is reconsidering her position in life, particularly her impending marriage. Not only does Andrew want to hurry back to the US, but he really doesn't want to 'baby sit' a wealthy socialite and is pretty sick of his job in which he has to make the situation worse than it really is by photographing the destruction and people wearing gas masks rather than those happily going about their daily lives, not really caring about the 'guests' many miles away.

As Robert Burns wrote about mice, men and best laid plans, this journey north does not go as planned as the train journey north has to be cancelled because the monsters have destroyed part of the railway, indicating that their migratory season has begun and that the window to enter the US will close in a few days time. The only way of getting Samantha back before the US becomes completely shut off is to get her on the last ferry and they pay $5000 for a ticket. When it becomes clear that Andrew's feelings for Samantha are not reciprocated, he gets drunk and picks up a local girl and, compounding matters, both his and Samantha's passports are stolen so the only way to travel north is to pay the same man $10,000 for an organised and extremely illegal journey through the 'infected zone'.


From comments I've read on various sites around the Internet, some people were disappointed by the film because they expected many huge extraterrestrials because of the title and so weren't expecting the film to be a road movie with only two credited characters. I found this to be the most interesting and revelatory aspects of the film as, though I had studiously avoided all trailers and reviews, I somehow wasn't expecting a big budget movie with lots of aliens, gunfire and explosions. It was only after I saw Monsters that I learned how little it cost, how (in)experienced the two actors are and the extent to which the production of the film was basically a one man show with Gareth Edwards as the writer, director, cinematographer, production design and the man responsible for all the CGI.

There is also an important aspect to the narrative which I only caught on the second viewing in which the opening sequence, shot in night vision, follows some soldiers in the middle of a huge attack by the monsters, calling in an airstrike whilst a civilian calls for help as he calls his female companion out of the way. There are numerous films such as Citizen Kane, Fight Club and Pan's Labyrinth that begin at the end before backtracking and showing you events from the very beginning, and Monsters is the latest to use this narrative structure.


As far as the acting goes, I heard that Gareth Edwards had cast Scoot McNairy as Andrew but was having real difficulty in finding someone suitable to play Samantha. As the story goes, McNairy offered to phone his girlfriend, a model and aspiring actress, to come and audition and see whether her acting was up to scratch. Fortunately, Edwards was completely sold and cast Whitney Able almost immediately so the two protagonists are played by a real-life couple whose characters don't really like each other at first, but grow closer as events progress. I was remarkably impressed by both actors and how completely plausible they were as, at the time, I didn't know about their off-screen relationship. I can think of several examples where real-life couples have played on-screen couples but not many (if any) where a couple has had to play people who really don't get on and are supposed to be, at best, distant.

The idea of visitors from another planet sharing our world with us has been explored before, such as in Alien Nation and District 9, but this doesn't really show, or tell you, anything about the aliens as they are just 'there' and had been on Earth for so long that they aren't really considered a big deal, just something that needs to be contained. As such, the film follows Andrew and Samantha on their unusual road trip without focusing on the extra terrestrial life forms, who only appear in the background or on television until the very end of the film. This works extremely well as Monsters is completely character based with the drama coming from the interaction between Andrew and Samantha rather than the humans and the aliens. This isn't to say that they don't appear at all and there are several occasions when an alien makes its presence felt by disrupting the journey north, killing people, wreaking destruction or generally just being a nuisance!

Although Monsters didn't make my list of the top 10 best films from last year, it came extremely close and was probably one of the most surprising films I saw in 2010 in terms of going in with no expectations and leaving the cinema realising I'd seen something extremely special.

The Disc

Extra Features

Before you get to the main menu, there is a skippable trailer for Catfish and a commercial for M&Ms (why, I have no idea).

Found in both the special features and set up menus is the commentary with Gareth Edwards, Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able, who are now married with a child. They talk very well about the shooting process, what it was like to be in Central America and how they found interacting with absolutely nothing which would appear at some point in the future when Edwards sat down at his computer! In his role as the 'main man', Gareth Edwards provides the majority of the logistical information about shooting, filming locations and most of the visual effects. This is a busy and informative commentary that is well worth your time.

There are three featurettes: Behind the Scenes, Editing Monsters and Monsters VFX which can be viewed individually or together thanks to the Play All option.

The Behind the Scenes (55:15, HD) section begins with the cameraman persuading Gareth Edwards this is an important thing to do because people don't watch Apocalypse Now, they just watch Hearts of Darkness and they aren't interested in seeing Terry Gilliam's finished film of Don Quixote because of Lost in La Mancha! It then goes on to Edwards showing the camera equipment he is taking and various other bits of equipment before it moves on to La Paz airport in Mexico and the rest of the shoot in South and Central America.

