Going in fresh into this movie is possibly the best thing one can do. Otherwise, the hype, the attention, the heavy adjectives in quotes surrounding the trailers can totally ruin this for you. If you were expecting this to be this year’s District 9 ( which is imo one of the best monster/ alien / scifi movies ), you are asking for a bit too much. But having said that, this is quite awesome for a indie movie made for 15,000 USD and shot entirely on a Sony EX3. I even read somewhere that the editing was done on Adobe Premiere. You can tell that it is shot in digital format, rather than film. But that hardly takes away anything. Infact, it makes it more gritty and real.

Synopsis: NASA (those stupid blokes in US, they do the most daft things ever in movie history) had this space mission to explore alien life, and then they found some. They tried to bring the sample of this alien life back to Earth but the spacecraft crashed near the US-Mexico border. And as a result, northern Mexico is turned into a walled no-go ‘infected’ zone. New life forms have developed there, and among them are large creatures which resemble giant octopus (didn’t count the arms on those). The photographer of a New York publication is asked by the publisher to get his daughter back home safe. And when they miss the last ferry home, the only option is to take a trip through the ‘infected’ zone.

Now here is what I thought about it. Please note that this post might contain some spoilers or plot elements.

Firstly, I shouldn’t have watched this trailer which projects a completely different movie than it is. I cannot stress this point enough. For a movie called ‘MONSTERS’, there is not much of that here. No colossal destruction footage here to visually please you. This is NOT District 9. Here, the story progresses with the two protagonists and pretty much everything is shown from their perspective. It somewhat reminds me of the Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy starrer – Before Sunrise, set in a alien invasion backdrop. Yes, MONSTERS ironically is about ‘HUMANS’. The movie tagline – Now it’s our turn to adapt, couldn’t have been more appropriate.

The second point which makes this a genre-hybrid of a movie ( Alien scifi and a indie love story cum road movie ) is how instead of showing the destruction and damage being done, it is translated onscreen as an aftermath visual as these characters travel across the infected zone. The suspense bits come in very little doses, and for the hardcore monster-movie-fan, this might be not quite what he/she was looking for. Instead of making the protagonists explore the genesis and the weakness of the monsters, hunting down their web and eventually developing some sort of vaccine like warriors of every damn monster movie, the duo here are normal, powerless people trying to stay out of trouble and just on their way home.

Since it is essentially a road movie, the visuals department have done a top notch job. The picturesque backdrop of Mexico sunset and the Mayan temple is jawdroppngly beautiful to say the least.

My only problem hence, can be derived from my earlier discussion is with how this movie has been promoted. It is certainly not a monster alien invasion movie. Hell, the monsters aren’t invading, neither they are invisible. They just appear to be menacing, and stupid dumbo MIG fighters keep bombing them. This movie is essentially a human story. And I am sure, a lot of people will be completely ticked off by this. I for one, am in two minds. Hence, a generous 5 out of 10 for this one.

Go in with an open mind. And let me know what you thought of the ending.