Monsters

I picked up a cheapo copy of “Monsters” and watched it this evening. In short, it takes place six years after a NASA probe breaks up over Mexico, releasing Alien Monster Spores or something; the northern half of Mexico up to the Rio Grande is an infected Zone, with giant alines stomping around tearing up the joint. The story follows to Americans who choose the dumbest path possible to get from south of the Infected Zone back to the US… by going through it.

This is not a Hollywood blockbuster. It had a budget of half a million dollars, a total crew of seven people and no real script to speak of. It is a British movie, so it is by tradition jam-packed full of sloooooow. But in a way, it’s really rather an astonishing flick. It’s beautifully shot, with all shooting done on location in Mexico (and apparently without much in the way of getting permission from anybody to do so), and the bulk of the acting is really quite servicable… more interesting due to the fact that there were only two actors, and everybody else in the movie  was just Whoever Happened To Be Standing Around At The Time. And while the alien monsters don’t have a whole lot of screen time, the special effects – which included a lot of “invisible” effects like altering signs, adding scenes of ruin and military equipment, etc. – are really top notch. Had this been a $100 Million Hollywood flick, about all that would have been changed is a whole lot of new explosions, better known actors (and lots of ’em), a buttload of green-screen, and maybe less slooooow.

After seeing what one freakin’ guy with five hundred large can do, “The Asylum” has no excuses for their movies to look like crap.

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