Monster

It's no spoiler that this film doesn't contain any dialogue -- or maybe it is, but one that is given by Netflix themselves right from the onset. Not knowing this would have given the film more tension, something that this Indonesian made for television movie is sadly lacking.

No cliche is left untouched here. Repetitive scenes abound (the heroine hides under the bed, behind a door, in a cupboard, and this time and again). There is no surprising twist (oops, was that another spoiler?). There are no intricate plotlines to be unraveled. No attempt is made to give the capturer and his partner personality; the house with its bland interior doesn't even look like it's their own.

In conclusion, despite its rating this is essentially a children's movie, in both senses of the word, and childish at that. Would have been more effective when shortened to, let's say, twenty minutes.

I don't hate the idea of a film having no dialog. Monster is as simple as a concept as it gets, and realistically, dialog wouldn't be a major aspect of the story anyway. No, the biggest flaw with Monster isn't the LACK of sound, it's the EXCESS of sound.

I just saw Challengers and that was a movie where sound design and mixing were a major aspect of what made it great. This is an example of a movie where the sound design is truly awful. It was a droning, crackling score that initially had me wondering if my TV speakers were broken. (Thankfully, no...I moved to another TV to finish the movie and it was the same situation)

This droning score plays through the ENTIRETY of the movie and it's unbelievably annoying. Not to forget about the score, which is so melodramatic and intrusive that it veers into very corny territory. Music is so important because it can set or ruin a film's tone. Here, the over dramatic music and over use of a terrible score made this film feel cheaper than it needed to. The last time sound made me feel so negatively about a movie was probably Tenet.

As for non-auditory aspects, I think it's fair to warn people that Monster is a very dark movie that follows two children as they attempt to escape a child murderer. Given that...I do wish we did get SOME dialog. It's such a disturbing premise that some levity and humanity on screen would be welcome. Some explanation as to what's going on? What the larger story is here? Or even some of the motivations of the admittedly detestable adults we see in the film would add a layer of intrigue here aside from the relatively compact story we see on screen.

I generally like to support foreign films and go a bit easier on them, but I think Monster needed some tweaking to actually work. As of now, it's a forgettable and undercooked film.

I enjoyed this movie for what it was it's kept me engaged and it was suspenseful. I don't think people can handle the lack of dialog but I thought the actor's performance was good I didn't have to have dialog to understand what was going on and enjoy the movie. The little girls is such a baddie! My only complaint was the music was a little misleading sometimes. Example sometime it sounded like someone was knocking on the door when they weren't, but over all it was a decent flick. If you like suspenseful movies I say give it a go, the jump scares were predictable if horror is you genre but overall fun watch.

The no dialogue thing is an interesting take that can work, but the show is the same thing over and over. The child is painted as both brave and smart yet also quite dumb, making quick moves at opportune times yet falling for silly things that would be way more intuitive in the first place. Maybe that was intentional? But it felt inconsistent and all the characters felt a bit basic and overly stereotypical.

But more importantly for almost the entire thing there is this terrible background feed of this sort of white noise highly degraded sound that comes in and out and it genuinely was terrible. Like gave me a headache and caused my to almost watch the film on mute terrible. I created this account literally to share that this sound ruined the movie. It goes on. The entire hour and a half. It's horrible.

I regret staying up late for this.

I regret staying up late for this.

I regret staying up late for this.

I hate that stupid sound.

Monster (2023) is a remake of the 2020 movie "The Boy Behind The Door" and while that movie was nothing spectacular but pretty decent, this one is just an absolute mess. Two children are being abducted and wake up in a secluded cabin with their captor lingering around. After the little girl manages to free herself prepare to shake your head continually. The decisions made in this movie are absolutely terrible. While you could excuse the children for being young and not knowing better this does not apply to the villains. There are so many scenes where the Threat doesn't even feel real because of these decisions made. The movie also doesn't have dialogue which does not contribute in making this any better. The movie had some decently tense situations and there was a small potential hidden somewhere in this, however the overall execution is rather laughably. [4,5/10]