When it moves on to Editing Monsters (23:21, HD), you go into the tiny editing suite where Gareth Edwards and editor Colin Goudie described how they work on the film, work out the ADR, cutting down 4 ½ of footage to 90 minutes (they have a sign on the wall with the targets time) and how they found the right balance in the narrative between the monster movie and a romantic drama, so introducing the monsters at the right time and in the right way was crucial.


Monsters VFX (28:46, HD), perhaps unsurprisingly, looks at the work that Gareth Edwards did and had really used as the backbone of his career. The software you have now is quite extraordinary but the ability to use it, and use a very well, is another matter entirely. This section also involves editor Colin Goudie who uses a before and after shot to show what a huge impact of VFX have, transforming a shot of the two actors staring at nothing and saying "That's the biggest thing I've ever seen", to the two actors staring at an enormous wall which means the same line makes sense! Edwards describes that a computer and the right software is basically just a tool and goes through some of the things that makes him such an expert, such as trying model work (something advocated by Peter Jackson) but which doesn't work for him, especially when it comes to water.

Viewed in one go, this is one of the most comprehensive and exhaustive making of featurette that I've seen in a very long time. There are cutaways to Scoot McNairy (wearing a particularly splendid hat), Whitney Able and producers James Richardson and Allan Niblo Each section has an extremely healthy running time, which adds up to just over 1 ¾ hours (or, to be specific, 1:47:22)!

Introduction to Factory Farmed by Gareth Edwards (1:25, HD) is an introduction to the short film that brought into the attention of the two producers from Vertigo Films, James Richardson and Allan Niblo, saying how this came about to be made and why it works so well.

Factory Farmed (5:12, HD) is the short film to which Gareth Edwards gave an introduction and is an extremely accomplished and intriguing piece of dystopian science fiction-horror. It may not have the greatest AV quality you'll ever see, but is very well presented here was a reasonably high bitrate and clear Dolby Digital soundtrack.

Finally, there is the trailer which is the only special feature not to be presented in high definition.

The Picture

With its VCI 1080p picture, Monsters looks extraordinarily good although the bitrate could possibly be higher which would help with the contrast levels. For the most part, is high definition encoding looks extremely good with strong and vibrant colours, high detail levels and flawless and seamless CGI, but the black levels aren't as high as they perhaps could be so the odd low light scene loses a little definition.

The film wasn't exactly shot on location, with Costa Rica substituting for Mexico for some of the scenes but this helps to give everything a real sense of authenticity as it is set in South America and is clearly filmed in South America (and five different countries: Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala, America and Belize), rather than some studio backlot as would have been the case for a big studio film 30 or 40 years ago. In the commentary, Edwards says how he paid locals $10 to appear in the film and sign a release, which is much cheaper than hiring 'background actors' through Equity!

One of the main story surrounding Monsters was the almost guerrilla nature of the shooting and the fact that Gareth Edwards did all the visual effects at home on his Apple Mac. It is astounding how technology has moved on and something that, 20 years ago, would have cost an absolute fortune and taken an entire team to produce can now be done by one man on his computer using Adobe software. I know computers are becoming more powerful with each passing day so it is basically the case that as soon as you take your new computer out of its box, one has been made that is more powerful and with much more memory than the one you own and that the average home PC is faster and far more advanced than all the computers at Cape Canaveral which supervised the Apollo 11 mission. However, to watch a film with such seamless and beautifully integrated CGI that was done by one guy at home just makes the mind boggle.

The Sound

Aside from the commentary, the only audio option is a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which is exceptionally good with no evidence of synchronisation problems or any compression problems so the dialogue is crystal clear and the sound design does a tremendous job of putting the viewer in South America with sounds from the jungle, general chatter in the background and other atmospherics like insects, leaves moving in the wind and children playing around you.

There is a remarkably impressive score by Jon Hopkins which perfectly complements the on-screen action and the growing romantic tensions between Andrew and Samantha. When things become much more suspenseful, the music acts accordingly to increase the tension so, when there is a jump, it is all the more effective.

The disc also features a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo audio descriptive track and English HoH subtitles to cater for visually impaired viewers and those who are hard of hearing.

Final Thoughts

Monsters was one of the more impressive science fiction films I saw last year and, whilst it was never going to be a big hit when the awards season came about, it rightfully won in three categories at the British Independent Film Awards (Best Achievement in Production, Best Director and Best Technical Achievement), with Gareth Edwards also picking up the best first film award thanks to the Austin Film Critics Association.

This is a film that is all about Gareth Edwards and it is an amazing achievement for one man to conceive a project like this and see it through to the very end, wearing several hats on the shoot and then doing all the visual effects himself.

This is a very good disc with very good AV quality and a decent extras package. If you saw and liked the film, then you should definitely buy this but, if you have yet to see it, I would recommend a blind buy but, if you're not that way inclined, it's one to rent as soon as possible. To operate with a micro-budget and create a film that looks as if it were made by a major studio with a multimillion dollar budget is one hell of an achievement; I think it is a remarkable film and one that benefits from repeated viewings.