Monster Man
Back in the day, MONSTER MAN would have manifested itself in the guise of THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, DRILLER KILLER, MANIAC, HALLOWEEN, or more recently as CHOPPING MALL, HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS or ASSAULT OF THE KILLER BIMBOS. However as the American ‘horror’ film market place has become more formulaic and even though it was always business orientated as films must be, this film arrives with
Back in the day, MONSTER MAN would have manifested itself in the guise of THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, DRILLER KILLER, MANIAC, HALLOWEEN, or more recently as CHOPPING MALL, HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS or ASSAULT OF THE KILLER BIMBOS. However as the American ‘horror’ film market place has become more formulaic and even though it was always business orientated as films must be, this film arrives with no fanfare and will disappear into the murky abyss of late night Greek television or one of the crap UK satellite film channels. The problem these days is that all horror films seem to be exactly the same as what has come before them. This may sound ridiculous because it has always been this way, however the lack of originality and creative talent being handed relatively small, but still huge amounts of money, is slowly on the rise again. The low budget horror film used to be the breeding ground for the film makers of the future, Peter Weir, Coppola, Abel Ferrara, George Romero, Zemekis, Oliver Stone, Sam Raimi, etc etc etc, and that’s only from filmmakers in this language. It is a great breeding ground for skilled filmmakers to create an atmosphere and scare the Christ out of us. Today though, this arena is gone for the foreseeable future, instead they seem to focus on some half human, usually dead, creature tracking down the films hero. In MONSTER MAN, another of the current unfortunate additions to the so called horror film is also included, the element of humour, or more specifically in this case American frat boy humour. Or more specifically than that, some fat idiot constantly talking about fucking.
There is nothing particularly scary about MONSTER MAN, even though its pretensions are all aimed to be such at certain moments. It starts out, after a pointless opening sequence involving a vice and a man’s head, in a car with Adam, the films geeky hero, travelling across the USA to a wedding. He soon finds out that the films other main character Harley, has been hiding for some time on his back seat. It turns out that they used to be friends but have since fallen out over some girl (the girl who is getting married), as Adam was in love with her but Harley was the one who ended up playing hide the salami. They continue on the journey together. Along the route they stop off for a drink in a bar full of rednecks, at which point fat mouth Harley decides to call them all rednecks and hillbillies. After they leave the bar they then encounter a monster truck that looks like it has been put together by the A-Team. Although it does look menacing the creature inside does not. It is the MONSTER MAN of the title of the film. Very original. Anyway, despite the appalling title, they get chased off the road, suffer from 400 car breakdowns and eventually pick up an attractive female hitch hiker, who it later turns out is serving the same purpose as plate head in the first TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Things progress, they suffer from more car breakdowns, Adam loses his virginity to the girl, unfortunately without seeing any skin, but it does have the films most tender moment. The monster man keeps turning up, they escape again, then they are trapped, their car breaks down for good, they are on foot in the woods, they are split up, they are near monster mans house, they nearly die, the geek becomes a hero, monster mans existence is literally explained to us, the bad die, the good survive and in the last shot we see that monster man is not dead after all. Que, a load of even worse sequels.
The DVD though is very well presented, with an excellent picture quality that highlights the films best quality, Matthew Irvings Cinematography. Although the music and sound effects are used in formulaic ways, in ways that make it hard to believe that Tartan have released this one, the sound comes in their 3 now standard formats, DTS, 5.1 and 2.0. As I am presently handicapped and without my amp, I listened to the 2.0 stereo track and found it, as always, faultless.
EXTRAS
THE MAKING OF MONSTER MAN (20 mins)
Although the majority of this short making of has the actors sounding off about how great the director was and how much fun they had making it, it did actually have a couple of illuminating details. Firstly, the director tells us how the film evolved. He tells us how the films Producer was going around festivals telling people about his future project called MONSTER MAN, a title for which certain people went crazy. He then went to the director and told him this, giving him a free hand to write a script based on that title. According to the director, this was the films genesis. So to reiterate, this film originated from the quite terrible title, that existed as a title alone (just 2 words), and was commissioned as such. Then the idea was developed and the script written etc etc. The second interesting fact, was that instead of taking around a script to future financers, the director hand drew a trailer that made it easier for people to see the type of film this was going to be. A trailer that is also included on this DVD. Apart from these 2 points, though, this is standard back slapping documentary, with a few minutes spared on the technical crew. The director discusses his choice of actor, stating “you really need a hot girl in a horror film”, which is true, but she also needs to be seen nude at some point, if of course we are sticking to the films target audiences demands. I’m not meaning to anger anyone by saying this again, but it is a convention that’s missing and as such needs pointing out. It is clear that the director is very passionate and enjoyed making this film. He is under no pretensions about the type of film it is, it is suppost to be pure entertainment, however after seeing it, it falls between 2 separate camps. It is not frightening enough to be considered horror, nor is it funny or knowing, enough, to be seen as a horror comedy.
GAG REEL (4 mins)
This is just a selection of outtakes, none of which fits my bill of a ‘gag reel’.
STORYBOARD TRAILER (3 mins)
This is the above mentioned trailer the director used to support the script when he was showing it to people and potential financers. For any potential film makers out there this must surely be a good way of providing a visualisation for your ideas, providing you have the technology, skill, and time and money to do such an exercise. To be honest if for nothing else, the inclusion of this little idea justifies this DVD’s entire existence.
MONSTER MAN is nothing more than entertainment. It is gory in places but the execution isn’t great. The blood out of people’s mouths looks like syrup, and the dead look like plastic dummies. The humour is lads humour and the horror is non existent. The soundtrack and all its elements are poorly used, with this film being little more than a formulaic rehash of the thousands of films that have come before it. The story has gaps the size of a bomb blast and as such leaves too many open spaces for any type of atmosphere. It is also a harmless film, as it is nothing more than entertainment. Some people may indeed get a few giggles out of it, especially if you were so plastered that you would laugh if your wife was just about to leave you. The presentation of the DVD is excellent and of note, the Tartan trailers included on this disc look like they have a few interesting films about to be released, including the excellent WOODSMEN, THE MACHINIST, and MEAN CREEK. Good luck!.
This page has been read:
2649
times